and the countdown gets...longer?

Just got a little email from Jason, the Burkina Country Desk Assistant. Staging will begin on June 9th (not 8th) in Philadelphia. I'll be getting a bunch of info about this in the mail next week.

Woo! Solid info is on its way!

Also, Mr. Jason has kindly stoked the fire under my bum about practicing French with the Rosetta Stone. He will be checking to make sure we actually use it for 40 hours like we said we would when we accepted our free subscriptions. Good thing there's some high school accountability stuff going on here because I don't think I would make it to the two score mark without being told that I'm going to be checked up on. Not that I'm flagrantly irresponsible or poor at time management (I'm really not either of those things), I just haven't found the program to be as helpful as I thought it would be given its reviews. It seems like it would be more obviously effective if I had zero French experience.

...though any language review is good, really. ...and I've had months upon months to get this in, so really there's no reason for me to NOT make the mark.

It's cram time.

changing season, flowing soul

I have survived another winter! New England is finally looking and smelling and feeling the way I like. My stubborn refusal to wear real coats or boots is no longer cursing my day-to-day physical well being. The sun is shining progressively later into the evenings and I am happy to be getting some of the vitamin D that I have been severely lacking these past few months. Wheewww, night shifts.

Little bit of a life update on that front: I quit my restaurant job soon after my March entry and have since gotten a six-week-ish-stint through a temp agency. I couldn't stay where I was any more and it would have felt a bit too crappy to sign on to a new job knowing full well I was going to leave it in a month and a half. Turns out (surprise!) no one who's hiring really wants to hire someone for such a short period of time, so honesty wasn't really on my side as I walked through town with resumes and references. I enjoyed the time away from working, actually...time with myself to walk and visit Pam and Enzo and such.

Alas...I have bills, as well as a number of missing items on my packing list. So now it's temp time.

The work I'm doing now is robot-level repetitive...it seriously requires no sentience at all. All day long I stare at a dim computer screen in a poorly lit room and I type type type numbers that have absolutely no meaning to me, transferring them from one place to another. The same tax form over and over, four pages of the same thing for hundreds and hundreds of businesses...it's all on the computer, it's all completely disconnected from me.

Turns out, this mundane and mindless job is an absolute friggin blessing in disguise. I wake up early, clock in at 7 or 8, and then for hours and hours each day I am free to let my mind really wander and think about all sorts of complex things while clacking my fingers around and getting paid. I listen to all sorts of podcast goodies from NPR, PRI, the BBC, and various other places. Total nerdy goodness with a hefty hefty dose of Dan Savage to keep me crankin. I ponder politics, economics, capitalism, creativity, issues in foreign policy and how they manifest domestically, philosophy, etymology...I feel smart and motivated and purposeful and in-tune and full of some really great things.

...and I've been having a lot of really good conversations with myself about my future career ambitions, the kinds of social and political issues I'd like to tackle in this world, the concept of seeking out journeys and not destinations. When I think about the Peace Corps in the context of an international relations job, a foreign service-type endeavor, I feel really really good about what kinds of life-decision-shaping experiences the next two years will bring to me. When I rev up for the excitement of taking on Peace Corps service as employment, with networking and connections and opportunities to move into other real world service, all of the jitters and the anxieties melt away.

I've had ample time to go through all sorts of emotional twists, considering my Peace Corps service from angles that were right in front of me and angles that I really had to search to find. I think that I'm coming around to a very good place. Perhaps this is coincidental and extremely fortuitous...perhaps I would have gone through all of these twists no matter how much or how little time I had to think. Who knows.

I don't expect that my emotional reaction to this has anywhere near leveled off. Of course not. However, it's a true fact that for every time I find myself feeling blue, there are ten times I think to myself "god just get me OUT OF HERE and over to West Africa!"

What a bizarre and unknown combination of THINGS Peace Corps service is going to be. It's wild to go into this having but a vague understanding of what it is I will actually physically be doing, and it's difficult to refrain from drawing up expectations. ...especially when I have oh so much time to think.

Application Status Update:

Dental (checkmark!)
Complete. Peace Corps has completed your dental review. There are no dental holds on your account at this time.



Yaaayyyy!!! On an official bureaucratic paperwork level, I have NOTHING LEFT TO DO in order to get my plane ticket!

(...knock on wood)

April, May, June

Nerves are beginning to kick in a little. ...a lot? It's all relative.

I'm mostly having Rahel-related nervousness at this point. ...but we've been talking and talking about all of this upcoming parting business and I think things will be good if we just keep talking things out. Right?

I hope right.

Peace Corps service is 27 months long. When I leave in June, Rahel and I will have been together for 27 months. What does this mean? I don't know.

Oh man oh man oh man.

Also, my birthday will be upon the world when I have been in country for only three days. Anyone who wishes to send me letters of love and encouragement that I can open on my birthday are welcome to do so at any point within the next month.

Speaking of time passing, so much of that has happened since I first thought I wanted to join the Peace Corps. I'm only little...do I still want now what I wanted then? Do I really think I'm prepared for Peace Corps service, or am I only really prepared for the idea of the Peace Corps?

Whew...there go my nerves again. Man, I'm nervous. I haven't really been nervous yet. This is a new thing. I'm glad I'm getting some of it out now so that I can accept it and deal with it and learn how to roll with it. If all of the nervousness that I could potentially feel about moving away for two years was to show up at the same time--on d-day--I would most likely vomit everywhere.

But I'm not vomiting everywhere. So that's good. ...and even if I was, that would be fine. Nerves happen.