"If your dreams do not scare you, they are not big enough."

Quoted from Her Excellency Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, President of the Republic of Liberia, at Harvard University’s 360th Commencement Ceremony, stolen from the Peace Corps Facebook group. 


I'm making friends with people that I'm going to South Africa with already!  There are 60 or 70 of us going in July, and we're beginning to find each other on Facebook and through blogs.  I'm excited that I'm not really going "alone" anymore! 

I have like a bajillion things to do before I leave, including selling my truck and making sure I have everything I need to pack to SA and storing or selling everything else.  Kinda busy, but I'm loving it!

I'm going to SOUTH AFRICA!!

You cannot imagine how excited I was to open my Peace Corps invitation.  My roommate had told me that the letter arrived and I rushed from home to Lexington today to open it.  I was jumping around and giggling like a school girl when I read South Africa. 

South Africa.  I'll be a Resource Specialist in South Africa for the next two years.  I'm still going through the paperwork and the information, but I know that I'll be working with 2 or 3 schools to help overhaul the countries educational system.  Apparently, teachers there are overworked and overwhelmed with the new system and outcome-based curriculum so I'll be providing resources, encouragement and support for the teachers, students and administration.  Keep in mind that I've just graduated with an Engineering degree and have no idea about education.  My younger sister, who just graduated with an Art Education degree, listened to me describe everything said "Wow, I'm much more qualified for that than you are!"  And it's true!!

My assignment packet says I'll be living with a host family but have my own bedroom.  That is exactly the ideal situation!  I'll have my own space but a family to practice the language and help me adapt to the culture and village.  I'm so excited!!  I'm reading up on Wikipedia and blogs now to help prepare myself for the adventure. 

But I've missed an important detail: when?  I'm staging (finishing paperwork and orientation) on July 5th of this year.  I've been waiting for a year to get into the Peace Corps and now July seems like so soon!  So soon and so exciting! 

I'm in!!

I spoke with a very nice woman at the Peace Corps Placement Office yesterday, and she said that I'm approved for service! She's currently looking for me a job, a placement that fits my skills.  As you can probably guess, I'm thrilled!

In other good news, I finished and submitted a 5 page paper for an engineering class this semester.  I finished everything for my senior design to turn in tomorrow.  And I only have an online final exam to take on Thursday and I'll officially be finished with college!!  It's been a long time coming, I'm glad it's finally here.  

Waiting...

I feel like I'm in limbo, just hanging out here, waiting to hear from the Peace Corps, waiting to graduate, waiting to move out of my apartment, waiting waiting waiting.  I have very little that I have to do to finish the semester, I'm mostly just killing time and wasting hours online. 

I have one presentation to give tomorrow, one paper to write, one final to take. Then I'm finished with college.  It's taken me 6 years to earn 2 Bachelors Degrees, I'm looking forward to being done with school (for now anyway). 

The next several months I want to spend lots of time with friends and family. I'll probably really annoy a few people to get together, so prepare yourselves! :)

I love this song

Live Like We're Alive by Nevertheless

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7g2T1fJtFQ

Listen to it, I'll wait.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7g2T1fJtFQ

I especially like the lines "We're here only for a second and then we're gone when we least expect it so do more than survive. Let's live like we're alive!"

Driving with a friend this weekend, I turned the radio up loud and sang along to the chorus of this song.  We had been talking about the Peace Corps, and I was trying to explain that I know that things will change when I come back.  I know that I'll have crazy-but-impossible-to-explain experiences that will have become a part of me.  I know that joining the PC will be hard and challenge me everyday.  I know some people wont understand, but I want all of that.  I don't want to just be surviving this world, I want to really live in it, to see and experience and change it.  Years from now I want to be able to look back and be able to say more than "I heard about that," I want to tell my grandkids "I was there, and this is what I did." 

Weekly Challenge

My friend Atesh and I (and anyone else who wants to join) are started a new challenge each week.  Some ideas we've thrown around include: making soap, reading a classic novel, being vegan, new exercises, etc etc etc.  She's going to blog about it each week, that alone will be a challenge for her.  I'm looking forward to it, I'm looking up homemade soap recipes in another tab as I write this blog post.  If you have any ideas of things we should try please comment about it so we have lots of things to choose from. 

I've also been reading up on blogs by current and returned Peace Corps volunteers to start thinking about what I need to buy or collect to take with me abroad.  Since I'll be teaching, someone mentioned that I should bring stickers and silly bands as small rewards for my students.  I'd also like to take balloons so I can make balloon animals for the kids and embroidery thread to make friendship bracelets.  If anyone wants to donate to my collection of things to take, that would be much appreciated. 

Other than that I've had a pretty boring week.  This weekend was busy, what with the FE Exam on Saturday (that maybe went okay, minus the fire drill 90 minutes in to the 8 hour exam) and SWE Banquet on Sunday (that went great!).  Anything I have to do this week will feel like a vacation!

"Coffee" with Dr. Skaggs

It's always fun when you get together with an old friend and catch up on things.  The telling of stories reminds you about what's happened in your own life and how the little things add up.  I've experienced a snowball effect with so many different aspects in my life that I didn't recognize until I was telling Jennifer about the last year or so.  I needed that. Thanks again for "coffee" (aka Pepsi and donuts).

As far as the Peace Corps goes, I finally passed the medical review process!! Celebration!!  Within the next 6 weeks I should get a letter from the Placement Office with an official invitation to serve.  After that, I'll have about 8 weeks before I leave.  It's real, it's really happening! Words cannot describe how excited I am.  :-D

One small damper on my excitement is the FE Exam this Saturday.  It's pathetic how little I've studied for this 8 hour exam, but I'm banking on UK's 98% pass rate for mechanical engineers.  I'll let you know how that goes.

To get excited again, I watched this Peace Corps PSA: http://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.media.psa.television  Check it out and I hope it makes you want to sign up too!