Cultural Exchanges

For those of you who have not undertaken the process that is the Peace Corps appliation, I will advise you to leave more time aside than you would when doing your taxes. It's l-o-n-g and laborous. And that is just the beginning. If you are serious about it, you have to submit your fingerprints (thank you for being so gentle, Bowling Green po-po), legal information regarding your finances and debt, including student loans, and tons upon tons of medical information and then promise then your first born child, or a 'holla' if you end up doing some public service. Oh and I also had to schedule an appointment with a dentist that ended up costing about a grand, and as noted by the Streets, that does not come for free. Even though my dentist was hot, they frigging ripped me off, simply because "well, what kind of dental work will you be able to get in a hut in Africa if something goes wrong?" Surely that dental care would not cost me over $1,000. At the very least the dentist could have asked me out for a drink. I would have politely declined, but come now.

So my point is basically, if you are thinking about it, prepare. The process takes MONTHS. Which in a lot of ways is good, because it gives you lots of time to reflect on your decision and decide if it's really something that you're interested in, or if you did it on a whim because you were hating your life that day. For myself, I had been thinking about it since roughly 2001, but just always thought that 2 years was a long time to commit, especially to another country far away from home AND a place that does not speak your language. Well, I ended up doing 2 two year stints in a row, one in Massachusetts as a VISTA ( http://www.americorps.org), which was awesome. And then I am currently in the process of two not so awesome years in graduate school in Bowling Green, Ohio, which more than the VISTA experience convinced me I was ready for this: isolation? Check. culture shock? Check. not speaking language? Check.

The one really great thing that I was able to do while I was here that I think added to my being nominated for the Peace Corps was my study abroad experience this past summer. I was fortunate enough to be able to go to St. Petersburg, Russia, which was unbelieveable. The Russian that I was able to pick up is so lame it's embarrassing. Even the English kid in my class did better than I did. Although no one could out count me in my beginners class. Even the teacher was astonished when effortlessly I counted up to 100. Anything beyond that was just too much for me, although would have been helpful when bargaining for chotchsky's with the kiosk people, but by the end it was a science.

There are two personal essays that are required for the application process, and I want to share one of them here. I am not someone who is ever proud of what they write or achieve, but I was really pleased with this, so I will post it later. I hear that there are more personal statements along the way, and even more forms, so we shall see when the mail finally arrives, hopefully by Friday! Now it's dinner time!