Waiting...

The strongest desire I've had while waiting patiently for something is now an understatement to what I'm feeling. I still have a month left to prepare myself for the Philippines, spend as much time with my family as we can bare, and well then there's packing- which I haven't even bothered to attempt. yet.

But back to the waiting part. It stinks man! Minnesota has hardly helped subdue the flight response due to its complete lack of summer. It's been downright cold, I'm talking didn't-even-have-to-worry-about-the-ice-cream-cake-melting-outside-cold; not the best weather for pre-thickening my blood... I have been trying to take in as much of home as possible though, because I know soon, I'll be longing for it more that I thought possible.

The one month of time I have left to wait shouldn't seem like much though, because I've already been waiting for 22 months since my application was submitted to the Peace Corps! Just a reminder to any future PCVs (that's Peace Corps Volunteers) that are in the same boat I'm in now. Sailing the S.S. Tenacity.

Here's a brief timeline of how my whole process went down:
May 2011- decided I wanted to apply; started application
August 2011- after taking my dear-sweet time perfecting my application, I submitted it
*at this point I was switched from the Mid-West Regional Office to the Southern Regional Office because I moved to Alabama. It was later determined that was a complete waste of time...
August- November 2011- gathered and turned in all the pre-medical and legal clearance paperwork
November 2011- interview with my recruiter, Toby
*an eternity of waiting
January 2012- call from recruiter giving me potential nomination sectors (either environment, education, or environmental education) but waiting for the programs to open up
*more than an eternity of waiting
May 2012- finally nominated! for education (teaching science) in Sub-Sahara Africa for June 2013.
*for the following 9 months, I was under the impression the above nomination was what I was probably going to do. with no teaching experience, I went and got some- substituting at the HS here, tutoring and teaching at Sylvan Learning. this time also consisted of, well, waiting...
**the PC also decided to switch the application process around August 2012, so getting pre-medical clearance, etc. took way more time than usual.
February 2013- emailed back my final interview questions and within a few days (after mentioning that I still really wanted to do something in environment, despite my new teaching skills) I received my invitation!!!
*60 days prior to staging (July 5th), we needed the big jumble of medical paperwork completed. my most gracious thanks go out to Dr. Matt Struve and Dr. Paul Post for completely my dental and physical exams!
**Now here I am waiting for the Staging email that let's my know the details on heading out.

   That's my PC adventure (thus far) in a nutshell. I assure you the rest of it won't be so condensed :)