Oh The Places You Will Go!

Monday, June 28, 2010

Unofficial Nomination!

Title says it all, I think.

I had my interview this morning and I was lucky enough to forget about one atrocious headache during the course of it.  My recruiter was waiting on my interview kit and requested that I expand on my second essay, put my volunteering on my resume, and put together a statement about my financial obligations so that she could get me nominated.  I had everything resent via e-mail within an hour or so.  She said she is going to do her best to nominate me to teach English in Eastern Europe probably departing in Feb. or March.  AKA: Just what I wanted!

Downside is I won't know until tomorrow for sure, but I am pretty excited nonetheless!

Friday, June 25, 2010

Questions?

My interview is on Monday and I am having a difficult time coming up with questions to ask the recruiter!  I feel like I have done so much reading on the Peace Corps that anything I ask, I will already know the answer to!

The only ones I have come up with so far are:
-How does PC find host families?
-What was the recruiter's biggest challenge during her service?
-What did she find most rewarding?


Any other suggestions? I have been thinking for days and my brain is starting to threaten violence if  I continue harassing it.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Hello Toolkit

Dear Peace Corp Applicant Toolkit-
I received a letter in the mail today about your existence and must say that I am glad to meet you. Over the course of the next few months we will get to know each other a bit better, however I anticipate it being a bit one sided on your part. You will learn so much new information about me and store it in your database and will often leave me wondering what you are thinking. That is no way for a relationship to blossom and flourish, but alas, that will be our nature.

I must admit, I am nervous embarking on this adventure with you. I know I will experience frustration from you the longer we stick it out, but I am keeping my hopes up you will stick by my side through the thick and thin, in sickness and in health, and that you will bring me the future I crave.

Forever Yours,
Kim

....Yep, I'm silly.

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Yet another first!

I have this crazy tendency to create blogs of various kinds on varied sites for random purposes that fade fairly quickly. So let's drink to me keeping up with this one! It is after all going to concern some possible life changing things; well, that is IF I make it in to the Peace Corps. If I don't, hopefully this won't be waste of words never to be seen or heard from again and someone, maybe you, will learn something new about the process or discover you aren't the only one to lose your mind about what can only be described as an agonizingly long test of patience :)

Here is where I currently stand with things:
I finally submitted my application and health review on June 7, 2010. I say finally because I semi- started the application in October for 2009, and then worked on it a little bit more come January of this year, but paused yet again. Why you ask? Essays. The first one was easy enough to write, but the second really made me think! I didn't feel like I had much cross-cultural experience having never left the country, so I put off my application yet again. I battled with even completing the darn thing for fear of not getting accepted for months (and I will discuss that particular fear in a later post). I finally sucked it up in the weekend prior to June 7th and wrote about interacting with customers at my job where I frequently encounter a language barrier that has the ability to impact my job and customers' shopping experiences.

Skip ahead to the next day where I get an e-mail from my recruiter telling me she is sending me my interview kit and will be needing my college transcripts and my references submitted and to give her a call or e-mail to set up a phone interview (which, for the record is next Monday on the 28th at 10AM!) As soon as I found out I needed transcripts with my SS# on them I was bummed to discover unofficial ones do not carry that little tidbit in Nevada. Alas, this meant I had to pay over $20 to acquire my CSN ($2), UNR ($15), and UNLV ($5) transcripts. Annoying.

Next was the references: a good friend of mine, an old manager, and my current store manager were my list since I don't have consistent volunteering under my belt to include a volunteer supervisor. I felt like I waited forever to get the last one in from my store manager and did my best not to bug her, but I had to little bit and it finally got done!

All I have left to do is fingerprinting. Here is some advice: DO NOT FILL IN THE INFORMATION ON THE CARD. I learned this after calling the police department and was told that they print the information for you with the fingerprints. I am sure it is not like this everywhere, but better safe than sorry. This ordeal means waiting for a new set to get sent to me or going to another place to have them done at a steeper rate. Ick.

Hope you enjoyed this book? Haha.