Peace Corps invites you to serve!!

ON SATURDAY I nearly exploded with excitement because when I came home I discovered that there was a big, blue folder waiting for me with my offical Peace Corps invitation inside!

Wyatt and I will be serving in the Philippines! My title is "English Language Fluency Trainer" and hers is "Youth Development Facilitator". We don't know exactly where in the Philippines we will actually be going (and won't know until after we get there), but we're so excited!

I've contacted some currently serving Volunteers, touched bases with people I know here in the States with family or history in the Philippines, and I'm also trying to get in touch with some Returned PCV's to find out what pitfalls to avoid etc.

We're SOO excited!!

Lonely. Hopeful. Content.

The three words in my post's title are rather strange, yes? They don't generally go together but they sum up my situation nicely.

Well, I'm lonely because Wyatt is out in Indiana visiting her family. Her dad paid for a ticket for her but suggested I not go because staying in his parents house might've been too stressful for them. Well, they ended up staying in a hotel anyway, but whatever. I'll get over it. Unlimited texts and lots of stuff going on makes it bearable.

Hopeful - news from the Peace Corps is in the mail, apparently. Received notice on my Peace Corps portal today that the packet is IN TRANSIT which will describe our assignment!! I hope it gets here TOMORROW, but I doubt it. Damn, why does it take a week for a package to get across the US? Don't they have teleportation nowadays? jeez.

I'm also very hopeful because I JUST read that Oracle is releasing the rights to Openoffice.org back to the community - presumably, to The Document Foundation (TDF). That's very cool, I think, because hopefully the IP will help bolster OO's devleopment even further. I really like TDF's website and that they really, actually want community people to contribute to cleaning up the code - they even have it layered so that people with relatively little skill can still help, by doing something as simple as reading through comments and removing irrelevant or ancient stuff. Very nice.

Content because I look forward to a great life with my Wyatt. Paul (her grandfather, whom we are living with and caretaking for) and I were talking today and he mentioned that his sister-in-law, Jo, married her husband and their first living place together was a trailer. Not a mobile home, but a trailer - like a 5th wheel behind a pickup. Yeah.

Now, I know this is probably weird that that really appeals to me, but the point of this little aside is: I pictured Wyatt and I making ends meet RVing around somewhere in a little trailer and it just filled me with joy. Haha, what an awesome idea. Well anyway even if that's not in our future the essence of the idea is still correct: we're in it together, and we're gonna have some badass stories to tell.

OK

~Micah

Quality > Quantity?

Well, I guess I won't receive any kind of accolade for the frequency of my posts. I've been bad.

Well here's an update to what I've been working on!

The Peace Corps. That's where I plan on being for the next 27ish months. Wyatt and I have been working very hard on our Peace Corps applications for nearly a year now. We're probably going to serve in a Health Extension role in Africa, although all of that is subject to change. The second-to-last leg in the process, the Medical Certification, should be done for us now - I just faxed in the latest (and hopefully last) packet to the Health office this morning.

In other news, Wyatt and I are also now officially doing community presentations called HIV 101 in nearby the Common Ground HIV/AIDS community center where we volunteer. We did our first presentations yesterday and it was amazing! We had the entire class engaged and asking questions, and I feel that we distributed some really important information about HIV/STI infection prevention.

Our work with the Red Cross continues at a frenetic pace. Over the weekend we attended a Psychological First Aid training course that was very helpful. It's really interesting how the awareness of psychological trauma is really starting to catch on, but hasn't really caught up with our awareness of physical trauma. To compare and contrast, I'm working on preparing for getting a First Aid/CPR Instructor certification at the Red Cross so I've been shadowing in those courses. The classes I've been to have been filled to capacity with students, and the material is very prescriptive and definitive, while the instructors are energetic and engaging. The Psychological First Aid (PSA) course was very different - we didn't even have enough students to officially have the class, with only 5 (the minimum being 6), but we went through it anyway. The material was adequate, but the role of PSA was a little unclear for us. Little things like processes and procedures were mostly nonexistent, and we were asked generally just to care and listen. Obviously these are pretty much the most important things to do and I expect that with some experience a disaster volunteer can learn the DO's and DON'Ts pretty easily. Even so, I would've liked to see a more comprehensive approach to the material.

And finally, in the Lab. I'm contemplating the title change I've been offered from Lab Assistant to Programmer/Analyst. I think it would be a good choice but it emphasizes the technological part of my job much more than the medical-research-lab portion, which is just as important, in my opinion. It's important to let people know that I'm familiar with how to deal with a clean environment and that I'm experienced with bio-hazardous material management techniques. I'll probably pursue the title change and list both titles on a resume, but that's a little dicey.

The role and usefulness of this blog really needs to change. I don't think about it a lot but I want to be chronicling the things in my life for later reflection. This is, after all, a very important part of my life and I have ready, convenient access to the internet at all times. I might as well be logging my thoughts and behaviors. SO MUCH has changed in my world since my last post. It's a shame that I haven't been recording it at all. An example is all the hiking, working out, and sports I've been doing. I've never been so physically active or in shape in my life and it feels amazing! Especially the hiking. I've always loved the outdoors and learning that there is so much great hiking within easy driving distance of LA was really an eye-opener for me.

So I think I'm going to make a concerted effort to post every week in this blog. Even if nothing is happening I'm sure I can find it in myself to do some ranting. Besides, I need to get into a cadence so I'm sure to provide updates to my friends and family if/when I haul off to another country for over two years. Fun fun fun!

ccll

~Micah