Hello!
My original intention was to hold off on creating a blog until I received a placement, but some friends have successfully convinced me that it might be interesting to write about my experiences with the placement process and all of the excitement/emotion/frustration/joy/anticipation that comes with it.
I've created a page with my complete timeline, and will continue to update that as I find out more. There's also an "About the Peace Corps" page, but as I am a college student in her last term of school (..eek!), there's not much time to complete that at the time being. Feel free to leave comments, questions, or suggestions for things you'd like to see me discuss. I've also never had a blog before (unless you count LiveJournal back in high school..), so I'd love some suggestions for formatting, things to include / not to include, etc. Oh, and a special thanks to the lovely Meghan McAffee, who helped me come up with the name. :)
An interesting update: Up until this point, I've been under the impression that I was scheduled to leave in late summer / early fall, probably in the month of September. Today, my curiosity got the best of me and I called my recuiter to confirm that (since my nomination did change a few times) and to try and get more answers. To the surprise of both of us, my program code indicates that I'm tentitively assigned to be an HIV/AIDS health volunteer (still within community development), leaving in early summer (May-June). Nomenee (my recruiter) thought that this didn't seem right, given my timeframe and experience, and promised to get in contact with my placement officer in DC for more answers. I'll be calling him back on Friday to see how that discussion went.
When I applied, I was totally prepared and ready to leave after graduation. I put on my availability that I could leave beginning May 30th, and that sounded entirely fine to me. Now that I've been operating under the assumption that I was leaving in September, the early summer timeframe seems impossibly early...I honestly can't imagine leaving so soon. I suppose I'll need to begin adjusting to that idea, but I can't help but hope that it ends up being closer to September.
UPDATE:
I spoke with Nomenee today, and he said its not likely that either of us will hear anything from the placement staff in DC until May 1st. First, I haven't even gotten medical clearance yet, and that could take a few months. Second, there are a lot of applicants ahead of me who haven't even gotten placements yet, so the timeline is really up in the air. It sounds like many people are leaving after their original timeline, so it seems (or at least I'm hoping) that all of this means I'll be leaving closer to the late summer / early fall after all!
