joining the bandwagon

After a few years of just hanging out and reading blogs, occasionally commenting, I have been beaten over my head by my roommate who have been telling me that I should start writing, that I should be getting my ideas out there (and most of all, that he was sick of hearing me sprout all kind of theories in our living room, rather than in the blogsphere where he could draw upon and add onto), and that I should start somewhere. I am not normally the kind of person who writes about stuff and put it out there for everyone to read, maybe a little reserved, in lack of a better term.

Why now are you joining the bandwagon, you may ask, well - the short answer is - Peace Corps. The long answer - I submitted my letter of resignation to a large human service agency in the beginning of May. They had recently taken over (well, if you call a year and a half ago recently) a smaller agency that provided services for the Deaf and Deaf-Blind community in the NYC metropolitan area, including the office where I was employed - I had worked there for four and a half years before the "take over" and continued working there for another year and a half ... and to put it nicely, it was time for a change.

I started looking for a new challenge / opportunity a little under a year ago. One thing that kept nagging in the back of my mind was doing something outside of the United States, something in the neighborhood of becoming a Peace Corps Volunteer. I have always wanted to try to study abroad during my college years, but never gotten the opportunity, and after marinating in the idea of actually applying to become a Peace Corps Volunteer, I started the application process in August of 2006 (after using a few close friends, my parents, my brother and his girlfriend as sounding boards). Whew, I did not know what I have gotten myself into. The online part was lengthy, and I submitted it in mid-November (pissed off, after an ill-fated meeting at my office in which interpreters were not available even though the request was made three weeks ahead, and my boss ended up interpreting for me). After my references made their submissions on-line, I was contacted by a Peace Corps Recruiter, and a few more forms needed completion. In February, I was finally interviewed, and then later nominated for a Sub-Sahara Africa placement. Then, you guessed it, even more forms. The medical / dental evaluations were next. A couple more months passed while I went to all appointments (prompting puzzlement on the part of my staff), and finally got everything together to send off (and several appointments remains to get my fillings done - they want to make sure that I have absolutely no dental work left to do for the next two to three years, grin).

I am currently awaiting to hear more about the exact location of my placement, as well as what kind of teaching I will be doing. I am excited about this, and hopefully things will fall in place, and I would not have to do any additional appointments, check-ups, etc.

Coming back to the point of starting a blog, the general idea is to be able to provide a simple and comprehensive way for friends, family, and colleagues to get a quick look at what the heck I have been up to, or will be up to.