Why I wanted to join the Peace Corps, Part I

This post had become really ponderous, so I decided that I would just make it a running series of posts where I tease out the many reasons why I decided to do something like join the Peace Corps.

I first heard of the Peace Corps my freshman year of college when I was at a hunger banquet being put on by H2O. There were some informational brochures and stuff on a table near the exit and Liane and I perused them. Our response to Peace Corps service initially was a resolute hell no. Fast forward to two years later and I am in the process of applying and so is she, along with her fiancé (they have currently dropped out of the application process for their own reasons).

What prompted this decision for me was a number of things. Not the least of these was the question "what am I gonna do after college?"

At the time, I wasn't as interested in linguistics as I am now, so post-graduate studies wasn't an option since I didn't want to go to law school or medical school or anything like that. I honestly didn't know what I wanted to do with my life, and to a degree I still don't. What I think sounds good at the moment is grad school for linguistics, but I'll sit on that idea for two years and then see if I still want to do it when I come back.

I reasoned that, if anything, Peace Corps buys you time during the transition from college to "real life". It seemed like a great way to obtain some valuable skills and also, you know, see the world. It didn't seem like a sacrifice to me, but more of a, "You mean the government is going to pay me to live and work overseas? And then pay me more at the end? And everyone who has done this says it was the most life-enriching thing they've ever done?"

These reasons ("Buys time", "Is fulfilling") are close to the front in terms of most important reasons. The obvious one, "Want to help the world", might be first. More on that later, though.

First contact with PC since January 10th

Steven Jacobson from the Placement Office contacted me today:

Dear Elliott,

I hope this email finds you well! I'm writing to you from the Peace Corps Placement Office in Washington, DC. We are busy reviewing and evaluating your Peace Corps application to be sure that everything looks good for you to be approved for service. I reviewed your file this morning and I identified one item that needed follow-up.

Then he went on to say how he needed my transcript once I graduated and that certain things needed to be on it. He also asked if my earliest departure date had changed. I responded that I could leave as early as August 1st, 2007. My plans for this summer are to spend a month (June) with my family and friends in Texas and then one month (July) with Kristofer, and then I'm off.
I'm anticipating not leaving on exactly August 1st, so my stay in San Jose will likely be more than one month.

I'm just very excited that they contacted me. Apparently they don't contact you unless there's something wrong with your file, so I guess it was good that I was incommunicado for so long. I'm just naturally very anxious about getting more and more information.

Mr. Jacobson, as he told me in a reply email, is not my PO, but my real PO (a "she") will contact me in the next few weeks. I don't think this will be an invitation, but probably just a "Hey, I'm your placement officer congratulations on getting into the Peace Corps ... so I see you're from Texas... " and so on.

I want to get my invitation at least by early June, because I want to start planning my going-away party. It's going to be fun, for me at least, because hopefully everyone from my past will show up. FYI, it will be in Austin in the apartment of Andy, Jessica, and Kara/Lauren.

Music

I'll be able to catch up on the dozens of albums I slept on when in the PC, I just realized.