Merry Christmas

I know when I was first considering joining the Peace Corps I checked out a lot of volunteer blogs so I want to document these early phases as much as possible to help other applicants.

I received my official invite in the mail about a week ago. Following my invite I was required to submit an aspiration statement, which I sent in a couple days ago. I also just finished all the paperwork for my passport, which I will submit on the 27^th of December. I wasn’t able to file online because this is my first passport. I am considering expediting shipment just to ensure that it gets in on time. Overall I have been pretty on top of everything and I think this part of the process is the most important for getting stuff in on time. The whole process has been hurry up and wait so its logical that this section would be the same.

I have been following the weather in Kyiv lately and the temperature today is 30 degrees F, which is actually quite warm for this time of year. It has been in the low teens the last couple weeks and dropped to -9 F at one point. 

Let me paint a picture for you: I have lived in California, Arizona and Texas. I did spend one year in Washington state but for 24 of my years on this planet I have enjoyed beautiful weather. This is gonna be a huge change and I just hope Im ready for this. I outfitted myself with some winter clothes so I don’t die but I seriously need to read up on layering.

Merry Christmas ya filthy animals

Call Me Crazy

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around every once in awhile you could miss it”

-Ferris Bueller

I started my application in January 2012 and after 11 long months of being poked and prodded I finally have my invite to serve with the Peace Corps. For 27 months I will be living and working in Ukraine, my main assignment focusing on Community Economic Development. I will be leaving the United States at the end of March and will not return until at least July 2015. Words really cannot describe how excited I am to finally know where I will be living and when I leave.

As for the blog: I started this in lieu of sending out a monthly newsletter as it seemed like a better medium to document my upcoming adventure. Please feel free to check in and comment as often as you like. I will update as much as possible but I am still unsure as to just how much internet access I will have.

I'll end this first post here and hopefully keep these as readable as possible. Thanks to everybody who checks this out and wish me luck.