Happy Mother's Day

This post isn't all that important or spectacular, I just found out a little tid bit of information that I thought was pretty interesting and potentially very helpful for me. You see, I went back home today to have a Mother's Day brunch with the family. A whole lot of the conversations we had revolved around my upcoming Peace Corps experience. All of the sudden my father mentions that he speaks to a former Peace Corps Director on a pretty regular basis through his job. I was kind of shocked by this because you'd think he'd have mentioned that fact earlier, but I guess he just plum forgot.

So now I know I've got a good connection to the Peace Corps. Now if I have issues getting accepted or have other difficulties, I can have my dad contact him. If I can get a former Peace Corps Director on my side then there's not much that could stand in my way of joining the Peace Corps. Things are looking up.

I've been doing a lot of research and reading of blogs, and I've learned a lot of helpful stuff. The most helpful resource I've found so far is the Peace Corps yahoo group (I think it's named peacecorps2 but don't quote me on that). They've got all sorts of hints, advice, support, and several regular chat times. This group hase helped me a lot. I hadn't previously thought about it, but they suggested I set up a Power of Attorney for someone here so they can handle all my financial, legal, etc dealings. It makes a lot of sense. I'll have to talk to my parents about that.

The other really great thing about the group is that it can help you narrow down and possibly predict which country you'll be assigned based solely on the description of your nomination. I couldn't help but try to find my own and I think I've got it, but I'm gonna hold off on actually saying which one for now. Why? Oh just for shits and giggles.

This group is very connected. There are several thousand people in the group with an average posting rate of 700 posts/month. I've been reading though peoples experiences w/ applying and their application timelines. Apparently the wait for medical clearance usually takes around 4 weeks. But this is far from being an absolute. I saw one person that was completely medically cleared the day after they received her maedical packet. One day is just assotunding. Right now I'm hoping to get medical clearance by the end of the month. I don't have any medical issues and that would be close to being 4 weeks. Acctually, 4 weeks would place the clearance as being on my birthday (which would be a nice gift).

There is a good reason why they say that patience is the biggest quality a prospective Peace Corps needs. I just wanna know!