A Bit-Bigger-Than-The Peace-Corps Entry.

The waiting is not difficult. I know that things will happen and that, ultimately, the process should be over around my slated nomination time of June. I'm not concerned. I'm not worried. I'm focused on making the most of every second of what is left of my time here in Charlotte. However, I feel like I am constantly functioning under a deadline. This isn't new, what with 15 moves in the last 6 years. I'm constantly in transition. I find a strange sense of peace in that, usually. Through my whole life, the one thing that I have been able to count on is transition. It's always been the end of something...the end of high school, the end of study abroad, the end of college, the end of AmeriCorps. However, this is the one of the very rare times since my immigration to the States that I have been creating the end of something instead of having it imposed upon me.


My senior students are starting to find out that I am leaving. Am I a horrible person for abandoning them? Who is going to take care of them when I am gone? These people, who call me their daughter and their teacher, who use words of affection that I can't translate but I understand all the same...who have allowed me to be a part of their lives. We have all grown so much together...me in my ability to communicate and listen without words, to focus on their needs instead of doing it the way it is "supposed" to be done, to love, to love, to love...and them in their ability to trust, to believe in themselves, and to be held to expectations of mastery. They are amazing. Asa is reading. Rebeka is writing. Blao is manipulating. Hamdo is pronouncing. Vladimir is speaking. Pot is understanding. Bogdana is synthesizing. Aikush is growing confident. Milka is SMILING. Vladzimir is producing. Manuel is conjugating. Arturo is counting. Loc is trying, trying, trying. Eugenio is perfecting. They are all blossoming. Over a year of patient, tender, deliberate nurture...and they are beyond beautiful. How can I turn them over to a stranger? Can they adapt? 


Have I prepared them for this?


Have I prepared me for this?


I've been reading ESL Teacher Trainer manuals and theory/pedagogy books as a sort of primer for what I might be getting myself into in Mongolia. I worry that I am not as qualified as the Peace Corps seems to think I am. I'm great at coming up with lessons on the fly, with little to no materials. I'm fantastic at making grammar accessible and making the classroom a comfortable, productive place to be. I have never thought about my methods. I have never studied the theory behind lessons and the current pedagogical approaches in the field. I know of them (TPR, for example) but have never evaluated what I am doing with regard to methodology. I do what is most prudent and relevant in my classes based on the needs of my students, the requirements of the class, and the resources available. I've always been more concerned with facilitating effectively rather than "properly." How do I teach something to other people that I am not well-versed in? Am I concerned about nothing? I'm just unsure of what to expect. I'd like to find someone else based in Mongolia as a teacher trainer but, at the same time, don't want to start counting my chickens. What if the nomination changes? I know I've talked about this too many times before...I really, really, really do not want to get more attached to the idea than I have to.


I'm just very unsure these days. Any time I try and talk to people about it, I get the same sort of response. Glassy, unfocused eyes accompanied with the obligatory vacant nod now and then. "Everything will be fine. How cool is it that you are going to Mongolia? So, where exactly is Mongolia? Do they have electricity there?" And so on. 


I worry that I am not doing enough...and that what I am doing, I could be doing better. 

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That long wait I mentioned?? Not so much.

Dentally cleared as of yesterday! 3 business days plus Saturday means it only took 4 days for them to receive and process my paperwork. Technically, they received it on Monday and processed it yesterday so just one day. !!!!!!!! I thought this thing was supposed to take 843179841 years! I'm so excited! I really anticipated having problems getting my dental stuff to go through right away since I have all my wisdom teeth still...but apparently, a dentist recommendation that extraction isn't necessary is sufficient because it's complete and I appear to be totally cleared! As for medical, my nomination is for June 2010 so that puts me at 7 months. I don't expect to hear anything for quite some time however, the way things are going, maybe I'm going to get a letter about it tomorrow, haha. Still have a legal hold on my account that I haven't heard anything about but I think that I am going to just hang in there for a little while until I hear something. It can only be one of two things (citizenship verification or student loans) so I'm not too concerned about it.

Just wanted to share the exciting news. One step closer, 7 months to go...and now there really is nothing to do but wait!

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A extended silence...

It's silly how good I am at being patient. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Since I updated last, I have done a great deal of waiting. Waiting for test results to come back, waiting for doctors to come back from vacation, waiting for a real doctor to co-sign my forms that were completed by a physician's assistant (unknown to me until after the forms had been returned to me), waiting for said PA to properly fill out the forms after filling them out the first time, etc. Lots and lots of waiting. I shipped my forms off on October 29th. They haven't been received in D.C. yet...so, I am waiting for those to arrive. And, after that, I imagine it will be at least another 2 months before I hear anything back on that front. My blog posts will probably be sparse until I get some sort of word of something in my toolkit.

In the meantime, I went to D.C. for a week. I saw 4 shows on the Use Your Sole tour (Sherwood, Steel Train, Hellogoodbye, and Hanson). I made some amazing new friends, reconnected with others, and said goodbye to a few. I've gained a roommate and lost a love interest. Or two. I've run into troubled waters with a co-worker and went back to work for an old favourite. I've not had the time to do any more volunteering but it's coming up again hopefully this week. I took 15 kids trick-or-treating, sent emails back and forth with some former students, and realized that they hurt more than they let me see. They are starting to crave the familiar...and I know how hard that is for someone at that age. I am already dreading the say I have to say goodbye to these people...I miss working in the refugee/immigrant community already. :(


That's about it for now. I hope everything is going well as you all continue to make your way down the path to invitation! 

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Be careful what you wish for.

The most difficult thing for me through the course of this whole process has not been all the paperwork, the waiting, or even the needles (ugh). The hardest part is having the name of a country and not being certain that it is where I will actually be going. I want to go crazy with it...I want to learn everything I can about the language and the culture and what the current PCV's are up to. 
So, I am trying to do it in moderation. One of my Armenian students has been teaching me the Cyrillic alphabet, which comes in handy for understanding pronunciation hang-ups in my classroom ("C" in Cyrillic sounds like an English "S," etc.). Very, very useful. So, if my placement should change, at least I will have gotten real use out of knowing that alphabet. I've downloaded a few language programs but am trying to use them sparingly...meanwhile, I've gone back to focusing on French to keep myself occupied, haha.
I came across this video today from an ESL PCV in Mongolia. I'm trying to stay away from this kind of stuff but couldn't help the indulgence. :P

Alright, that's all for now. So, those of you with a region placement who are wishing to know more...seriously, be careful what you wish for. You might just get it. 
Cheers!

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*twiddles thumbs*

So, October 1st marked the "something like 8 months to go" mark in this little Peace Corps waiting adventure. That's really all I am doing now and have settled myself down into expecting to do a lot of it over the next 4 months or so. Conveniently, I am going back to working 7 days a week (ugh) and the holidays are fast approaching so I should be occupied enough not to notice those 4 months so much. Nothing exciting at all to report. Still waiting on test results, still have my fingers constantly crossed that my medical papers haven't disappeared into a paper-consuming black hole at the clinic.

I'm starting a volunteer stint on Monday with the ABE/GED program through the local community college. I miss working with this age demographic and I figure, the more useful things I have to send on my updated resume when PC asks for it, the better.  I'll be tutouring an adult in ABE (Adult Basic Education) or GED and I'm crossing my fingers that I won't have to spend too much of that time working in the math sections. It's gonna be bad when the tutour has to be tutoured in basic algebra, haha. Yeeeaaah, about the GRE, lol.


In other exciting news, I went to Bengali Durga Puja at the Hindu center in Charlotte last weekend with my friend Shaoli. Durga Puja, I was told, is sort of like the Hindu version of Christmas. They celebrate the goddess Durga and her victory over the most evil man in all creation. I'm thinking that the Peace Corps needs to re-open a program in India so that I can go there and learn how to make myself spectacular curries...not to mention wear a sari as often as I could manage to get away with it. 

Happy Saturday! :)

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Medical Visit #2.

Soon to be followed by medical visit #3. You know I'm excited.


I went back to the clinic this morning to get my Tb (TB?) test read. 0mm! If it hadn't been the same nurse that had given me the shot, I bet there would have been questions over whether I'd actually been given a test in the first place. The mark looks exactly like a freckle. I watched the nurse write that little piece of info in my paperwork and scanned the rest of the paper over her shoulder while she was doing so. 


I asked the nurse about my blood work and she told me that it was apparently already finished (!!!). She printed out a report and attached it to the rest of my papers. She told me that my doctor wasn't going to be in until this afternoon but was booked solid and would not have the opportunity to go through and record the results today. I should come back Monday morning, she said. Then she added that my prescriptions hadn't been sent over to the clinic yet and that I would also need to come back this evening to pick those up. Hahaha. I'd like to note that I live a good 30 minutes away from the clinic. So, they kept my papers once again (*ANXIETY*) and I went, once again, on my merry way. I will probably head back there in a few minutes. So...there will be at least 3 more trips to the clinic. One today, one Monday, and one whenever my pap results come back (which will be about 2 weeks, they said). I'm crossing my fingers that those results will be the end of it and I will get my papers in the mail by the middle of October. October 10th will be 2 months since I initially received the med packet. Not too shabby.


Back to the clinic, then.

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Adventures at a Community Health Clinic.

Well, I have found something that rivals French bureaucracy in terms of getting things done, tension levels, and getting the run-around. Wow. I went to a community health clinic in Rock Hill this afternoon for my first medical visit. My appointment was for 2 p.m. and I got there 15 minutes early. I signed in, no problem.

They called me back up to the [germ-infested] desk to ask me for my pay stubs and proof-of-residency in order to figure out where I calculated into the sliding-scale payment equation (yay low-income, I guess). I have two jobs right now...the first I get paid bi-weekly, the second only once a month. So I brought two pay stubs from the former and one from the latter. Apparently I needed two from the latter. They told me I would either have to pay the full amount or reschedule my appointment. I'd already had to wait 3 weeks for this one! Ahhhh! After 30 minutes of appealing to people's better natures, they finally gave me a break and told me that I could bring the second one when I came back to have my Tb test read. Fantastic! A kind word and a smile will get you absolutely everywhere with people who rarely receive such things. I pay for my visit, sit back down, and wait for my turn.

And I wait and I wait and I wait. By now it's almost 3. They call me back up to the window to tell me that, unfortunately, the doctor that I had been scheduled with had called in sick today and wasn't there at all. I would have to come back. WHAT?! Not only have I already been there for an hour but you guys knew the whole time that my doctor was not there...and you even had me pay knowing this fact! I put on my defeated face. I patiently told them that I had already waited three weeks for this appointment, that they should have called me so that I didn't have to needlessly miss a day of work, that I needed to get this done ASAP, that there must be some way that somebody could see me today, etc. The girl at the window took pity on me (again, the use of "please" and "I appreciate your effort" will get you absolutely everywhere) and told me that she would do what she could for me. Okay. I sit back down and wait.

And then, the medical gods decided to take pity on me in the form of a pissed-off, rude, over-the-top woman. She started yelling because she didn't want to put on a face mask (she was coughing up a storm) and it escalated. Result? She got kicked out of the clinic and I got her appointment slot. Yaaaaay!

10 minutes later, I am whisked to the back and into an examination room. Weight, height, BP, and vision...check. Physical exam, check. Girly exam, check. Tb test, check. My doctor was extremely nice...she was very young and very, very patient with all my paperwork (PC exam form plus additional asthma forms). She sent me over to the lab to do bloodwork. 

So, I haven't mentioned my phobia of needles. This isn't just your basic "Ugh, needles" type of thing. When I was 3, I had pneumonia and had to go to the hospital. They tried to put in an IV and it took 21 jabs before they managed to get the thing in my arm. I do not remember this fiasco but it seems to have residual effects in the form of a scar and total blackouts when in the vicinity of hypodermics. When I was 8 or 9, I had to get a shot thanks to a wonderful case of creupe...and it took a crowd of people to hold me down. Strength of 10 men, haha. I blacked out and have no recollection of that. So, you get the idea. The first two shots I got just over a week ago was my pilot run of the "I'm a big brave dog" mantra (thank you, Rugrats). I just decided that either I could control the situation or I could allow the situation to control me. And, for whatever reason, that worked. Mind over matter, perhaps. Today was much of the same. Tb test, no problem. Bloodwork.  10 vials of blood later, I was finished for the day. Yeeppp, me = awesome. I'm definitely indulging in a bit of gratuitous self-appreciation, haha. I got a new friend to celebrate my monumental achievement. This is Nova the fish, short for Supernova...because he is a firecracker. :P

So, they tell me I am good to go. I ask for all my paperwork back, which they had taken to work on while I was being pin-cushioned. "Oh, we're going to keep that here until the results of the bloodwork come back." Holy panic attack. Those papers are like the holy grail at this point...and this place seems like the kind of place that important papers go to disappear. I tried to reason and was reduced to pleading with them to give me back my papers. They would not let me have them. So, I suppose this is my next major lesson on letting go. I'm still on the verge of hyperventilation thinking about my papers being stolen by gnomes or eaten by goats or something. Stay tuned for the resolution on that one.
My total for everything was $75...though, I walked out without the two prescriptions I was supposed to get. I'll have to get those on Friday. Hopefully, they won't be expensive and I will get away with very minimal medical cost incurred personally...especially since the wisdom tooth debacle is still very much in progress. I'm very pleased as $150 (polio shot + doctor visit) is a very far cry from the $1300 quote from the family practice.

Alrighty, I suppose that's all for now. I can't really report much more until I get the lab reports and my Peace Corps papers back from the clinic. They said a two-week turn-around on the pap test (*siiigghhh*) and didn't say how long on the bloodwork. I have a feeling I will be making several more appearances at the clinic. Another blog post coming on my observations at the community clinic. It's quite honestly one of the most pitiful places I have ever seen in my life...and I have seen some pretty pitiful places. But, yes, more on that later.
Bonne nuit. :)

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