I know everybody and their mother is getting pretty tired of me talking about the Peace Corps application process. I feel like 80% of the words that come out of my mouth are related to it. But if it annoys you, think about what it must be doing to me. I think I spend 98% of my time thinking about my application! Yesterday I turned in (hopefully) the very last information that they need to make my placement. Well, they need my transcript too but they can get that any time before I leave and UNC is being obnoxious. So my application status page is entirely checkmarks except for a new one that they added right on the bottom that says "Final Placement Review". The email that I got from one of my placement officers (I say one of because they've been bouncing me around the office.... probably because they couldn't stand hearing from me five times a day) said that it would probably just be a week or so more.
Immediately after I turned in my updated resumé and French update (props to sonja for editing that), I got a call from LA saying she was done with work. Of course, I was supposed to meet her at union square when she was done with work and I was nowhere near there. So I struggled my way up to the 184th and Lexington subway stop and swiped myself in only to realize that I had gone to the uptown side. I asked a cop whether there was any way to get around going out and swiping back in on the downtown side and he told me to go up one stop and then transfer to a downtown express which would be faster anyways. As I was turning to go, an equally lost woman came hustling up to me explaining that she had made the same mistake and so I told her to follow me. As we got on the bus, we started talking about our respective trips to New York and it came up in conversation (as it always does with me) that I was getting ready for Peace Corps service.
There was this stunned silence as she told me that she had just returned two months ago from her service in Nicaragua. She had loved doing business development there so much that she had extended to four years. I must have asked her 50 questions in the 10 minutes we were on the subway! It's silly, but it felt right. It felt like this was finally going to happen. I feel like after each stage in the process I spend ages talking myself down and telling me not to get my hopes up. Loads of people get to this point and then have to wait a year for their placement. Or their placement changes a bajillion times. On the train, this woman (who's name, I realize, I never found out) told me that her placement was really quick and that she got placed in five months. If I really do get a placement within a week it will be right at four months for me. She told me it was all going to work out, that Peace Corps is just like that, ambiguous, always up in the air and she told me that if I had gotten my medical clearance, it was going to happen some way or another. I just hope it happens with my intended program in September in Ag Extension in Africa.
I woke up this morning and raced to check my application status and now that all the check marks are filled out it's just a waiting game. Just sit here and stare at my email hoping news will pop up and it will be good. I don't think I've ever had butterflies in my stomach quite like this. Here's hoping for another calming subway encounter today :)
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