happy new years and good news...

Hey everyone!

First of all, I want to wish everyone a happy new year. I hope everyone enjoyed his or her holiday break. I certainly did ;) Jamaica was amazing, New York was incredible and it’s very weird to be back in Atlanta and not have to worry about school anymore. Anyways, I do have two pieces of exciting information:

1) I got medically cleared! December 29th is a little late for an x-mas gift but better late than never I say! Since I got legally and financially cleared last summer this means that nothing (so far) stands between me and my invitation, well except time. This is where the process gets tricky because there is no set time frame of when after medical clearance you’ll get your invitation. It all depends on a myriad of things. So I might get my invitation in a week or it might not get to me for two months. Who knows? This will definitely be my most trying time…

2) I got a job! A full-time, paid, completely incredible job! I won’t go into details about how I got it but the company I will be working for is a christian international pediatric health non-profit called Childspring International (www.childspringintl.org). The organization basically helps find children in developing countries that need surgeries and then we match them to doctors and hospitals in the US who will do the surgeries for free. We also match the children with host families who look after the children pre- and post-operation. My specific job title is the Americas Case Manager, so I am responsible for the end-to-end detail management of all children coming in and out of Central and South America! It’s a LOT of responsibility and I’m really nervous about work but my mom reassures me that I’ll be okay and I hope I will be too. Everyone in the office is great so I’m looking forward to getting to know all my new co-workers.

Since I’ve been back I’ve been spending a lot of time perusing the Internet and trying to gather as much information about the Peace Corps as possible. In an effort to share some valuable resources with any potential applicants, here are some places you should check out:

- Facebook: there are numerous groups dedicated to the peace corps. Some of my favorites though include “Future Peace Corps Volunteer”, “Peace Corps” and “Peace Corps: I’m Being Sent To Africa”. It’s not only a great source of information but also a great way to meet other Peace Corps applicants in various points of the application process. Great place to pose questions, vent, rant, ramble and fight lol. I even made a friend J (Her name is Megan and she’s from Texas, and like me, she’s a health nominee to Africa in June 2008…maybe we’ll end up in the same country!)

- Yahoo: I DEFINITELY recommend joining the Peace Corps yahoo group (peacecorps2). It is a great place to post questions as it is the best network of future Peace Corps volunteers, current peace corps invitees and trainees and also returned peace corps volunteers. Also the group has this really cool UNOFFICIAL directory of when certain programs leave and to where. Since my nomination is for Africa, leaving in June 2008 for a Health program, I think I’ve narrowed down my invitation to one of these countries: Mauritania, Kenya, Tanzania, Swaziland, Burkina Faso and Zambia. I would be happy to go to almost any of those countries (well okay, truth be told, Mauritania doesn’t sound like a lot of fun). But we’ll see. I’m trying not to get my heart set on one country but its really hard ‘cause some of those countries sound more amazing than others (I’m kinda in love with Swaziland and Zambia…). Like I said, this is UNOFFICIAL but its great to have a general idea.

That’s it for now folks. The invitation wait continues…

Ciao,
-Nikhil