Where is the DR?

Where is the DR?

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Last day in the cube farm for a while (hopefully forever)

Today was my last day at DAI.  I loved the company and the people I worked with but I don't think I will ever learn to love working in an office.  My co-workers got me a lovely cake plus some Chipotle... though I think I should lay off the rice and beans since that will be my diet for the next 27 months. But quick shout out to DAI recruitment team, I'll miss you! 

I am going to be insanely busy this week.  Time has caught up with me and I wont have enough of it to see all the people I want to see one last time. But for those of you up for the challenge there will be a pretty hard-core relay tournament at the Vienna house on Friday night.  If you have never heard of relay then you are missing out.  Come and see what all fun is about and bring your pong/flip cup/quarters/chugging skills. Oh and perhaps balancing skills as well (Megan). 

Tomorrow I plan to live on Rockville Pike.  I will spend some time at the Army/Navy Ranger Surplus store  in search of a backpack and other necessities on a PCV budget.  A few stops will probably be made at REI, Best Buy, Borders and Bed, Bath, and Beyond (mostly in the Beyond section according to Dan).  Then it's time to pack!  I need to fit two years into two bags.  To do this I am trying to approach packing as if I am going on a verrrry long camping trip where occasionally I need to look nice.    However because of the DR's proximity to the US I am told I can find almost everything I need down there.  Right now I am just debating whether or not to buy a Kindle... apparently the DR has 3G. 

Thursday, August 5, 2010

Making the most of my last weekends in the U S of A

How do you prepare to leave your family and friends for two years?  There is no right answer to that question but I can tell you what I've been doing...  Having fun!  Good thing there are only two weeks until my departure because I've been sleeping less and eating more.  Before I got my assignment I was doing really well on my workout plan and I was trying to eat healthy foods.  But when it started to dawn on me that I wouldn't see my family and friends for a very long time I spent less time (read: no time) at the gym and more time going to movies, out to dinner and enjoying the foods I will likely miss while I'm gone. Here are a few highlights:

 I work about half a mile from the Georgetown Cupcake cafe in Bethesda and whenever we can get out of the office we go get cupcakes, Peanut Butter Fudge is my favorite.  Then there is Chipotle. I hadn't gone in almost five years but because of my awesome cubicle neighbor, Ryan, it has become a weekly lunch...mmm love guac.  I no longer eat the Weight Watchers bars on Ice Cream Friday's and instead go for the Oreo Klondike sandwiches or my favorite, the Snickers Ice Cream Bars. Tuesday my parents took me out to a wonderful dinner at the Inn at Brookeville Farms as a final family outing where I demolished the bread and butter and still managed to eat an appetizer, entree and dessert.  All the going-away dinners and happy hours will continue the next two weeks.

There are rumors that women tend to gain weight in the Peace Corps but hopefully I will be too hot all the time to think about eating anything but fruit.  As you can probably tell just from this second post, a lot of my blogging will be related to food. 

But on to the other fun things I've been doing. Last weekend I went to the beach where my Uncle Bill helped me take out the Sunfish, a small sailboat that has been in our family since before I was born. We had doubts that the sails were still good and that the rudder wasn't rusty, but as it turned out she was good to go.  But was I?  When I was ten and eleven I spent the summer on Gibson Island on the Chesapeake Bay with my great aunt and uncle.  They were members of the Gibson Island Club and enrolled me in summer camp where we learned to sail Optimists, 420's and Lasers while also taking swimming, tennis and golf lessons.   Luckily for me and my friend Ryan, who I dragged along for the sailing experiment, my sailing lessons stuck with me much better than the golf lessons...  Well sort of.  I was great at getting us down wind and out into the bay but by the time we decided to head back (when we could no longer see the house and the dock)  I had a lot of trouble getting us to sail in the right direction.  Luckily my uncle was out on his Whaler and was able to tow us in then take us out for a Mudslide.

On a side note, when I got back home I wanted to learn how I should have sailed us upwind and the first video that comes up on Google when you search "Sunfish Sailing" is Sunfish Sailing School in the Dominican Republic   It's meant to be!

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Attempting to start a blog... someone make me witty and interesting... quick!

I graduated from Miami University in May of 2008 with three majors, Diplomacy and Foreign Affairs, Spanish, and Latin American Studies. Sounds great but I still had no idea what I wanted to do, and my job search was getting me nowhere. This does not come as a big surprise to any fellow poli sci majors. I have always felt a pull toward travel and volunteer work and the Peace Corps seemed like a great fit but I felt the need to supplement my Bachelor’s with something more. I discovered a great program called Master’s International that allows you to combine Peace Corps service with a Master’s degree. Since I wanted to continue on the international studies track I applied to the two schools that offered the MI program in Political Science, George Mason University and the University of Denver. I was accepted to both GMU and DU. As much as I would have loved to move to Denver it just wasn’t practical since with the MI program you go to school for a year then serve in the Peace Corps for 27 months then go back to school to finish your degree. Moving to Colorado would have meant finding a place to live, furnishing it, leaving for two years then coming back for a semester. George Mason on the other hand meant living at home in Maryland with the rents and commuting to Fairfax. Bad drive but overall the right choice financially. I moved to Peru from January- April 2009 to get some travel, volunteer work and language skills under my belt to help my chances of being accepted into the Peace Corps. When I got back from Peru I had my interview for the Peace Corps and was ‘nominated’. Then came the dreaded medical packet. A million doctor/dentist/lab visits later and I got my clearance. Wait… no I didn’t. They needed more information about that mole I had removed from my arm in 2007. Then I was cleared. Wait no, I wasn’t. What about the time I used an inhaler for field hockey in high school… and the hearing test that said I was deaf in my right ear. Well turns out I don’t have skin cancer or asthma and I can hear just fine. So yes after a year and a half I was cleared. (To those of you considering becoming a PCV this was not the normal time frame, yes it takes a long time, but they put my application on the backburner knowing I had a year of grad school to complete.) So in the meantime, I went through many different phases of wanting to go, then not wanting to go. By the start of summer 2010 I was pretty sure Peace Corps was not right for me. I just wanted to finish my degree and get a job. I started an internship at DAI in Bethesda and was saving up money to move out. Then one day in the middle of June, I got a phone call from Jason at the Peace Corps asking me if I was ready to go. At this point I had already taken out student loans and registered for fall classes. But something about that phone call reminded me of how much I was looking forward to joining the Peace Corps. So I told Jason, “Yes. I’m ready, where to?” He said they had an opening for West Africa that was scheduled to leave in September and a program in Latin America that leaves in July. Wow! July? I told him I had to check with my new job since I was supposed to work until September but that I would prefer Latin America. My boss Helen was very supportive as was everyone else at DAI and I called Jason back and told him Latin America. I had to wait two long weeks to get my invitation and welcome packet to discover I was headed to the Dominican Republic. So here I am with one year of graduate school under my belt ready to start my new life in the Oldest City in the New World!