I am finally going to attempt to put some of my entries from my Peace Corps journals on my blog. I have nine journals from two years of service, so don't worry, I won't be putting all of them up (you're welcome). I served in Guinea from 2004 - 2006 and have yet to reread an entire journal, so I'm a little hesitant to commit to this experiment. I'm mostly scared of having to relive the entire two years and have my feelings of having been an inadequate volunteer confirmed and/or be bored to tears by my own overanalyzation of every aspect of my entire service. I will undoubtedly heavily edit the content of some entries in order to spare myself the humiliation, to protect the names of the innocent, and to hopefully cut it down to topics I think would be of interest to the general reader. I completely recognize that this is a mostly selfish endeavor, and that six years after it ended, I'm probably the only one who remains interested in my own stories about my service. But being that I still hope to write a book someday once I win the lottery, I thought it would be good to already have some of it typed up and to add in my memories and commentary before things get even fuzzier in my head than they already are. I also have a serious fear of these journals being lost to a fire, flood, or general carelessness, so it would make me feel a bit better knowing some of the content is at least saved elsewhere. And who knows, maybe some poor soon-to-depart volunteer will stumble across this and find it...useful? Terrifying? Pathetic? Confirmation that they don't want to do this?
With that being said, read on.....
December 3, 2003
11:40pm - Somerville, MA
So it's official, one month until I leave, assuming my departure date hasn't changed. I am anxiously awaiting my packet of information telling me where I'm going when I leave and all of that jazz. Part of me wants it to be Philly and part of me wants it to be DC. We'll see!
I'm somehow feeling a lot less nervous and a lot more excited at the one-month-to-go mark than I was back on November 3rd. I don't know why that was, although I speculate it may have something to do with the fact that I was much more aware of the one month mark approaching than I was of the two month mark. I also think hearing from Jason [a friend who joined the Peace Corps just before me and served in Tonga*] and hearing what an amazing time he is having has put my mind at ease. Well, "put my mind at ease" being a relative term. I do feel a lot less anxious recently, so that's good. I'm getting really excited for all of the things I have going on in December like the Simon and Garfunkel concert, Megan coming to visit, NY, Martina coming, my going away party, etc. I'm excited to stop working, although I forget how much I'm going to miss all of those guys. I'm also just excited to begin this new adventure. Meeting a whole group of new and exciting people is so...exciting, and knowing that I'm probably going to meet some life long friends is so weird...knowing this, but having yet to meet them. I'm excited for the training, I'm excited for the new culture, the new language, the new people....everything. Sure, I'm scared as hell too, but as I do more research and read more, those fears are slowly diminishing, or maybe it's that my focus is changing. Either way, I'm very excited.
*Note: Anything put in brackets like this [...] is my commentary/explanations in present day and not part of the original entry.
With that being said, read on.....
December 3, 2003
11:40pm - Somerville, MA
So it's official, one month until I leave, assuming my departure date hasn't changed. I am anxiously awaiting my packet of information telling me where I'm going when I leave and all of that jazz. Part of me wants it to be Philly and part of me wants it to be DC. We'll see!
I'm somehow feeling a lot less nervous and a lot more excited at the one-month-to-go mark than I was back on November 3rd. I don't know why that was, although I speculate it may have something to do with the fact that I was much more aware of the one month mark approaching than I was of the two month mark. I also think hearing from Jason [a friend who joined the Peace Corps just before me and served in Tonga*] and hearing what an amazing time he is having has put my mind at ease. Well, "put my mind at ease" being a relative term. I do feel a lot less anxious recently, so that's good. I'm getting really excited for all of the things I have going on in December like the Simon and Garfunkel concert, Megan coming to visit, NY, Martina coming, my going away party, etc. I'm excited to stop working, although I forget how much I'm going to miss all of those guys. I'm also just excited to begin this new adventure. Meeting a whole group of new and exciting people is so...exciting, and knowing that I'm probably going to meet some life long friends is so weird...knowing this, but having yet to meet them. I'm excited for the training, I'm excited for the new culture, the new language, the new people....everything. Sure, I'm scared as hell too, but as I do more research and read more, those fears are slowly diminishing, or maybe it's that my focus is changing. Either way, I'm very excited.
*Note: Anything put in brackets like this [...] is my commentary/explanations in present day and not part of the original entry.
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