I just recently received in the mail my medical kit for the Peace Corps last Friday, about a week after my official nomination. It arrived in a large envelope, and contained many, many forms. True to what any preliminary documentation states, anything you marked “Yes” to on your medical checklist during the application phase will have follow-up documentation in this kit.
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After almost two weeks of trying out Aikido, there are a few things about it that stand out in my mind. First, the obvious: it is very, very different from Taekwondo. Whereas Taekwondo uses many strikes and kicks, Aikido uses (from what I’ve seen) no strikes and certainly no kicks at all. Aikido is all about grappling, joint locks, and throws. And falling. Lots and lots of falling.
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So, I’m totally psyched right now, ’cause I just got off the phone with an official at the Boston office of the Peace Corps and woo! - I’ve been Nominated to a Computer Science program in sub-Saharan Africa!
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Recognizing that it’s going to eat into my social life and add a degree of complexity to a rather simple, enjoyable schedule, I’ve decided to follow a path I’ve been meaning to trek for over a year now: I enrolled at a local dojo for training in Aikido.
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