I go on binges. No, not the alcoholic kind, I had my fill of that back in college and I learned real fast just how not fun those can be. No, I’m talking about intellectual binges, the kind where your mind grapples around some topic and doesn’t let go until it’s had its fill.

I never know when they’re going to hit, and I never know just what they’re going to be. All I know is that when they hit, I become so absorbed in whatever it is I’m binging on that lots of other things that really ought to warrant a degree of my attention get pushed to the wayside until I’m through. Then, after I’ve had my fill, I may not think about what it was I was binging on again for weeks, or even months.
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Okay, that happened a lot faster than I thought it would. Only two days ago I was medically cleared for Peace Corps service, and just this morning I found that I’ve just passed my Placement Review. I’ve gotten so used to waiting weeks and even months between updates from them, that to receive two application updates in such a short amount of time is almost PC overload ;).

In a good way, of course.

So, according to the prescribed timeline, after a Nominee passes all of their required clearances (dental, medical, legal, placement), an Invitation is sent. Of course, this could take weeks to months to arrive. So what will I do while I wait to find out where I’m going?

Well, the mountains have snow on them, Bolton has a new quad lift and great woods skiing, and I’ve got a season’s pass. I think I’ll spend as much time cooling off on the slopes as possible before I go and bask in the sub-Saharan sun.

I just found out today that I’ve been medically cleared for Peace Corps service! w00t! Not much else to say about it, really, except that I’m psyched… this is definitely one of the bigger hurdles as I understand it in the Nominee’s obstacle course. Not that I thought there would be anything to hold me up, I really am quite healthy, ya know (knock on wood!).

Anyway, all that’s left, according to the timeline I’ve been following, is Placement. As I understand it, someone in the Peace Corps will review my application, qualifications, and limitations / restrictions, and determine if there’s someplace they can use me. Given what I was told about the lack of available talent in Computer Science throughout the Peace Corps, the likelihood of them not finding a suitable position for me is close to nil. However, I have entirely no idea how long this will take; I figure it will take anywhere between one and seven months, based on my understanding that I’ll receive an invitation no later than about two months before I leave, and my earliest availability date is September 2006.

So we’ll see… it could be a while before my next procedural entry in this thread, but I’ll try to keep it updated to some degree in the mean time with other stuffs going-on.