Feeling Withdrawn

It's really scary to see on my toolkit that my application has been withdrawn, but I knew it was coming. Our recruiter e-mailed us yesterday to say that he was going to withdraw it because it might look bad for our applications to sit idle for so long since they can't be submitted until May 5 with placements to come in middle to late May. He will reactivate our applications just before he can submit them to DC for couples' placement. This doesn't make a lot of sense to me since there is nothing we could be doing to keep our applications from sitting idle (if it were up to us, we'd take a placement today!) and since it seems better for us to have applied early, but I think our recruiter knows what he's doing and is trying to help us out.

Paul still hasn't received his toolkit login information in the mail and is still waiting for two letters of recommendation that are supposed to be done over spring break, which is next week. So, those two things are really all there is for us (him) to do between now and May 5.

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Interview

On Tuesday night, there was a Peace Corps informational meeting led by our recruiter. Although it was geared to people who just wanted to find out a little bit about the Peace Corps, Paul and I still went in hopes that we might get to see the same video that we saw a year and a half ago that really got us excited about joining. :) We did see the video and I got to scope out the recruiter before I had to meet him for my interview the next day (Paul had met him earlier in the day at the University's Career Expo). Two of my favorite professors, also RPCVs, were there to tell a little bit about their experiences and answer questions. Hearing about our recruiter's experience with his wife in Tonga, hearing more from Dr. Quinn and Dr. Shapiro, and seeing that cheesy (but very compelling!) video again really made us positive that we really were doing the right thing.

That boost of Peace Corps energy was really fortunate because that night we still had to fill out or skill addenda, our agency check form, our couples questionnaire, get all our other paperwork (transcripts, CPR/First Aid Certification, resumés, etc.) together and ready for tomorrow's interview, and we wanted to review the list of potential interview questions I found on the
peacecorps_2 Yahoo! group. The addenda in particular took a long time to complete, but we finished it all and were ready for our interviews the next day.

On Wednesday, Paul had his interview first and mine was to immediately follow. A few minutes before my interview was supposed to start, Paul came out to get me so we could have our "couple's interview." It really wasn't an interview--our recruiter just asked if we had any questions and then answered the few that I had and then he gave us each a pen and highlighter. Paul then left and I began my interview. He first reviewed a lot of my application responses like the date I can leave, whether or not I have any intelligence involvement, whether there's anything I'd like to tell him before they run my background check, etc. He then asked a lot of interview questions, typed my responses as quickly as he could on his laptop, responded with, "OK..." after each response, and then asked the next question; that was a little bit unnerving since he never commented on my responses, but he was still very friendly and kind. The interview took just about an hour.

I think one of the weird things about the interview was that I never got a definite "I'm nominating you!" or "You really didn't do very well on this interview." He just said that the next step is that he has to write up a two-page summary for each of us in which he discusses our interview responses, what he knows about us as people, etc. and those (not our entire applications) go to a placement officer in DC. However, he can't send those along until the end of April to be reviewed in May for the April, May, and June quarterly placements. This is when we hoped to leave anyway, so my fingers are securely crossed that we'll get one of those spots. The recruiter said that for the January-March placements, there were 150 couples and only 100 spots, so the 50 that didn't get placed have top priority for the April-June placements (if they are still interested). However, there will also be far more placements for April-June because the majority of the programs (particularly teaching ESL programs) leave from about May-August.

All the circles on my Toolkit are now officially checked, so now we just wait for two months until our names and applications can be passed on...

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Interview Questions

• Why the Peace Corps?
• Give an example of a leadership position you have had.
• What do you do to relax or deal with a stressful situation?
• Is there anything that might stop you from completing your 27-month service?
• When was a time that you disagreed with a person? How did you deal with it? Did you speak to him or her about it directly?
• Have you ever had to take leadership in an unstructured setting? How did you deal with that?
• How do you feel about any of the following:
  • Living somewhere with no running water or no electricity?
  • Living away from other Peace Corps volunteers?
  • Being away from home and family?
  • Having to eat different foods?
  • Being in a "fishbowl" where you're constantly watched by everyone?
  • Being in a country that has alcohol as a key drink?
  • Being in a country with no alcohol?
• How long have you been away from home before? What do you miss most about being away from your family?
• How do you feel about being in a country with strict gender roles? How do you think you could deal with that?
• Are you a vegetarian?
• What do you think will be your greatest challenge acquiring a new language?
• Have you ever had Spanish? How able do you think you would be to use the Spanish you currently know?
• Do you have a religious preference of the country you go to? Would you want particular church services?
• Tell about an experience when you were able to transfer some knowledge or skill to someone who was different from yourself. What did you learn about your interpersonal skills from that experience?

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Two Years in One Bag?

While a longer post about my interview will come later, I also want to use the blog as a way to write down links or other information so I can remember them for later. Today I came across One Bag which is a website dedicated to getting all of your belongings into one carryon-sized bag no matter what the trip or how long. It's a website dedicated to organization and efficiency--I'm there!

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Done for a while.

I interviewed with the Peace Corps recruiter on campus today and as far as I can tell, things went really well. He seems like a genuinely nice guy. He asked me a series of questions about my cultural experiences, most of which I had heard before (thanks Holly :)), so I was sort of prepared. It really sounds like he likes us and it's just up to the couple's placement office (and the thirteen other levels of bureaucracy that we'll have to endure). Holly's interview is right now, so I think I'll skip class to see how it went.

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Seriously? More Paperwork?

It is still really early in the process, but I can already see where things are headed. We filled out our addenda tonight along with a couple's questionnaire. These seem like pretty simple things, but the addenda were especially time consuming, plus some of it was included on our original applications, so there's the pressure of finding new ways to say the same things again. Aside from these minor complaints, it is nice to be sort of finished with all of the preliminary stuff and ready for the interview tomorrow.

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