John's Next Step

I’m going to give notice to my boss and my company on Tuesday.  As if this decision is not really real enough, it is about to become significantly more real this week.  Hmmm, this is looking like a philosophical posting – readers beware. In life each person has the choice to: pretend there is no personal control, changes are all fated. try to stay the same and not change,  try to take complete control of the changes, or  make peace that our lives change by a combination of personal choice and outside forces.   I never remember believing in the first choice.  I was naive enough to live for a time as if the second one was true.  I still MAINLY act as if the third one is true despite overwhelming evidence over last few years.  One might think that recent events would have already been proof enough that this is not possible – but I've got a hard head and a stubborn streak.  I think that going into the Peace Corps will reinforc...

10 weeks.  In about 10 weeks I’ll board a plane in St. Louis with about 100 pounds of stuff and leave behind a packed up house as I take another step in this life.  First stop is the staging city, Philadelphia or New York, and then on to Ghana. I’ve made some progress since my last post and I’ve done more thinking about what I’ve signed up to do. Medical Clearance: I’M MEDICALLY CLEARED!!!!  A big step in the process. I received medical clearance after submitting my last blood test results.  The results indicated that I still need to take the iron and so I’m not going to blood one last time before Ghana. I always felt a deep satisfaction out of donating blood even though on the surface the pain of the needle in the arm and blah feeling for a few days after was never pleasant.  However, I see now that giving blood every 56 days was a little more than I could handle.  As crazy at it seems on the surface I was looking forward to a completely g...