Monday, July 24, 2006

Day 2 - something random

So today was my first full day of pre-service staging. We sat in meetings for 4 hours, and it turns out that even when orientations are with lovely people and discussing something you're super excited about -- they're still so boring that you contemplate killing yourself with papercuts.

But, here's something super random: I met a guy who went to Berkeley. I told him about Davis, and he mentioned that he had been out there and gone to a certain rural social event. It turns out that we were both band officers, him at Cal and me at Davis, and that two years ago I had given him and two other people a tour of out new bandroom! How funny is that? We had actually met before two years ago in Davis, and now we're going to South Africa. Further proof that the universe is smiling on my little adventure.

After meetings we got some dinner and wandered downtown philly for a few hours. It was really nice. There's so much history back east, just all over the place and the night was lovely, and there were fireflys! The east coast and southern people made fun of me, but hey -- fireflies!!

So far so good. Tomorrow: shots. Yay.

Day 1.5 in Philly

Well, I can't get blogspot to work at the moment, so I'll just post here and cut and paste later. Today is my first official day of peace corps staging. I'm sitting in a hotel in the historic district of Philadelphia, getting ready to go check out a few touristy things and then head to lunch with a bunch of my training class whom I've previously met online.

Last night was excellent, Nicolette and I got into town at about 11pm, I met my roommate for the next few days -- who is wonderful, and then we headed out to find something to eat. We discovered this cool irish pub with a kitchen thats open until 1 only a few blocks away and sat outside just people watcing for a few hours. Philly has one hell of a nightlife, even at 1am on a Sunday people were all over the place. Actually, its a lot like New York, only in miniature.

I was so terrified the night before last. I was having panic attacks, and freaking out over nothing, and breaking down. But now -- now I am so excited I can't believe it. This is going to be great!!!!!!

Thursday, July 13, 2006

10 days and counting. My goodness, I don't think anything at all is going to really sink in until I've gotten on the plane. And even then, who knows? I'm so excited, and so terrified, and so just completely in shock.

For anybody who wants to send me letters (and please do!!) my address for the first couple of months will be:

Rebecca Miller, PCT
Peace Corps
PO Box 9536
Pretoria 0001
South Africa

As a warning, letters can take up to 6-9 weeks to get from the US to South Africa, so you might want to put a date on it. But please, mail! I don't want to feel too out of touch with all the good gossip.