One more week

Next Monday ( November 2nd) at 6:15 am CST, my plane leaves for Philadelphia for "staging". Staging, beginning at 12:15 pm EST on November 2nd, is an orientation for the Peace Corps and will include talks regarding the history of the Peace Corps, risk management, and policies. The talks will come to a close around 7:00 pm EST. On November 3rd, we will be given our State Department passports and, I think, our Kenyan work visas. We will then hop in a bus (or buses) and make our way to JFK International Airport. We depart JFK for Kenya that evening, connecting in Zurich around 7:00 am Zurich time.

I'm excited about starting my adventure, but I'm more excited about meeting the people who will be started a similar adventure. There will be around 40 to 45 other trainees in Philadelphia who will be with me until January 6, 2010. I'm so eager to learn more about this select group of individuals. Everyone in my training class will be working in education; some will be chemistry teachers, some math teachers, some biology, some physics, and some will be deaf educators. I'm still unsure on exactly what I will be doing. My invitation said I would be in "Secondary Math Education," but the day before my assignment was made, my placement officer asked if I would be comfortable with using sign language as part of my job. I'm not sure why they would ask me that and then not put me in deaf education.

Maybe I'm a special case. I have three years of teaching mathematics and have a conversational ability in American Sign Language. Deaf students will still be required to learn math, so maybe I will be helping out in this way. Only time will tell what I will actually be doing; fortunately it is just around the corner.

I will definitely have reliable internet access from now until I leave from JFK on November 3rd, so I will definitely make sure to update the blog until then.

Until next time. . ..

First Post

My name is Beau. I'm a 24 year old PhD student at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, Arkansas. I have studied math all through my college career (BS and MS in Applied Mathematics), so I'm kind of a big nerd. I am currently in the process of joining the Peace Corps. My Peace Corps Timeline is to the right. I would love to teach high school math somewhere in Africa. Hopefully I will be in Africa in six or seven short months.

This is my first blog. I'm not usually a blogger, but I think I need to start getting use to it if I'm going to be in Africa for a while. I have a big test tomorrow, so I will end this now.

As Peace Corps updates come up, I will post them.

Good night

Oh, and by the way: I have a strange infatuation with Africa. I have been in love with Africa for as long as I can remember.