Inauguration! (Scott)

So this is it: the inaugural blog...it better be a good one.

Hello, my name is Scott and I'm creating this blog so my wife and I can keep our friends and family informed of all the twists and turns that are certainly headed our way during our two-year stint in the Peace Corps.

First, a little about us. We were both born and raised in Southern California and we are recent graduates of UC Irvine. We met while studying abroad during our junior year at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. Three years later we were married. Ashlee's background is Psychology & Sociology while I am PoliSci through and through.

We've been kicking around the idea of joining the Peace Corps for a couple of years now -- and we officially started our applications more than a year ago. Our reasons for joining are simple: the world is a big place and we want to see and experience as much of it as we can. We both feel that many of the problems plaguing the world are due to basic misunderstandings -- and we would like to do what we can to clear these misunderstandings away.

Like I said, we've been in the process of applying to the Peace Corps for over a year now. Back in early summer, we received a nomination from the Peace Corps for service in Central Asia beginning in May 2008. It took us several months to complete all the necessary health and dental reviews and now our package is in DC in the hands of our placement officer -- where it has been for a few months now.

We've both been getting a little antsy lately because May is rapidly approaching and we have not had any word from the Peace Corps regarding our placement. Until yesterday, that is.

That's right, yesterday we received a call from our placement officer. He told us that our package looks great and he wanted to know if we'd be able to leave next month! Needless to say, it took us a bit by surprise. Here we were wondering when we'd get the letter hopefully giving us a May departure date, and we got a call asking if we wanted to leave in a matter of weeks!

I explained to our placement officer that we've been planning for a May departure and we'd really like to stay here in California until at least after my brother's wedding in early May. I was worried that telling him no to his March departure date would reflect negatively on us -- but he assured us it wouldn't and he will go ahead and process our paperwork for the next available date after March 29th.

Basically, as it stands, our placement officer is getting our paperwork in order for a departure date in the first week of June. He will not be able to provide us any specifics regarding our location until probably early March. We are still slated for one of four Central Asian countries: Mongolia, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, and Turkmenistan. We are also still set for me to be a secondary school English teacher and Ashlee to be a health volunteer.

So -- we got what we wanted...sort of. We heard from our placement officer and we know that we are still being considered and it sounds about 90% certain that we're leaving in June. Until we get our invitation listing our exact country of service and date of departure, it's still a waiting game...