Returning to Florida

So, it's official: I'm coming back to Florida next Wednesday, October 13th.

It will have been 264 days away from the USA, or a shade under nine months. That's the longest I've ever been out of the country to this point. I'm hoping to triple it pretty soon :)

It's kind of a quick exit from Switzerland, considering I just got back from my trip five days ago, but it made the most sense. I've got to get back to the US to do my Peace Corps medical stuff (dental and physical exams will be free there), and there's nothing really tying me to Switzerland, aside from sentiment. Which is strong, to be sure. It's only starting to dawn on me that I will, in all likelihood, not see any of the people I care about who live in Europe for three years or more. It's more to digest than my metaphorical stomach can handle -- I think it will hit me harder later.

But, yeah, I'm going back to Boca. That's kind of a strange thing, as it's been more than four years since I moved away permanently. Now I'm going to have to reside there for six months. Most people I knew there are gone, either at university or wherever they moved on to after university (though there are some old friends still there, and a couple who are also temporarily staying with parents until whatever transition period they're in expires and they, too, shove off). I'll be living with my dad and brother, which ought to be a pretty good environment.

For my last nine days in Switzerland, I've just got a couple things to take care of -- deregistering as a resident, which should take no more than a couple of hours...and 30 Swiss francs; going to Orientation Day for the military on Wednesday, where they will hopefully dismiss me because of my circumstances (to which end I visited a doctor about my right shoulder's tendency to partially dislocate sometimes, and I got a nice note to show the Army); making a final visit to Tobel; and attending my great aunt's birthday celebration. Oh, and I need to see an optometrist. Aside from that, I just want to see some people, pack in an orderly and leisurely fashion, and not be stressed. It's been an invigorating nine months in Europe, and I'm taking time to reflect on everything that's happened, all the people I've met, the steps forward, what I'm leaving behind, what I'm heading toward, etc., etc.

Deep breath...

!

PC, Update #2: Medical Kit

Soooo, today I finally got back to Zurich after more than four weeks of traveling. It was a fantastic trip, educational on many different levels. You learn just as much about yourself as you do other people/places/cultures when you travel.

Waiting for me on my bed when I walked in the door was my Peace Corps medical kit, which contains all the forms I'm going to have to get filled out and some guides about how to do everything most efficiently. Basically it breaks down into three parts:

• Medical: This includes getting a physical (clinical exam); getting a laboratory evaluation (blood and w/ reports checking for TB, HIV, CBC, Hep B (surface antibody, surface antigen, core antibody), Hep C antibody, G6PD titer, and urinalysis); getting any missing immunizations (Td or Tdap Booster, Polio Booster, MMR #1, MMR #2 booster, Varicella #1, Varicella #2); and providing documentation for all immunizations I've ever had. In addition, and very annoyingly, I have to write a personal statement about any psychological/psychiatric treatment I've received. This is additional stuff, and the only reason it's included is because on the initial Health Status Review, I said I had been to see a psychologist before, like when I was 11. That was just a couple times after my parents divorced, because my dad wanted to make sure everything was all right. And I also have to get my shoulder checked out and diagnosed, since I reported that it has sometimes been dislocated. That might mean X-rays. which would be lame. All t's must be crossed, all i's must be dotted, all documentation must be copied and saved, all lab reports included, and absolutely nothing may be left blank.
  

• Dental: I need to get a general dental evaluation, a periodontal evaluation, and have the dentist check for a specific list of abnormalities. I must also include either a full mouth series of x-rays or a Panorex with bitewing X-rays.
  

• Optometric: I have to have my eyes examined to confirm a prescription, and I have to fill out a form for specific measurements of replacement frames in the event that the glasses I bring with me break or are lost.
  

That's the long and short of it. The medical part will obviously be the most complicated. My situation is also complicated with insurance. My insurance in Switzerland should cover the physical exam. But I'm not sure if it would cover blood analysis and urinalysis. On top of that, the Peace Corps put an addendum in my packet warning me of the perils of getting lab work done in foreign countries, which often do not have the same standards that the US has, and so are often not acceptable. I called my Peace Corps medical review assistant, and he said my best bet, if I'm set on doing it in Switzerland, would be to call the US embassy and see if their medical office has a list of approved laboratories whose results are acceptable by American standards. It's a very pompous position. I mean, this is Switzerland, not Swaziland. But this is their game, so I have to play by their rules.

For the dental, I know that I'm for sure not covered with my insurance here. Luckily, I have learned that there are dentists across the US (members of the International College of Dentists, USA Section Fellows) who volunteer to do the exams and X-rays for Peace Corps Volunteers free of charge. Not only that, but there are half a dozen of them who work within an hour of my home in South Florida. So I think I could get that taken care of without much issue, especially considering I have a healthy mouth and no history of cavities, no fillings, no problems with wisdom teeth, no gum disease. Hopefully that'll be one of those in-and-out procedures.

As for the eye exam, that should also be covered by my insurance in Switzerland, and shouldn't be more than a single-appointment deal.

I have also learned that at VA facilities in the US, some doctors will perform the medical stuff, including the blood analysis and urinalysis, free of charge, as a courtesy from one government organization to another. It's done on a space-available basis, so it's not the same guarantee as going to a private provider. But it's free, and you get the feeling that a publicly funded hospital is going to be less willing to point out (or invent) insignificant abnormalities than a private facility, which profits from your return business. That could also be an option. I'll be looking into that presently.

Writing this out is helpful for me to keep it all straight in my head. When I look at all the information like this, I see that it may be more sensible to go back to the US and take advantage of the free options. I also wouldn't have to deal with the hassle of these different standards in blood tests. Blood tests are the most expensive thing here, and if I have to get multiple tests, it's going to cost big.

So that's what I've got for now. More as the situation develops.

Peace Corps, First Update

So, as I wrote in the last post, I've applied to join the Peace Corps. Here are some of the raw facts about Peace Corps, for those who are unfamiliar or only vaguely familiar with it:

Peace Corps entails 27 months of service overseas, where a volunteer works in and with a community in one of six program areas: education, youth and community development, health, business and information and communications technology, agriculture, and environment. The work is not paid -- it is voluntary. The Peace Corps does, however, provide volunteers with a living allowance that is adjusted to the standard of living wherever they serve; they pay for the flight to and from the work destination; they provide and pay for any medical care necessary during the service. Peace Corps is strictly non-military, and has nothing whatsoever to do with United Nations Peacekeepers. You have to be an American citizen to serve. You do not get to choose where you serve, but you can indicate geographic preferences. Ultimately, the determining factor is what skills you have and where those skills can best be utilized.

So those are some facts. Back in June I began my application. I filled out the pages about my whole background, I got recommendations from Mrs. Legrand (my 12th grade lit teacher and NHS supervisor), from Mimi Miller (good friend who has known me forever), and from Craig Lancto (my supervisor at NESA in Washington, DC). I had to write a couple essays, and then fill out a long questionnaire about my health status and history. Soon afterwards, I got a packet of various forms to fill out -- I got myself fingerprinted for the security check, filled out a National Agency Check form, sent my college transcripts, and also completed a couple other forms asking about my skills and experience. I had the interview with my Peace Corps recruiter on August 16th.

The process with Peace Corps goes something like this: You submit all those application materials, then you have an interview with a recruiter. If, after reviewing your application and conducting the interview, the recruiter thinks you are qualified to move forward, he/she Nominates you for service. Nomination means that you are continuing on the track to eventual Peace Corps service, but it's not the same thing as an actual invitation to serve. With your nomination, you learn the general type of work that you will do, you get a (tentative) timeframe for departure, and they tell you what geographic region you will (tentatively) serve in.

My nomination right now is to work in Secondary Education/Teaching English as a Foreign Language, and the program would be in Asia, tentatively beginning in early April 2011. Peace Corps currently has programs operating in six countries in the region they define as "Asia" -- those countries are China, Mongolia, Indonesia, Cambodia, Thailand, and the Philippines. So that's what I'm looking forward to at the moment: 27 months serving in one of those six countries, beginning in April 2011, which is about six-and-a-half months away.

Now, after you've been nominated, you have to be cleared medically and legally to serve. Medical clearance is the longest part of the process. You need to get clearance from a physician, dentist, and optometrist, as well as any specialists. You have to get blood and urine analysis. You need immunizations. You need dental x-rays. You need to get your sight and hearing checked. Anything that comes up as "abnormal" must be taken care of before medical clearance is granted. If there's anything wrong with your mouth -- cavities, wisdom teeth, etc., it has to be taken care of before you go. So, if it's not done smoothly, or there are irregularities, clerical errors, and/or miscommunications, the process can get very messy. Hopefully for me it will be a smooth ride, because I'm 22 and healthy, with no special medical conditions that would need accommodation.

My situation right now is somewhat complicated because I live in Switzerland and my insurance is here, so I may have to do parts or all of the medical clearance stuff here. I will not be insured in the US until January, when my dad will be able to put me back on his policy as a child under 26, thanks to the health care reform. I had originally thought to go back to the US in early October to do the whole medical clearance business, but without insurance it would be too expensive. Apparently you can get the medical examinations done at a VA hospital for no charge -- so that would be an option in the States. Still, I think I'm going to have to stay in Switzerland an extra month to take care of this stuff. At the moment I just don't have enough information about what specifically is being asked for and what my insurance will cover.

So, after you are granted medical clearance, then the Peace Corps can decide whether to actually give you an invitation to serve. You are considered for available positions and compared with other candidates -- but I've been told by my recruiter not to worry about this part of the process. The great majority of those who are nominated and cleared to serve are invited to serve. When you are invited, then you finally know specifically what country you will serve in and what date you leave. Then it's up to you to accept or not.

I'm now at the outset of the medical clearance process. I want to sort of keep a record of what happens throughout the rest of the application process in this blog, so that's what I'll try to do.

News Update

Well, it's been a really, really, really, ...really, really..., really long time since I updated here. It's not that I haven't been writing -- actually I'm probably writing more now than I ever have, but it's just been by hand in notebooks, rather than online. Still, I haven't forgotten about this blog, and now perhaps I'll recalibrate the purpose. When you split up everything I have to say, it can all be divided into categories of things I want to share and things that I want to keep private. This has got to be the public record.

So, to catch up anyone who hasn't known what's been happening with me the last few months...
Towards the end of July I went to Tobel, in northeastern Switzerland, to help with the art festival called Tatort Komturei, which was in its second year of existence. I was there for the two weeks before the Vernissage (opening day) to help with the myriad tasks that needed doing, and I remained through the end of the festival, which lasted three weeks. I was also taking care of the Pilgrim Hostel, responsible for keeping the place spick-and-span. We had some pilgrims, but most of the guests were either artists or friends/family of artists who were connected with the Tatort. So, in all, I was there for five weeks.

Afterwards, I returned to Zurich for about ten days or so before setting off on a month-long journey in Germany and Ireland. I'm writing this from Dublin, where I've had to stay an extra day because of airplane trouble. Tomorrow I'm flying to Berlin. At the outset, I used ridesharing to get to Munich, where I stayed for about five days with Michael, my friend and Couchsurfing Host Extraordinaire. I flew to Dublin with Ryanair, where I stayed for a week. I stayed with three different Couchsurfing hosts (or sets of hosts) -- the first two days with Piotr, a Polish fellow who's been in Ireland for a good long while; the second pair of days with Therese and Jonathan, a couple who were really great hosts with a kindred streak of nerdiness; then I stayed three nights with Carina, Maite, and Pedro, which is where I got the first real taste of "partying" in Dublin.

After that week, I went to Cork to spend time with my grandmother and my aunt Ita. It was wonderful to catch up with them, to learn about my Irish family, to talk and talk and talk. I spent a day with my uncle Maurice, and I briefly met my dad's cousin Ted to pick up a family tree tracing the Curtin quarter of my lineage. Made trips to Cobh and Kinsale (Cobh was the most important point of departure for Irish emigrants in the 19th century, and the last place Titanic ever picked up passengers -- it was very absorbing to be there). After five or six days of home-cooked meals, doting relatives, and fascinating exchanges, I took the bus to Galway. I stayed there two nights with Astra and his flatmates, who were a lot of fun. On Sunday, I took the bus back to Dublin, where I've been since.

Meanwhile, I've applied to join the Peace Corps. I will write about this in a separate post.

Telling Lies All Day Long

"A writer falsifies himself both intentionally and unintentionally. Intentionally, because the accidental qualities of words constantly tempt and frighten him away from his true meaning. He gets an idea, begins trying to express it, and then, in the frightful mess of words that generally results, a pattern begins to form itself more or less accidentally. It is not by any means the pattern he wants, but it is at any rate not vulgar or disagreeable; it is "good art". He takes it, because "good art" is a more or less mysterious gift from heaven, and it seems a pity to waste it when it presents itself. Is not anyone with any degree of mental honesty conscious of telling lies all day long, both in talking and in writing, simply because lies will fall into artistic shape when truth will not?"

- George Orwell (1940, "New Words")



Something resonates in this idea. Over the years I've become better at picking out the embellishments in stories. Little things, not exactly lies, but not exactly the truth either. When a guy says he waited half an hour instead of the actual fifteen minutes. When people recount stories to demonstrate how witty they were in some situation. When a woman tells you that was the best orgasm she ever had.

(Actually, they always mean that last one when they tell me)


(...I wish)

Little lies make for a better story.

But beyond that, the quote resonates because I know I am guilty of this kind of lying. Writing something out, finding my words take a certain shape that isn't quite what I wanted to say. But what the heck, it sounds pretty good to me -- I'll just go with this idea. It may be more interesting or incisive this way.

Which isn't at all to say that I never feel I've successfully expressed myself, or that I agree 100% with Orwell's opinion (which doesn't seem fully serious). It's just that there are certain topics and certain moments that language isn't equipped to handle -- or else my mastery of it isn't complete enough to achieve what I originally intend. I find the quote very stimulating. It calls for self-examination.

A thought on time

Usually, I think about time the way everyone else thinks about it. Right now I'm eating. 30 minutes ago I was urinating. Yesterday I went to class. Three weeks ago I was in Germany. Six months ago I was graduating. A year ago I was doing an internship in Washington. Linear. The present moment is a dot on a timeline, moving from left to right, from the direction of the past to the direction of the future. Things that happened yesterday are closer to the present than things that happened a week ago.

Then other times I have a different idea of time. All points in the past and the future are equally distant from the present. The picture of this would be a circle with its centerpoint. The centerpoint is the present, the ring is my past and future. They never touch, yet clearly the present resides within that ring, never to escape, never to get any closer or farther away. Why does this thought come to me? Because I often reflect on things in the past, and they all seem to just clump together at times. Really, what is the difference between something that happened a year ago and something that happened two years ago? It's gone now, it already happened. Things can be occurring, or they can not be occurring. Everything not occurring is past or future (or fantasy). And contemplating the future is much more what triggers this thought in me than contemplating the past.

For example, I think about how things were my last semester of college. I was well aware that I would leave Florida on a certain date, go visit my brother on a certain date, go back to Florida, go to Switzerland, take visits in Europe, make visits in Europe. Yet they all seemed equally far away -- that is to say they weren't happening at present. Likewise, while I was experiencing them, I felt a keen awareness that soon they would cease to occur and be part of the past, and then it would be like no time had passed at all between when I was in my apartment anticipating my journey and when I was in my bed reflecting on it. Twinkle, snap, flash, and six months are gone. Friends would say to me, "I'll miss you! I hope you arrive well! I'll see you in __ weeks/months!" I started replying, "I'm already there, and we're already seeing each other again," because I knew that when I arrived and when I saw them again, it would be like no time had passed. Because there is only the present.

Other times, I think this is a silly concept. Of course time is linear. Yesterday is closer than three weeks ago. To prove it, I can much more easily detail what exactly I did and thought yesterday than what I did and thought three Sundays ago. I'm sure I've forgotten entire days and weeks, maybe even months of my life. I can't imagine how much data I've lost; giant holes in my mnemonic timeline, knowing generally the course of things and forgetting every detail, every conversation, every emotion and insight that felt so meaningful at the time.

But then there are days that I do remember, conversations and feelings I recall with great clarity. Even certain moments of absolutely no significance other than the fact that I told myself, "I'll probably forget about this in a few weeks." I never forgot them, because I always thought about forgetting them. Simple images -- sitting in front of the television screen in my aunt Breda's house in Ireland, seeing some shirtless farmers working with hay from the train in Bavaria, jumping into my bunkbed with my pajamas on as a four-year-old. And of course, all those memories of actually significant events. Some things that happened many years ago feel much closer and fresher than things that happened yesterday. So the line is bent, broken, diced into little points and scattered like water vapor in a cloud. And then my concept of time looks like the picture below on the right.

There in the middle is the present, and around it is the cloud of memories, the cloud of anticipation, the cloud comprising all the points of time and experience, real and imagined. Some are so very close to touching the present, you can't even see the cracks between them. And some are so far on the periphery, so far from the present, that they fade into obscurity and cannot be distinguished from the blankness; they might as well never have happened, for all their bearing on the present. And yet the most beautiful thing of all is that if you stare quite hard and close at the point in the middle, you will see that the shades of grey around it fade away. If you concentrate hard enough on the present, that cloud of time around it will disappear. And perhaps that's something to consider.

This last model/graphic is intriguing for me. It tells me time, as humans experience it, is not linear, but it does exist. It exists because our pasts and futures influence us. And yet the present is all that matters. Or at least it can be, if you focus on it.

Cheesy Ending Syndrome

I was just browsing along some stories of amateur writers online, and something occurred to me that had been swimming just below my conscious grasp for many years. Much of the writing of our generation is infected with Cheesy Ending Syndrome (CES). I'm speaking particularly of personal stories, accounts of important life experiences. The most common reason anybody writes such stories is that they are requested as part of application processes for college, jobs, internships, etc. You know, some position for which there is a lot of competition asks you to describe an important moment in your life. It's a test of how well you can write and a crude, counterproductive way of gaining a window to your character. I say crude and counterproductive because, as everyone who has ever written one of these essays knows, at the end of the writing process, there is little left that resembles actual life experience.

During my personal college application hell, I wrote an essay I was convinced would blow people away. The prompt was something vague and uninspiring -- something like, "share an important experience" or "describe an event in your life that has made you who you are". There is a formula to answer such queries, distilled long ago when students and job applicants were first asked such rubbish. You are supposed to tell some story about your past in which you faced a new and/or challenging circumstance, personally or professionally. You are supposed to describe the flash of insight during which one aspect of Reality was laid bare to your virgin mind or heart, and you go on to detail how that experience and insight have made you into such a better or more complete human being, and how much you care about this or that issue, and how dedicated you are to something now.

These were more or less the lines along which my essay proceeded. I went to Hungary, witnessed rampant homelessness, had an encounter with a homeless girl, was shaken up, lost a piece of my youthful naiveté, realized I wanted to do something to fight homelessness. Except it was five hundred and fifty words, narrative, and well-written. But cheesy as a fondue dinner.

The point of these essays is to build yourself up, show that you're a person of intelligence, depth, and character. That was the point of my story. But after slaving away at it for many, many hours over the course of a week, I was left with a document so polished and shiny that, looking back on it, all I can see is my own, fraudulent reflection.

Because let's get real: I had an experience that affected me and that caused me to contemplate for a long time afterwards. But it didn't happen in this dream setting, and it didn't happen all at once. It didn't happen in a perfect narrative form, and it didn't fundamentally change me and inspire me to be an upstanding moral crusader forever-and-ever-amen.

I know it may be a stretch to apply my own experience to everyone else's writings, but I just can't bring myself to take seriously these exaggerated stories following the same, trite blueprint: You had a tough experience, and then in a blinding moment of Dostoevskian clarity, your whole world was changed and you were left a more complete person. ...yes, yes, I'm sure you were. NEXT! It's really just an extension of every cheesy ending we see in Hollywood films. Character is one way, character faces major challenge, character acquires depth and wisdom.

But here's the fact: Life continues, and we are never perfected. We are shaped by hundreds of small experiences every day of every week. There is no silver bullet that cures immaturity. When you read past the end of every essay with Cheesy Ending Syndrome, looking more closely at the reality, you see that we still face challenges and lapses of character, moral conflicts, moments of selfishness or naiveté.

Yet as a society we are obsessed with the happy, cheesy ending. How utterly boring it must be to read over dozens or hundreds of application essays, the vast majority of which arise the same hackneyed template. Real life is far more interesting -- it's choppy and grey and endlessly inventive. I'm beginning to think that universities and employers request cheesy essays so they can more easily separate them from the people who have the initiative and originality to write something that is actually interesting.

Digression/Aside: If there were a law against composing cheesy endings, probably every sports columnist would be in jail alongside most romantic writers. Sportswriters love to tell stories of growth and maturity. It's usually just when you read that a certain athlete has finally set his priorities straight or shed his troubled past that you hear they've gotten arrested or tested positive for this or that substance. And shame on those romantic writers for print and screen that truncate the story just as the couple gets together. All obstacles overcome, they are free to live their life happily ever after. Is it any wonder the divorce rate is so high when people are fed such an infantile caricature of human love and companionship? End of Digression/Aside