Getting Ready...

Hello and I hope your New Years has started off well. I've been busy trying to get things ready around my home. You may be asking "Ready? Ready for what?"

I mentioned way back when I started this blog I was in the Peace Corp (Niger, West Africa) and had to return due to an injury. I'm now getting geared up to reapply. I'm 98% recovered from my knee surgery and I'm pretty certain I'll be ready to reapply for the Peace Corp in March. I'll be seeing my Orthopeadic Surgeon next month and he'll need to release me before I can return.

It's a pretty big ordeal to prepare for the Peace Corp. Your away for 27 months, which means you need to make sure your home, finances and pets are all in order...and I've added one more thing I want to make sure is in order before I leave....I'm teaching myself French. Most of the places the Peace Corp send Peace Corp Volunteers are French speaking, so I decided to try to make it easier on myself and try to learn the language before I leave. At this point if some said to me "Parlez-vous francais?" I could respond "Un peu." In other words "Do you speak French?" " A little."

I'm coming along pretty good. I have quite a few resources...A Learn to Speak French CD-ROM, French for Dummies with audio CD, French in 10 Minutes a Day workbook, and of course internet sources/websites. I've been able to study daily...for the most part. It's coming along. Though I do see one part making it a little difficult to learn French; I dont have a French speaking partner to bounce my new language off of. In Niger, I was learning Zarma at a pretty quick pace and I realized it probably was due to being immersed in the language, living it.

So, I'm doing what I can. When I go through the self-serve checkout's I select French as the language. Whatever I can do to "hear" the language. If your reading this blog and you have any suggestions, I would appreciate an email.

As I'm preparing and going through the application process, I'll be blogging. I hope you find my future entries both interesting and informative. Take care and God bless...