Two weeks from today I will be in California visiting Jim and Barb Eychner, Returned Peace Corps Volunteer friends from West Virginia days. Two weeks and two days from now I will be meeting my group in San Francisco getting ready to leave. I have 7,259 things left to do. (I've told you a billion times: I never exaggerate.) Things like having to go pay the water bill, checking with the insurance company about the house while I'm gone, changing the filter on the furnace, asking the police to look in my house from time to time and packing are getting in the way of visiting with friends and family. Two weeks are too few. HOWEVER,  I could be ready (except for the friends and family visiting) tomorrow or the day after.

Let Me see if I can remember one of the reasons I asked Peace Corps to send me to someplace HOT. Oh! Yea!

 I remember now. 

A Month from today I will be in San Francisco at Stage and already across the country on my way to Indonesia. I did more reading and test taking from Peace Corps.  I got 100% on the tests so I hope that's good enough for them. 

It was a sad day for me here today. Mr. Emmanuel (Manny) Kin left today to stay with Olivia while I am in Indonesia. Manny and I have been together since Laguna Beach , CA in 1994.  I know he would be unhappy being in storage while I am gone so a good friend who married a guy who brought Olivia to the marriage said Manny could stay with Olivia while I'm gone. The house is more empty. My leaving is getting closer and closer.

This afternoon I passed by the WIN office where I used to work. It was nice to exchange "I miss you"s. (That's the plural of "I miss you" and not to be confused with I miss yenz which is Pittsburgh for "y'all".  When I am teaching English in Indonesia, I will say, "All of you."

Today I got an e-mail from Peace Corps. It had an attachment of 83 pages I was to read.  It was about the education system in Indonesia, the methods of Teaching English as a Foreign Language and a number of pages about English grammar. Another attachment was a 51 question test on the 83 pages. It was NOT a piece of cake. I will have perfected the future perfect tense by the time I go to bed tonight.
I got another e-form to fill about about when Peace Corps Indonesia can get me onto a conference call.  That sounds like something interesting. 
I wrote another currently serving PCV in Indonesia with questions I had.  

Today, February 11, I got a message to check the Peace Corps Medical Portal. I thought, "What more could PC be asking from me?  I have had every system of my body tested and poked. I have sent test results for things I  understand.  I have sent x-rays of just about everywhere to them. I have gotten all the shots they asked me to. And all this well before the deadlines they have demanded. I had everything in well before December 15 of last year.
The message was that just today I have been medically and dentally cleared for Peace Corps. Good thing I had everything in early or they would, perhaps, have been even closer to my departure date to examine and approve me. 

Now that you are into my blog, you have to know something.  I can’t spell. I have lived, taught, worked and played in five languages so far and can’t spell in any of them. I've accepted ridicule for years about my spelling of my native language. Farsi was not bad but I sure wasn't going to win any bees in Tehran. Spanish I learned only well enough to speak. Arabic wrote only long (length) sounding vowels so I was never sure if it was a ‘long vowel” which needed to be written or if that was just the way that I pronounced it with my American accent.  French is impossible to spell. 
I also suffer sum other difficulties with English. I know they’re, their and there. I know son and sun, right and write, and to, two and too. I firmly believe that one of the greatest discoveries ever was ‘spell check’ but it doesn't tell me when I have used the wrong word that is spelled correctly. 
So, if you are going to read what all I have to say, you have to be understanding of my spelling disability.