Commencing countdown, engine's on

I have less than a week until my departure date, and I'm trying--but failing--to remember everything: presentation deadlines, immunization records, packing lists, last-minute supplies, Spanish cramming. I have a lot to do, but after months of preparing, and hours of telling friends and family about what I'll be doing, I'm thrilled that the date is finally almost here. In many ways, it's surreal. Ninety percent of the Peace Corps application process is waiting for the next step. To have all the toe-tapping and thumb-twiddling be over with is both daunting and exhilarating. I'll be touching down on Panama soil only about four weeks after I found out where I would be going.

I'm lucky because I got to spend this last summer focusing only on PC preparations, and when I wasn't doing that, I was soaking up every minute with friends and family. I ate out a lot, treated every meal like it was my last . Think along the lines of vineyard tours, huge platters of seafood, and multiple trips to Mike's Pastry in the North End. I vacationed, worked out a lot (those cannolis have to go somewhere), and even got a real tan for the first time since high school. Oh how liberating unemployment can be! My pasty white skin never knew life could be so lovely. (I am sorry to all of my friends who have real jobs and have not caught sight of the noonday sun in months. I know this paragraph is really annoying. You will be the one laughing when I have intestinal worms.)

So on to what I'll be doing and where I'll be doing it. I leave Boston on August 11th and fly to D.C. for a staging event where we hand in lots of paperwork (more still!), do some quick and dirty safety and arrival training, and meet the volunteers we'll be with for the next 10 weeks. On August 12th, we all arrive in Panama City and go on a "retreat" for four days where we receive oodles of shots, advice about living with hosts families and cultural sensitivity, and other orientation tidbits. Training begins in earnest on August 17th in one of two towns about 35 km west of Panama City.

Training is 10 weeks long and covers language, technical and cultural aspects of my service. It is intensely rigorous, and every moment is planned out for me, but I consider this my big chance to get the most out of everything they have to teach me. I want to exceed language expectations, and absorb as much information as possible, because once training is over, it's show time.

So that's the short version. I hear there's no Internoodle access at our training site, so I'll write again at least once more here before I go. Dry your tears and leave questions and emails/addresses in the comments if you want to be on my contact list.