Ten weeks from today I will officially be back on American soil, for good. After the C.O.S. conference it was sort of surreal coming back to Bajram Curri because I had just sat through 3 days of sessions preparing me to leave Albania and saying goodbyes to people leaving early and then I come back to my community for three more months!
I'm in the process of planning my "life after Peace Corps." I feel like there should be a manual for this or something because when the 6 month countdown started I began to feel like a fish out of water. What better way to fill my time and not think about what inevitably waiting for me in America but plan my trip before I come home! I'm going to take two weeks with a former PCV in Albania traveling the Balkans and making a loop around the Black Sea, ending our trip in Istanbul and flying home. Oh yeah, and I got into grad school.
When I went home I had prepared to take the GRE the day before Halloween. I hadn't really made my mind up on going to graduate school but though since I had the time to study, why not take it while I was home. The more and more I thought about it, the more I wanted to go back to school. When I was on my Christmas trip I had a little freak-out moment when I checked my email at a hostel in Portugal informing me that the application that I had started before I left had 1 week for early admission acceptance. When I came back from my trip that was my focus for 8 straight days and I sent in the application at the very last minute of the early deadline.
I applied to two universities, one in North Carolina and one in Colorado. As supportive as my family has been throughout these two years I know deep down inside they were routing for the NC school to have me closer to home. I found out this week that I was actually accepted into both programs! Denver for Intercultural Communications and Elon for Interactive Media; both programs that would fit me perfectly. Denver offered the Peace Corps scholarship option for RPCV's and would knock off my foreign language requirements because of my time here in Albania speaking the local language.
Drum roll... I put my downpayment in this week and in August will be a student again at Elon University. It's such a weird feeling to actually have some sort of a plan when I come home because I was honestly just planning on taking the summer off and crashing on my aunt's couch. I think the work I've been doing with Barazia Gjinore really made my portfolio stand out and I talked to one of my old professors who said she wrote in my reference that Peace Corps was the best preparation to grad school that I could get.
The program seems perfect. It's only 1 year (10 months on a school calendar) and includes a "send-off" team project, more than likely abroad. I believe the program will take my skills and knowledge further with the programs I already use, as well as teach me about programs I'm not familiar with. My mom and aunt when down yesterday to check out the campus and begin looking around for apartments! My flight has me back in Raleigh on June 2nd. I feel like I was just closing the chapter in my life from under-grad and college basketball and now it's time to move on yet again.
