The Invitation

The official invitation to join the Peace Corps arrives along with a packet of file pockets filled with work to do: everything from passport and visa applications to the personal, legal and insurance papers: Forms to fill out, reading, writing and thinking to be done. There is a telephone call at the end of this process, to make my formal commitment. I have only a few days to do the tasks that lead up to that commitment (which, at least, is only some of the things I mentioned).

I have been volunteering at a local arts organization that runs after-school classes in photography, film making, animation and digital arts, partly because I hope to be able to work with kids as a secondary project in my community. Today was the final class for our middle-school kids. We took Pierre, Maarten, Jeramiah, Tora, Larry, Kevin and Caitlin to an animation studio where they saw the workplace of animators working on a bunch of stop-motion productions.

It is unbelievably exhausting to put seven lively kids into a mini-bus and drive them through heavy L.A. traffic for nearly an hour, keep them well-behaved and in line during a 40-minute tour and visit, and then drive them back. The paid teacher did the driving and I was the back-seat "parent" enforcing seat belts and indoor voices. But I think it's worth it. Learning happened! Always a wonderful experience, being a part of that.

But I am beat. There will be no heavy reading for me tonight! With some planning, I can leave work a bit early tomorrow so I can finish the reading and get the essays written when I get home. I would like to plan on making that call on Thursday or, at the latest, on Friday morning. I also have to write an announcement or "press release" for my extended family and wider circle of friends. This needs to go out by the weekend.