AND THE WINNER (country) IS .....

KENYA!

That's right! The verdict was returned and I found out yesterday around 3pm that I'm headed to East Africa for the next two years. EEeeek! Here's what I know so far:

• I depart on October 11th (WAY sooner than I had originally planned but it was this or next April)
• I am going to be teaching Chemistry, Biology, and Physics (bleh) to what age, I won't know till I get there.
• I am going over and training with lots of other volunteers, who are going to be teaching in the areas of science (like me!), math, and deaf education! Wow!
• We are all also going to be trained in HIV/AIDS education
• Just because I train with them does not mean I will have any English speakers at my 2-year site
• Every Peace Corps tour of duty is 27 months... 3 months of intensive language, programmatic, and cultural training, and then 2 full years on your own.
• I most likely won't have running water or electricity, but the Peace Corps does promise me a room that locks, and some windows! What else could you need?
• At this point I have only read through about 1/6 of the multitudes of papers and books they sent me, so that's what I'm doing for the next few days.
• Even though most don't have electricity, there are A LOT of volunteers that maintain blogs while overseas. This is promising and hopefully means that somehow or another I'll be able to keep everyone updated on things :)
• I can't tell you how unbelievably excited I am.
• I can't tell you how utterly terrified I am.

So over the next 6 weeks (or less than), I will be getting my life in order before departure, and seeing as many people that I love as possible. Previous Peace Corps history and experiences have shown that love, support, news, letters, and any form of contact from the homefront can mean the difference between a great two years, or a lonely two years.

I'll keep updating before I go as I get more information about addresses and things. Thank you thank you thank you to everyone who has helped me through this process! I couldn't have done it without you :)

Missing everyone already,

Shub :)

Where oh where has Shub gone?

I've actually had a number of people in the last few months ask me why I have not updated my blog. Look at that! People read it! Who knew.

Anyways, as I knew would happen, I've been very busy this summer. Aside from visiting family, friends, and the boat when I can, I've been on road trips galore. Both with church, with friends, and with family. After coming back from Cali, I spent a week taking church kids to DC, working with non-profit organizations and helping feed the homeless and such. Here's some of my kids making our 50 loaves of zucchini bread for the shelter! Yum!


Another week of church camp brought us to Sharpsburg, Maryland at a Heifer International farm. If you've never heard of Heifer PLEASE check it out. Heifer uses livestock and education to help needy families and villages in over 127 countries become healthy and sustainable. We LOVE Heifer. Along with numerous team-building exercises and farm chores, we learned about vermiculture (worms), how to make rope, how to make candles, and more! Yay Heifer! Check out our farm photos:

Building a rabbit cage!

S'mores:

After our week at the Heifer Maryland, we packed our bags once more and took some high schoolers to Arkansas, to the corporate Heifer Ranch in Perryville, just outside Little Rock. We had an absolute BLAST and though I just spent a week on a Heifer farm, I still learned more than I thought possible. And only in a week! Lord knows what I'll pick up in a couple years.

I did everything from work with beehives and chop down trees to live in an urban slum and sweat my butt off over a cook fire for oatmeal. BUT everything was ok again when I got to play with baby animals. Here's some highlights:

Our AWESOME group in front of church
before the LONG road trip
Beehives! (I'm the short one)

My spot by the lake

Climbing a GIANT ladder meant to help with

teamwork and pushing personal limits

A little something I fell in love with

And a final image of Shub on a farm:

Basically the weeks at Heifer showed me how truly proud I can be of my kids, and also taught me LOTS of interesting things that I might be able to use in Africa. (EeEek!)

SPEAKING OF WHICH, there's not a day that goes by that I don't think about something else I'm going to miss while in the Peace Corps (again, if I'm lucky enough to get invited). Here's the most recent news from these people ---->



I got a call a little over a week ago saying I received my medical clearance. YES. This is apparently one of the biggest hurdles of the application process. So my records have been sent to the Assessment & Placement Office, I updated them on the things I've been doing this summer with Heifer, and now I get to WAIT some more :)

In the meantime I also signed up the take the GREs in October, so I need to get my butt in gear and start studying. It's not easy when you're out of college. Hell, it wasn't easy in college.

So that's what's up on the Shub side of town. I hope everyone is having a FANTASTIC summer (or start of school year) and I hope to see everyone soon.

Love you all!

<3 Shub :)

Back on the East Coast baby!

Hooray! Angie and I finally made it home safe and sound. We had an AWESOME trip across the country, and missed LaceFace every step of the way. My last post ended with some photos of the drive into Montana. Big Sky Country is absolutely beautiful, and I can totally see why people go there to get away. We spent a very long day in Yellowstone, and enjoyed every second of it. As with everything I've seen on these cross-country road trips, if you ever get a chance to visit Yellowstone, YOU SHOULD. Here's why:

Kepler Cascades

Buffalo friends

Old Faithful erupting

The end of a rainbow!!!

These are just a few of the many photos we took at Yellowstone. The scenery just kept getting better and better, and therefore I will post the pics on Facebook as well :)

After Montana and Yellowstone we continued east into South Dakota and found this!:

It's Mount Rushmore! We had an awesome time visiting with the presidents and eating some ridiculously good soft-serve. We had a lovely night in Rapid City, SD and promptly drove to Minneapolis the next day. One night there and we left for Indiana! One night in Indiana and we made it back home late on Friday night. Whew! Long drive. But so worth it. Go HERE to see everywhere we stopped. ALSO, look at this (green is with Lacy and orange is with Angie!) :


Angie flies back to Florida on Wednesday morning :( and till then we are hanging around MoCo. It feels awesome to be home, but I didn't realize how much I'd miss San Diego! If you are around town this summer, I would LOVE to see you. Please call!

Happy Summer and GO TERPS.

Love, Shub :)