Medical clearance is all done except for one final COVID-19 test, so I’m preparing to go to a hotel in a suburb of Washington, D.C, on Friday, Sept. 23, to meet my cohort going to North Macedonia for Peace Corps service. We’ll get a bunch of information Friday evening and Saturday, then board a bus… Read More »
I’d managed to avoid it for well over two years, but I finally got COVID-19. Thankfully, I’m fully vaccinated and double boosted. My symptoms are really mild and it’s been treated with a phone consultation and a prescription. It was weird. On Tuesday, July 19, I was doing great. I ran 5 km on the… Read More »
Following are the details of the assignment I’ve accepted in North Macedonia. They emailed them to me in three mega-paragraphs. For easier reading, I’ve broken those up and added boldface lead-ins, but I haven’t edited it otherwise. I’m posting this here because these details don’t appear on the website linked to above and in my… Read More »
Woo-hoo! I finally heard from the Peace Corps about an assignment. They emailed me on Friday, April 29, about serving in North Macedonia and after a week of learning more, I accepted. The approximate date of departure is Sept. 25, 2022, though the exact date is subject to change. North Macedonia is part of the… Read More »
In early April, I was in Springfield, Illinois, to spend time with family and we saw the home of Abraham Lincoln and the various Lincoln-related things there. One surprising fact I learned is that Lincoln wrote to his old law partner, William Herndon, and told Herndon that after his presidency, he wanted to return to… Read More »
Well, I’m back up to running a 10-minute mile. I was able to run a 10-minute mile consistently back before I left for Ecuador in December. But once I got into the high altitudes of Ecuador’s mountains, I didn’t have the energy I did in Ohio. Here in Ohio, I’m about 850 feet/260 meters above… Read More »
I’ve been back in Ohio for a little more than two weeks now. Some observations: I was surprised that we didn’t get customs declaration forms to fill out on the airplane. I did get questioned by a Customs and Border Protection agent, but I didn’t have to fill out any form declaring what I’d purchased… Read More »
Nothing really big going on here, but wanted to share some photos. One interesting thing I’ve learned recently is that Latin America also uses the style manual of the American Psychological Association for many academic papers. A lot of the APA manual has to do with how to use English, which obviously doesn’t apply for… Read More »
I got a message this afternoon from someone concerned about my safety, so just letting everyone know that this week’s deadly landslide in Ecuador is nowhere near me. The landslide is in Quito, the capital of Ecuador. I am in Cuenca, which is nearly 200 miles (about 300 km) south of Quito. I am safe… Read More »
An interesting thing about Cuenca’s historic center is the ceramic street signs. Apparently they’re not all that old; they were put up in the 1990s. One person posting on Facebook said they are the work of famed ceramic artist Eduardo Vega. I’m not entirely sure that this is accurate, though; they don’t look to me… Read More »