Last Friday my day at work consisted of playing math games, doing Sudoku puzzles, popping popcorn for the kiddos, watching a movie, playing Twister, and eating poppy seed cake. Ahhh.... the last day before Spring Break. It was wonderful! And now I am enjoying 9 days away from it all. I could get used to working in public school.
In other news, Chris and I joined the Correspondence Match Program through Worldwise Schools. They have matched us with a school of our choosing, New Leaf Academy in NC (a good friend of ours, and an old dodge ball and soccer teammate, Jeremy Clayton, works there). Over the next couple of years we'll be writing letters to his students telling them about our Peace Corps adventures. The students will get a chance to write us as well. The organization reimburses us for any postage costs, which is kind of cool. We sent our first letter this week!
A quick shout out to Meg and Josh who are expecting their first child in August! Congrats guys!
Not much news to report otherwise.
We're still counting down the days (57) and enjoying our time snowboarding and hanging out with family.
Nan (and Chris)
Monday, March 23, 2009
Sunday, March 1, 2009
The PSN, Snowboarding, and Our FRE-7 Status
Hi all! It's been a while since we've updated the ol' blog so I thought I would give everyone an update.
Not much is going on for us here in Oregon right now, so there isn't much to report. I will upload a few photos at the end just to share with everyone. Nan and I are moving along slowly but surely towards our May 19th leave date. We have a few things lined up to help move time along. We are looking forward to Nan's parents, Michelle, PJ, Haley and Parker all visiting in mid-April and Kevin is coming in mid-May. Also, we've (and by 'we' I mean Nan did all the planning) planned a trip to Vancouver Island in May as well. We figured since we're so close and neither of us have ever been to Canada before, we might as well hop on up there for a few days. Nan's last day of work is planned for May 5th and mine May 2nd. May really can't come soon enough.
We got an e-mail from the Peace Corps a couple of weeks ago with some very good information. The purpose of the e-mail was to get us in touch with the Peer Support Network, or PSN for short. The PSN is a network of people who are currently in or have returned from the Peace Corps who can answer questions for us to help us prepare and/or fight off any feelings of unease as we get ready to go. It has been very very useful as we are gathering the last of the supplies we need before we go. They've given us all kinds of information from clarification on what daily life is like in Fiji to insight on what is necessary and unnecessary on the official Peace Corps packing list (and what was omitted) completely. They were also able to answer a question for us that we couldn't seem to find an answer to in any of the hundreds of pages of Peace Corps documentation we've recieved. As we have been reading blogs and posts and messages from Peace Corps volunteers who have returned, we noticed many of them mentioning their FRE status. Some were FRE-1 and others FRE-3 or 4, but we could not find what this meant. We recently found out that we are FRE-7. FRE stands for Fiji Re-Entry Group. Awhile back (about 7 years ago, actually) the Peace Corps was allowed to re-enter Fiji. For a number of years Fiji was having trouble with some revolts and revolutions. The government was unstable and thus, the safety of Peace Corps volunteers could not be ensured. The US Government decided to abandon Peace Corps operations in Fiji until things were settled and safe. Nan and I are among the 7th group of volunteers to re-enter Fiji. This means that most of the projects going on in Fiji are relativly new and there is much to do. It's exciting and we look forward to the challenge.
So, that is our latest Peace Corps update. We are still counting down the days until we leave (78 and falling!). That number is much less gigantic than other numbers... for example, the number of days since we turned in our initial Peace Corps applications (578!) So, here we are, sitting and waiting to leave. Nan is taking the GRE next month and has signed up for a drawing class at the Sandy Community Center, so everyone should wish her luck with those endevours. I am still snowboarding nearly every weekend with Adam (who is Chris Zorn's brother) and as the temperature warms up I'll start looking for an ultimate frisbee team to play with.
As promised, I'm including a few recent photos of what we've been up to lately.
Thanks for looking in on us!
Chris (and Nan)
Olivia Lynn Zorn is getting so big and it seems like she gets cuter everyday.
These are pictures of me, Adam, Nan and Karen on a recent ski/snowboard trip to Ski Bowl on Mt. Hood.
Not much is going on for us here in Oregon right now, so there isn't much to report. I will upload a few photos at the end just to share with everyone. Nan and I are moving along slowly but surely towards our May 19th leave date. We have a few things lined up to help move time along. We are looking forward to Nan's parents, Michelle, PJ, Haley and Parker all visiting in mid-April and Kevin is coming in mid-May. Also, we've (and by 'we' I mean Nan did all the planning) planned a trip to Vancouver Island in May as well. We figured since we're so close and neither of us have ever been to Canada before, we might as well hop on up there for a few days. Nan's last day of work is planned for May 5th and mine May 2nd. May really can't come soon enough.
We got an e-mail from the Peace Corps a couple of weeks ago with some very good information. The purpose of the e-mail was to get us in touch with the Peer Support Network, or PSN for short. The PSN is a network of people who are currently in or have returned from the Peace Corps who can answer questions for us to help us prepare and/or fight off any feelings of unease as we get ready to go. It has been very very useful as we are gathering the last of the supplies we need before we go. They've given us all kinds of information from clarification on what daily life is like in Fiji to insight on what is necessary and unnecessary on the official Peace Corps packing list (and what was omitted) completely. They were also able to answer a question for us that we couldn't seem to find an answer to in any of the hundreds of pages of Peace Corps documentation we've recieved. As we have been reading blogs and posts and messages from Peace Corps volunteers who have returned, we noticed many of them mentioning their FRE status. Some were FRE-1 and others FRE-3 or 4, but we could not find what this meant. We recently found out that we are FRE-7. FRE stands for Fiji Re-Entry Group. Awhile back (about 7 years ago, actually) the Peace Corps was allowed to re-enter Fiji. For a number of years Fiji was having trouble with some revolts and revolutions. The government was unstable and thus, the safety of Peace Corps volunteers could not be ensured. The US Government decided to abandon Peace Corps operations in Fiji until things were settled and safe. Nan and I are among the 7th group of volunteers to re-enter Fiji. This means that most of the projects going on in Fiji are relativly new and there is much to do. It's exciting and we look forward to the challenge.
So, that is our latest Peace Corps update. We are still counting down the days until we leave (78 and falling!). That number is much less gigantic than other numbers... for example, the number of days since we turned in our initial Peace Corps applications (578!) So, here we are, sitting and waiting to leave. Nan is taking the GRE next month and has signed up for a drawing class at the Sandy Community Center, so everyone should wish her luck with those endevours. I am still snowboarding nearly every weekend with Adam (who is Chris Zorn's brother) and as the temperature warms up I'll start looking for an ultimate frisbee team to play with.
As promised, I'm including a few recent photos of what we've been up to lately.
Thanks for looking in on us!
Chris (and Nan)
Olivia Lynn Zorn is getting so big and it seems like she gets cuter everyday.
These are pictures of me, Adam, Nan and Karen on a recent ski/snowboard trip to Ski Bowl on Mt. Hood.
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