October: The Final Countdown

October: the last full month of my Peace Corps service. As of today, I have 40 days until I leave Kazakhstan. No more, and no less. I’m starting to get excited, because the end is in sight. I used to measure my Peace Corps service in years…then months. 40 Days? 40 Days is nothing!

I’m having a hard time finding motivation to care about anything work related, perhaps because I’m so close to being done. It feels like the last semester of college again, when I had classes to attend, stuff to do, but I didn’t really feel like going (and didn’t really care). Usually there is a sense of duty or obligation (and sometimes desperation) that provides the fuel that keeps me plugging away at whatever I’m doing, but over the week I’ve come to the conclusion that the motivation tank is running on fumes. I find myself using more and more of my time watching episodes of House and playing video games than focusing on things that I need to do.

The exception is my work assisting the Kaz-22 Youth Development trainees (who are coming along just nicely). Working with them is a pleasure, and now that I’m done with my primary assignment at the Local Community Foundation, they are my #1 priority. Honestly, they are the reason why I don’t barricade myself in my apartment and waste the month watching old tv shows and playing videogames until my plane leaves.

I don't think its very productive to watch the whole 3rd season of House...in two days.

Whatever the case, I have to snap out of it. The end is near, but there is a lot to do:

• Creating my "Close of Service Document", a one page account of what I did as a volunteer. This will be the only surviving document that Peace Corps will have of my service after I leave, so it has to be good, and more importantly, accurate.

• Confirming tickets home, and researching fun things to do in Istanbul, Turkey. I’m going to spend a week there on the way back to the US. After researching Egypt and Greece as other vacation alternatives, I decided that it may be better to go to one country and spend a meaningful amount of time there than skipping around to 2-3 countries but only spending 2-4 days in each. So as much as I want to travel to Egypt, the pyramids will have to wait. They’ve been around for 1000’s of years, so I think they can hold on for another decade or two.

• Revamping (again) my resume, so I won’t be unemployed (for long) when I get back.

• Retaking a Russian language test. I initially took it during the Close of Service Conference, but I wasn’t happy with my results, so I’m going to try again before I leave.

• Packing up my stuff. Giving away what is useful, throwing out the rest.

• Studying for the GRE. In between my House watching binge, I’ve been doing GRE prep. I have study materials, and run through problems for about 2 hours each day. One of my goals for 2011 is to go back to school. For awhile, I thought that I wanted to do law school, but since then I’ve changed my mind. It’s hard to do proper research on this sort of stuff from the other side of the world, but I’m seriously looking at schools that offer programs in Non Profit Management, Public Policy, or Central Asian Studies. Peace Corps also has a “Fellows Program” which allows for returned volunteers to get higher degrees for cheap (or free!) at some pretty good universities. So watch out! I may run an NGO someday.

• Tying up administrative loose ends with the Kazakh course project by turning in the final paperwork documents to Peace Corps. However, some of the documents and receipts that I need are still in Karabulak, so this means that I must pay a visit to Taldykorgan in October. Although it may cause some long days for me because I must still also help out the new trainees every day, I’m certainly not crying because Taldykorgan is the best city in Kazakhstan.

• Preparing my organization and site for a new volunteer. This means helping them to find host families, creating a plan of work, and recruiting a counterpart. As well as cleaning out my desk/shelf.

• Call it fate, magic, voodoo, and Act of God or whatever, but during the last 27 months I’ve met some very influential people in Kazakhstan; people who have shaped my service and my life. Some are teachers, students, old counterparts, and a few are even volunteers. I’m bad with goodbyes, and mushy stuff, (and will hopefully see some of them again) but I can’t leave Kazakhstan without telling them about the positive effect they have had on my time here, and thanking them for it.