Since I Suck at Photography

Earlier this week, the Summer Solstice coincided with a full moon for the first time since 1948. Now, I am not one for astrology but I figured someone out there must have had a blast writing fortunes for such a mystical and unearthly occasion. So, I googled it.

Turns out I had a couple moons in my centaur and might come to some wondrous realizations in the near future. Now, I don’t know about all that, but I did have a dream that I was using oil pastels to paint a sunset over a seaside cliff.

I am no artist, but I am really not a photographer. In the year that I lived in the south of France, I didn’t have a camera or even a camera phone. Any photos that I have of my time there were ripped off of friends’ Facebook pages. I have been trying to reconcile my photographic failure with my desire to remember my adventures. For this reason, I figured picking up some sticky, oily crayons might be just the thing to document my time in Africa. Between this blog and some waxy paintings, I hope I can create a colorfully messy, impressionistic memory of my time in the Peace Corps.

Or at least have some fun when I have nothing to do on a day off . . .

First few practice/playing around sessions are featured below.Light criticism welcome, I have honestly no clue what the heck I’m doing so if someone feels like sharing pointers or ideas, that would be awesome.

 

The Medical Clearance Process: Part II – The Tasks

The whole process kicks off 200 days before staging. Unfortunately, you only have 60 of those days to pack in more medical visits than you have probably had in your entire lifetime.

My family took an if-it-aint-broke-don’t-fix-it approach to healthcare when I was growing up. This probably explains why prior to the medical clearance process, I had not seen a doctor (except to get a new glasses prescription every other year) since I was a kid. It took me a little bit of asking around to find some good doctors, and a little bit longer to find some cheap alternatives. But here are the lessons I learned:

1. Use the email message system in the Medical Application Portal (MAP) for any and all question you might have. You are assigned to one nurse who handles your application. I had a lady, named Mary, who was extremely helpful. I had about a billion questions and she put up with me, so shout out to her wherever she is.

2. Public Health clinics are very useful for getting shots and blood tests. They can be a lot cheaper than a physician. Also if you are in New Jersey, Walgreens apparently does Yellow Fever Shots. I would still try the public clinics though. The nurses/doctors at the clinic that I went to were wonderful. I found that people at these institutions get very excited when you tell them you are going into the Peace Corps.

3. Print out all of your forms from MAP and keep everything in a folder to bring to all of your appointments. You don’t want to lose things and waste time trying to get new copies filled out when you are on a time crunch.

4. Make sure you understand your insurance. Talk to your provider’s customer service as well as your doctors office. Apparently, proactive blood work is often not covered by insurance since it is not used to diagnose an actual ailment. If you can get it all done within an “annual physical” though, I think it can be all lumped-in and covered together. I talked this over with my doctor and explained my financial situation. In the end, I ended up having everything covered by my insurance company as one claim. That might be only my unique case but it is worth checking out if you are on a budget.

5. Get itemized receipts if you want to be reimbursed by the Peace Corps. Keep each receipt with each form so that you can easily send the Cost Share Form for each task with its receipt. Again, staying organized and keeping all this stuff together will make the whole process easier.

6. Don’t forget that you can just take pictures of documents on your phone and email them to yourself. If you are like me and don’t have a scanner at home this will also save time when it comes to uploading everything onto the medical portal.

I’m sure there are some other tips that will come to me later, but those mentioned above are the most important.

 

 

 

 

The Medical Clearance Process: Part I – HHF

After completing my medical clearance, my post-clearance survey proposed the statement, “The process was transparent,” to which I accorded a “no opinion”. It was as close to a synonym for “marginally opaque” as I could find on the standard Likert scale offered. That being said, I would like to add a little clarity to the process.

The first order of business is the Health History Form (HHF). This is something that must be completed immediately upon applying as a volunteer (Before the medical clearance process even begins). It is extensive and broken down into sections corresponding with specialized medical fields (eg. dental, pulmonary, etc.). Most of these questions ask about any recent conditions or incidents relating to each particular area of your health. This form is important for three reasons.

1. It will be used to determine where you will be allowed to serve. If for instance you have a type of respiratory issue, you likely wont be able to apply to countries with serious air pollution.

2. It will determine the number of tasks that you must complete during the actual medical clearance process. The actually process does not start until 200 days before service. Once you have passed the 200-day threshold, the medical portal will populate with tasks corresponding with your HHF answers. For example, I had an eye surgery and in my form said clicked “yes” to having had recent eye surgery. One of my tasks was then get a note from my doctor saying that there was no further treatment or concern.

3. Your physician must sign this form when you get your physical. Every applicant must have a full physical as one of the minimum required medical clearance tasks. The physician will have a full form to fill out but also must sign off on the HHF form that you submitted upon accepting your invitation to serve. So it would be ill advised (not to mention, unethical) to lie on the HHF in order get into a country where you want to serve.

In short the HHF, although not actually part of the real medical clearance process, determines the structure and breadth of the process. This is something I would have liked to know before hand. In the second half of this post I will address my experience with the actual tasks and give some tips.

The Semester to End All Semesters: Quick Update (to be expanded upon . . . )

So, I will admit that starting my Peace-Corps-travel-business-life-whatever-you-would-like-to-call-it blog right before my last semester of college was a premature and overly ambitious venture. That being said, outside of the blogosphere, I have been quite productive:

Graduated: √

Taken all four parts of the CPA Exam: √   (last grade pending but so far 3 for 3)

Submitted information for Peace Corps Background check: √

Obtained Medical Clearance: √

Started to prepare for PC service: √

Started to get equipment and supplies for PC service: √

Thought about running away on a sailboat for the summer and resisted the urge: √

Spent quality time with family: √

Got a gym membership (turns out studying at a desk for several years straight really takes a toll on your fitness): √

Now, to make this a little bit more feasible for you and me, I am going to try to do this blog-thing in smaller, more frequent posts. Someone (everyone really) has told me that this is a better idea.

So, in my next blog I will talk about my experience with the Peace Corps’ medical clearance process! Heads up, it includes more shot than Cinqo de Mayo! Get stoked!