Road Trip and a PC Status Update!

I successfully drove across the country in my little corolla! I crammed everything that I could into the backseat and the trunk of the car, and left my furniture behind. My car was riding ridiculously low from the weight of all my stuff and guzzled like over 15 quarts of engine oil (we refilled it twice and I got my oil changed the day before I left), but it chugged all the way from coast to coast! I'll post up some photo highlights of our trip when I get my new laptop up and running.

My friend Stephanie and I started the trip by driving from Atlanta to Meridian, Mississippi last Thursday night. I really have no idea where Meridian is, but its just beyond the Alabama border. On Friday, we drove from Mississippi to Plano, Texas, which is just outside of Dallas. Saturday was our big day, we drove 15 hours from Plano to Tucson, Arizona. And yes, we did get stopped at checkpoints along the way and Border Patrol asked if we were US citizens. Thankfully we both are, I had my passport ready just in case. But I suppose they reverse-profiled us in California, because they just waved us through like 3 checkpoints when we drove from Tuscon to San Diego, California. We drove the last 8 hours of the trip up from San Diego to San Francisco on Monday and made it home safe and sound.

I woke up this morning and checked my blackberry, like I always do.. and was pleasantly surprised to see a Peace Corps Status Update! I jumped out of bed and immediately went to check my PC Toolkit online and saw that I have received Dental Clearance. Thank god, I had to get 3 cavities fixed and a whole new set of xrays for clearance. I now have Dental and Legal clearance, and I'm still waiting on Medical Clearance before I can be actually placed with a specific country of service and a program.

This is really nerdy of me but I wonder how the PC paperwork processing queue works. I sent in my medical and dental forms late March and they sent back my dental forms like 2 weeks later and asked me to get my cavities filled. I haven't heard anything back yet about my medical forms, even with regards to whether I filled out that stack of paperwork acceptably or not. I know that they prioritize medical/dental clearance by expected departure date, with highest priority given to those leaving within 3 months. So I suppose I should be hearing back soon, except I'll be studying abroad in Singapore in a week with very little access to healthcare and no access to any of my official documents. This is going to be interesting... back to the waiting game!

And by the way, I ended up getting an A in Senior Design! I guess all those late nights in the ISYE lab paid off in the end.

Packing up

I've been packing up my closet to move everything home to San Francisco. My closet is almost empty already and I've only packed my Russel duffel bag and my GT Athletics wardrober bag. My roommate Agatha is leaving today for her Europe trip, I'm jealous. Her parents came down from Chicago for her graduation and helped her pack up her room (and throw/donate a lot of stuff). We have 2 overflowing boxes of gently used clothes, shoes, toys etc that I plan on donating to the Atlanta Women's shelter. The amount of stuff that I have accumulated over 4 years is ridiculous, especially since I've moved apts every year/summer here.

I dropped off my boyfriend Chris at the airport yesterday. He's flying home for the week to spend some time with his family before classes start up again next week. I'm leaving for my road trip this Thursday, and Chris isn't coming back until Sunday :( So I won't get to see him again until August, when I come back to Atlanta for graduation.

DONE DONE DONE

I'm done with finals... and almost done with Senior Design now! We just have the final cd of all of our files to turn in tomorrow morning. But its going to be one last late night in the ISYE undergrad computer lab.

Good news- my dad is buying me a new computer! He's getting me the Acer Aspire, and its being delivered home to San Francisco next Tuesday. I can't wait to have a working laptop. Too bad I won't be back in San Francisco until like May 18th. I'm leaving Atlanta on May 14th and driving across the country with my good friend Stephanie. Its going to be one epic road trip, hopefully my poor car will make it without any problems, *fingers crossed*.