Preparation

I struggle with the idea that realistically, nothing will prepare me for my new life. All my life I have been overprepared, with many of my friends remarking that I always overpack for trips and have to have everything just right, just in case. Much of this comes from my mother, as she well knows, but I don't resent this trait. If anything it's helped me in life to always have what I think I need.

But from the very first part of this journey, packing, I'll be out of my element. We are allowed 85 pounds of luggage, which still has to fit TSA and PC dimension requirements. Immediately I already know I will not be able to take all the things I want to. Asking around in my Facebook group of current/future Uganda PCVs (Peace Corps Volunteers), everyone has their own opinion on what is essential and what is not. It seems to vary from person to person so as much as they are attempting to help, it's just a lot of contradictions.

I've always been able to do my research and figure out what was needed for a situation or a trip, but in this case, the best thing to do is pack a little of what I think I need and wait until I'm posted to figure out what else I would like. It goes against everything I've done before, and that's the terrifyingly awesome thing about it. I haven't even left the country yet and I'm being challenged to change my habits.

Something I have actively been doing to prepare is volunteering at the Kalamazoo Math and Science Center (KAMSC), which during the school year is a magnet school for STEM subjects.
In the summer time they run camps for kids up through 7th or 8th grade (can't remember which). For the most part I just feel like I'm auditing the class, because the teachers are being paid to teach a specific curriculum, and the other TAs are all previous/current KAMSC students who sometimes seem like they're smarter than me. It feels strange, but having an ME degree places all these expectations on me. I feel like I should be a master teacher, but being taught and receiving a degree in a subject does NOT make you a great teacher or let you be able to explain difficult concepts to people.

I guess that's why I wanted to observe/volunteer at KAMSC, to observe how veteran teachers explain their concepts to younger kids, or just older kids that haven't heard the subject matter before (i.e., the TAs). Given I've only worked with two teachers, but so far they have different teaching styles and I think I've learned things from both. One major thing is that experience is one of the best teachers. I know a lot of concepts but haven't applied many of them, and so explaining them theoretically is difficult. These guys are old school tinkerers who could probably fix your car and build you a microwave in the same afternoon. It's nice to see their enthusiasm not just for the students, but the subject matter as well. It sort of pumps you up to be excited about things, whereas coming off the most stressful semester of my ME degree (senior design), I sort of felt deflated and worn out. But I think that's natural.

I just have this week left at KAMSC, as I am moving back to my mom's house in Lansing on Saturday, and I can't even be there for Friday as I've got some of my immunizations scheduled. Health preparations are numerous and tedious but I'm not going to elaborate too much on those here as they are mostly uninteresting and somewhat private.

Next thing I hope to tackle on the this blog is setting up a schedule for myself for the three months I have left in country, so that I mostly don't just sit around and become restless. We'll see how that goes. Also trying to integrate photos/videos so these don't become giant blocks of text... so maybe video blogging will be mixed in with this?