Well, what do you say we get started?

As everyone who reads this blog knows, I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ukraine, arriving in September 2013 for my training, and was then evacuated in February 2014. After being evacuated, I talked to UNCG, and they helped me become a student for the 2014-2015 academic year. Below is what I posted on my Peace Corps blog, along with some commentary specific to UNCG.

There is a Ukrainian tradition that states that a person will return to wherever they have left things. While this is usually physical objects, this can also mean unfinished business. As I left Ukraine in late February 2014, my counterpart (A), told me that I had to return, as I had left a lot of things in my apartment. That weekend, the official evacuation order was given, and I was home before the next week was out. Home, in this case, being Winston-Salem.

I started talks with UNCG, where I had been accepted into the Library and Information Studies (LIS) program in 2013. I turned them down to go to Ukraine. I called my contact, the amazing Lee Shiflet, and he got me the forms needed to become a student for Fall 2014. I spent the end of the 2013-2014 academic year substitute teaching off and on. I spent a few weeks in July with my grandparents, and then started school in the fall.

I was offered a Graduate Assistantship from the LIS Department, and I started work in August. I started classes a week after I started my GA work. I took six classes over the two semesters. As part of my Foundations class, I started this blog, and I plan on using it as part of  my Capstone class requirements. I started talks with the wonderful Chelcie Rowell to do my summer practicum with her at Z. Smith Reynolds Library.

After the Peace Corps evacuated us in February 2014, we were given a window, during which we would be able to go straight back to Ukraine. That window passed before Ukraine settled down enough, and the Peace Corps post closed. Everyone hoped that the post would reopen in time for the Volunteers to return before the 2014-2015 school year began, but the post did not reopen until November 2014, a year-to-the-day that the EuroMaiden protests broke out.

At that point, we were asked if we wanted to return, and when we could leave, but everything was nebulous, with nothing concrete. In April, just shy of two years after my original, life-changing Invitation email (which was April 29, 2013) and about a year from the ending of our holding window (April 14, 2014), the Peace Corps announced that Volunteers could go back, starting in late May.

After careful thought, and talking to many people (my parents, Drs. Shiflett, Bird, Chu, Carmichael, and of course Chelcie Rowell), I asked to return to Ukraine, as of June 01. I learned that I would be going back to my school, the one I left in 2014. I will be helping with a summer camp, the first my school has done, during at least some of the summer. I will be teaching English, and hoping to run an English club for the students and instructors. I will be remaining a continuing student at UNCG, by taking online classes during the school year.