Adventure!

Quick background: About a month ago (after being unemployed for a couple of months), I responded to a job posting online that said they needed staff to work for Central Texas College. The location of the job was listed as Afghanistan, Iraq, Kuwait (I later found out that the other possible locations could've included Kosovo, Qatar, and Bahrain). I figured, "ehhh, I like to travel..." and applied. Later that week I was having a phone interview with a man in Germany named Abraham who told me that this wasn't a guarantee but that he "felt very confident that I would be offered a job".

So now, tomorrow, I'm leaving for my big adventure. I'm spending about three weeks in Mannheim, Germany training for the job and for the daily operation of living on a base and then August 3rd I'm slated to deploy to Kandahar Air Field, Afghanistan. It's a base of 30,000 NATO forces and civilian support personnel. That's where I'll be spending the following six months.

So what's the job? I'll be an Army Learning Center Operator (ALCO). As an ALCO, I am there to support troops wishing to take classes while they are serving in the military. I'll be part librarian, part computer lab proctor, and part academic adviser. I'll be working about 12 hours a day, seven days a week. I'm excited and a little nervous. I hope to keep people updated on the general goings on during this experience through this blog. Whenever I update it, I will post to facebook so look out for it there.

I'm pretty excited! I realize this is crazy, isolating, and generally unheard of within the circles of practically everyone I know, but I'm doing it. It's only for six months. I feel like I could do anything for six months.

Adventure is out there!