NORTH BEND - AmeriCorps volunteer Jon Guss likes to make himself uncomfortable. At least that's how one supervisor describes the 23-year-old's knack for jumping in and then fitting in.

After spending time in Coos County for his assignment as the Coos Historical & Maritime Museum's education coordinator, the East Coast native will be using that rare skill in Slovakia, where he'll teach English and American studies for about 10 months through a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship.

"I think he's somebody who will jump very easily into any situation around the world," said Jennifer Sedell, field coordinator for AmeriCorps' Oregon State Service Corps. "He's very comfortable being kind of uncomfortable."

The Americorps job at the museum, along with the Fulbright scholarship, have opened those doors for him.

"I'm 23, so I don't feel like I'm at a point in my life where I need to be super comfortable," Guss said. "I guess I like being uncomfortable because I think that discomfort provides a challenge and by facing that challenge I am giving myself opportunities to learn and to grow."

The curly-haired volunteer, who can often be found wearing his gray Americorps zip-up, said he'd always wanted to come to the Pacific Northwest. Joining AmeriCorps and taking the museum job gave him a chance to do that after graduating from Penn State with degrees in history and philosophy.

"It was my first choice and I was lucky enough to get it," Guss said.

As the education coordinator, the Americorps volunteer has worked with a number of groups in the community, including the Coquille Indian Tribe, student teachers at Southwestern Oregon Community College and an acting coach from Little Theatre On the Bay, to enrich and keep the schools program running, said museum executive director Anne Donnelly. He's also revised some of the Kids to Museum activities - designed to tie in to state education benchmarks - to make them more engaging for fourth- and fifth-graders.

Guss said teaching high school students in Kosice, Slovakia, seems a natural progression. He chose Slovakia because he's familiar with Central Europe after living for some time in Austria during college. He also traveled to Thailand in high school.

In Kosice, he'll teach several different grades of high schoolers.

"Students will get to work with a native speaker and learn American studies from someone who has grown up and lived here," he said. "I see this as an extension of AmeriCorps in the sense that it's just a great opportunity to live somewhere different and gain experience with a slightly different career field."

He's already attempting to learn Slovak, the national language, but it hasn't been a smooth process.

"It's very difficult to learn a language by reading a book," Guss said.

When his 10 month-European tour is up, Guss said he may go to law school. He's also interested in education.

"I have an open mind about my future," he explained.

In addition to his museum work, the AmeriCorps volunteer started "South Coast Stories," a partnership with the Coos Bay Public Library and potentially others to gather stories of the South Coast for Oregon's Sesquicentennial celebration.

Having worked with Guss for about seven months, Donnelly said she believes he'll do well with his dry sense of humor and subtle smarts once he ends his 10-month stint in Coos County in July.

"He plunged into experiencing everything he can find out here," Donnelly said, "and when he got here, he pretty much did it to the nines."

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People who would like to know more about AmeriCorps can go to the organization's Web site at http://www.americorps.org.