Plans

The past few days have been a whirlwind of anxiety and decision-making. I'm still absorbing all the changes that are taking place, both short and long term. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Monday night was sleepless. All the confidence I'd been feeling the previous days totally evaporated, and I woke up sleep-deprived and jittery with nerves. For about 6 hours straight all I could think about was that it was TFA decision day, driving myself utterly insane in the process and maybe not the most pleasant person to be around. Around 5pm (we were told we'd find out after 8) my brain kind of just shut off, from what I imagine was a combination of fatigue and over-thinking. I told myself I wouldn't check my email until I was home after working a bit later than usual, and somehow managed to ignore that pestering red blinking coming from my phone telling me I have unread messages. Of course as soon as I get home I go right upstairs and open up my email. The first is just a general TFA email titled "Your Teach for America Application." The second, sent shortly after, was titled "Welcome to the Atlanta Corps!" At that point I just started smiling and didn't stop for approximately 5 hours, told my mom, and texted Caitlin letting her know that all our theoretical planning was actually (finally) real.

So, Atlanta it is. I'll be an elementary school teacher (curve ball!) and I'm completely thrilled. I officially accepted the offer today, and have to register for the GACE test that I'll be taking January 9th in Georgia. More flights to book! Speaking of flights - the test timing, as well as other pre-Institute work, coincides pretty terribly with my Thailand program. After thinking it over and talking with my parents, I've decided not to go to Thailand after all (sorry, gdub alumni newsletter).  I'm still visiting my family in Germany at some point in the spring, but priorities lie with TFA, so Thailand has to wait. The silver lining is that I'm getting basically all the money back that I've put into the trip so far...which is now dedicated to moving costs. Another silver lining is that I'll be at Alumni Weekend!

And yes, I'm already looking at Craigslist to see what kind of housing options there are (it's so cheap!) despite the fact that I know extremely little about Atlanta so far. And already loving the fact that Caitlin and I designated Wednesdays as Roommate Dinner at Soul Vegetarian night.  Agh. SO EXCITED!!