Whoa Nelly!!

Well, the next two years for D and I will be filled with sandy beaches, exotic animals, a new language, and a whole lot of adventures.

We survived the overseas fair (and the Iowa weather, negative 8 for the whole weekend)! The whole experience was absolutely amazing. I have never seen, met, or talked to so many wonderful, dedicated, and encouraging people before. All of us were in the same stressful state of mind that we seemed to emphasize with each other immediately. Instead of there being the atmosphere of competition, there was a feeling of "we are all in this together." It was incredible.

The fair started on Friday morning. The first thing we had to do was check our mail folder for the ever-elusive interview request slips. Because of our special situation, where I am the only teacher in this marriage, there were no interview requests to be found in my mail folder. To say the least, we were discouraged but not all together surprised. We were then given a brief orientation and some time to plan our strategy for the round robin portion of the fair. The round robin is where the schools who are seeking teachers are set up in rows in the huge conference room. We are then given an hour and a half to visit as many tables as possible and convince them to interview us in 45 seconds or less. That means that D and I had less than a minute to sell ourselves and convince the schools that we were worth interviewing even if D does not also have a teaching degree.

By the end of the round robin, we had four interviews lined up and the day was looking a bit brighter.

We ended up interviewing with a school in Ecuador, Turkey, and Mexico (the school in Trinidad filled the position before my interview time). I think all the interviews went well, but it was Ecuador that I felt the most connected with. D, who went to all the interviews with me, and I clicked right away with the director of the school and had a complete peace about the destination and terms of the position.

Saturday, the director offered us the job and just like that our lives changed. We leave in 5 months and will be gone for two years. We are excited, scared, ecstatic, and sad all at once. It is an adventure of a life time, and I can't wait.