So you might recall that I said I have no idea what I'm doing next year. Well, that has finally changed! I HAVE NEWS!
So, I refrained from posting about this in case it didn't work out, but it has, so I can finally post!
After a lot of thinking last summer, I decided to apply for a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship. I decided to apply to Spain because it is my favorite place in the world. So I wrote essays and filled out a lengthy application and asked for recommendations and then I had an interview with a panel of professors from HPU. And then I turned it all in by mid-October and I settled in for the longest wait of my entire life. (I didn't even wait that long to find out about college or grad school!) Lalala. No stress...
Except EXTREME STRESS the day the Spain decisions came out and... I didn't have an email! Nothing! Not in my Spam folder, not hidden among other emails, not a thing. Everyone seemed to have heard but me. Being in Hawaii and 6 hours behind the East Coast, I discovered all of this at 6 AM on a Monday, which is not a good time to discover anything. I called the Fulbright office and told the lady that I hadn't gotten my email and she just said that some of them had bounced back, and she couldn't tell me my results over the phone (WHY?!), but she would try resending them later that day. Of course, I panicked and called my mother.
She calmed me down a little bit, but I was about ready to throw up from nerves. AND I was set to be videotaped teaching that morning. What a day! Anyway, while we were on the phone, I got an email with the subject "Fulbright Application Andorra." Which is not Spain, so I was confused. Did they know who I was? I didn't apply to Andorra! Surely there had been another mistake.
I opened it (hyperventilating slightly) and found out that they could not offer me a spot in Spain, but there were extra spots in Andorra, and would I like to go there instead? I wasn't 100% sure this was a thing that could happen, and I was not sure from the wording of the email if I definitely got Andorra or if I'd have to wait even more. I replied saying that yes, I was interested, and I got an email back shortly confirming that I was indeed being offered a Fulbright to teach in Andorra!
It was so surreal. I was excited but so surprised! Here I'd been planning to either stay in Hawaii or be in Madrid, and now I was going to Andorra! Most people, when I told them this, said "Andorra? You mean Pandora? Is that even a real country?" Some people said, "Is that a part of Spain?" To which I obviously replied:
But anyway, for those of you who don't know (which is most people, I guess): Andorra is a teeny tiny little country in the Pyrenees between Spain and France. Yes, it's a real country. The official language is Catalan, the area is 181 square miles, and there are about 80,000 residents. The main things to do there are hiking, skiing, and duty-free shopping. And in September, I'm going to be living there teaching 12-16 year-olds English for a year! WOO HOO!
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| The Andorran flag. I think it's pretty! |
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| This is Andorra! So tiny!!!!!! |
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| But soooo beautiful. Guess I'd better work on my skiing... |
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| Seriously, doesn't it look like it's straight out of a fairytale? |
So there you have it! My big news! That's about it for now... I'll post soon with some pictures of fun Oahu things that we've been doing and an update on school.
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