Yesterday, the news finally came. I felt like I had been waiting forever to hear back from Fulbright and it was the end of the day, so I had given up. Then, as I was getting ready to leave, I checked my email one more time and there it was! I paused for a second, analyzing the email title: Fulbright Distinguished Awards in Teaching Program Selection Notification. It could mean I was selected. Or it could mean it was a notification about whether or not I was selected. Ambiguous. I knew the moment I clicked I’d finally have the answer I was waiting for. (Not to be overly dramatic, but jeez Fulbright, when you say “March” people like me assume you mean March, not April.)
I clicked, skimmed, looked for the words. I found them: On behalf of the U.S. Department of State, I would like to congratulate you on being selected for the Fulbright Distinguished Awards in Teaching Program. I had promised myself the world wouldn’t end if I didn’t get it, but I new I wanted this badly. Reading the sentence made my day. What made my day even better was telling all my colleagues, friends, and family. They were/are so happy for me and that is the best part of all.
So, the current plan: I am taking a leave-of-absence from my amazing school in Salt Lake City. (I just filed the paperwork yesterday!) It is bittersweet, but I am excited to have an entire year to spend in New Zealand and with my family in Minnesota. The plan is to leave for Minnesota on July 3rd, be there through January, and then head to New Zealand for second semester.
Today I am thinking about one of my favorite quotes:
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live sturdily and Spartan-like as to put rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms. – Henry David Thoreau, Walden: Or, Life in the Woods