There Are Giants in the Sky

Last week while waiting momentarily in the counseling office at my school, I looked at the college posters on the walls around me and suddenly panicked.  "I haven't even started my applications yet!" I thought.

And then I realized that I don't have to apply to college.  I did that already.

While my heart-rate and breathing settled back towards normal, I wondered what caused that momentary chronological confusion.  I realized that with all of the Pretty Big Stuff I've been dealing with this month/summer/year, somehow it felt wrong to hear about a major life decision that I didn't have to deal with.  It has been, as Lisa declared at dinner Thursday night, "an Old Testament year" for me.  "And it's not over yet!" she also helpfully pointed out.

It's true.  It has been a season of many waters - of oceans and tears, of flooding and derechos and rain in the desert.  It's been a season of insurance fights and camping with camels and financial loss mingled with embarrassment and heartbreak and burnout.  It has been a season of finding courage and patience and hope.

My adventures this year were made of both accidents and plans; and even now, even in the midst of fighting for insurance coverage and writing a grant for stage lights and spending hours over the last three months trying to track down a receipt to be reimbursed less than $100 and refinancing my home and teaching and coaching and directing and trying really hard to learn how to be social, even in the midst of all of that I am applying for a Fulbright Teacher Exchange for next year.

I can't help myself.  This is an opportunity to live and teach in the UK.  This is a program that my principal and my colleagues support.  This is a program that asks for this as a part of the application:

This is a program that I would love to do.

It's a really long shot.  Not only do I have to pass muster as a highly-qualified candidate, but there has to be a similarly prestigious applicant from a theater position in the UK.  It's a small, small window; and I am not getting my hopes too high up.

I am applying for it though.  You know, since I don't have to apply for college.



P.S.  I am also pretty proud of this:

 

And I wasn't even done yet!