It's official: I will be going to
Austria next year!
Back in January, I applied to the
Austrian American Education Commission's Program, USTA Austria to be
an English Teaching Assistant. This program was to last one school
year, from mid-September until the end of May. I waited, waited, and
waited I finally got some news in early April:
I was designated an alternate.
I was pretty disappointed and in a
state of limbo. But then two weeks later I got this message:
Then I proceeded to yell “I got it!!”
and bounce around the house for about five minutes.
For those of you who know me, this
particular acceptance was very personal. In 2008-2009, I was a Rotary
Youth Exchange student to Austria the year after I graduated high
school.
I lived with host families, sat in on
the local high school, gained a lot of German skills, life
experience, and small anecdotes that I would obnoxiously sneak into
any conversation for months after I was back in the States. I never
got to go back between when that ended and now. I am looking forward
to reconnecting with people who introduced me to this wonderful
country.
Me back in 2009.
From mid-September 2013 to the end of
May 2014, I will be an English teaching assistant in the town of
Villach, Austria.
Villach is a town of about 50,000
people in the Austrian state of Kรคrten
(Carinthia in English). It is the southernmost state, and the city is
right near the Slovenian and Italian borders. In my exchange year,
my only foray into the state was time in a very clean rest stop at
the end of the exchange group's Euro Tour. It will an awesome
experience living somewhere I know will be “different”, but still
only have a vague idea of what to expect.
My good news was definitely curtailed
and distracted for those first few days. The final copy of my thesis
at New College (all 120 pages with references, title pages, and
everything) was due two days later. More sombering, when I got the
news, I was at my dad's house. We were on the way to my grandfather's
funeral who passed away just days before. Talk about a million
different emotions at once.
This blog will probably be pretty
quiet over the summer, but I hope once that I am abroad to update
about once a week.
