Back to the Dirty South

So today I was presented with some interesting and exciting news. I was accepted into Teach for America, with an offer to teach elementary school in New Orleans. For those of you who had been following along, my relationship with Teach for America has been an interesting one. After working with at-risk kids in Alaska and desperate to get back to New York, I applied and interviewed but only preferences a few cities, NYC being one of them. I'm pretty sure that my interviewers could smell my desperation and with a sub-par 5 minute lesson to boot, it's no wonder they rejected me outright. I don't blame them.

Then my first year of NCCC, I applied again. this time I was accepted and offered a position to teach in the Mississippi Delta. At that point in time, you had to rank every single one of their 50 plus locations, with the possibility that you could end up in the geographic location at the bottom of your list, which is exactly what happened to me. While it all sounded like a grand adventure, moving to rural Mississippi and teaching kids at some of the most high needs school in the nation, the thought of moving to said rural location made me want to cry. I tried to talk myself into it for months, going through the motions as if updating my resume and taking the required exams would somehow make want to actually move to rural Mississippi. Finally, in April, I had some real talk with myself and ultimately decided that if the thought of moving some place made me want to cry, it probably wasn't the best fit for me. Had I been 22 and just out of college, moving from Auburn to rural Mississippi would have been fine, but being 28, many years out of college, and having lived pretty recently in Manhattan, I knew it wasn't for me.  Had I accepted, I'd be well into my second year of teaching. It's weird to think about, but it's a decision I'm pretty happy with.

So I decided to go back for more and apply again. This time around, I was elated to be placed in Baltimore, Maryland. A handful of my friends from the year before moved to Baltimore and it was just a hop skip and a jump from other major cities on the east coast. I accepted the offer immediately and was all ready to go when I received an offer for Semester at Sea. Even my dad said I'd be nuts to turn it down and coming from a guy who rarely travels more than an 8 hour drive from Omaha, that's saying something. But I knew he was right. On one hand, I was excited to not be living out of a suitcase, to pick out my own clothes, and to not share my living space with 10 other people. But on the hand that is much more indicative of my wanderlust, Semester at Sea was willing to hire me again for perhaps the most amazing job I'd ever had. And they'd basically pay me to go to Asia and Africa. Like my dad said, I'd be nuts to turn it down. So I didn't. I applied for a deferral for Teach for America, but was rejected. Rejected but welcome to apply the next year. Again. If they only knew...

I wasn't actually 100% sure I was going to apply again, but I was 100% sure that I wanted to have a job waiting for me when I came back. I can't imagine attempting to schedule interviews and relying on payphones in a foreign country or paying out the nose for phone service while at sea. So sort of at the last minute, I decided to throw my hat in the ring again. The day before I had been rejected from the New York City Teaching Fellows, so I was psyching myself out, convinced I hadn't made the cut, so imagine my surprise when I was offered a position in a city that has been at the top of my list each time I applied. It will be interesting to move back to the South after evolving into the wanderlusting liberal that I've become since college, but 80% of Orleans parish voted for Obama so I think I'll be just fine. Welcome back to the dirty dirty.