Eloquence out the door

So.  There's really no composed, academic, or poetic way to say this... nor can I accurately convey my excitement .............................

 I AM AN OFFICIAL TEACH FOR AMERICA CORPS MEMBER!!!!!!!!!!!!! (ENTER SPUR OF THE MOMENT REACTIONARY CUSS WORD HERE)

 (Teresa that MadLib format is for you.)

Anyway, total cheeseball alert:  my dreams are literally coming true.  In high school I heard about TFA (that's what us folk on the inside call it) and it always sounded like a lovely idea.  I'd occasionally name drop the program to make it sound like I had a plan for my life, but I never really knew much about it.  Come college, and I figured TFA was just for those student-body-president-I-do-everything-and-am-one-step-away-from-solving-world-hunger types.  Thus, in traditional me fashion, I assumed I wasn't quite qualified for the program.

THEN, one random fall day, I was contacted by the GU recruitment director who was inquiring about my interest in the program.  While I thought it was a mass email and assumed, in traditional me fashion, that everyone and their dog received this email, I read on and realized that this guy knew quite a bit about what I've been involved in and mentioned that my name was recommended to him by a professor (e-shout out to that professor, whoever you are).  From that, I met with Mr. Recruitment Director, bit the bullet and decided to start stage 1 of 3: my online application, resume and letter of intent.

Continuing in traditional me fashion... I told myself that I was just doing it to see what happens... that I didn't care either way... but now that we're at this point, let's cast pride aside and be real: I've wanted this since I first heard about the program in high school.

Few weeks pass: phone interview.  Few more pass: acceptance to final interview.  Even more pass: Straight up STRESSING at 7 am (mind you I'd been up since 5 practicing my lesson and preparing), I trek through the snow to get to my in-person interview.... And just so happened to get there a good 3 hours early.... multiple hours and lots of adrenaline highs and lows later, I was trekking back home in the snow and  completely blacking out from the amount of awesomeness I had to channel and try to convey for 6 hours.

Finally, here I am, a month and a half later (ok I found out yesterday, sorry), my heart beating faster and my stomach rising higher with every second it takes my computer to log in to my email, and I see two new messages in my inbox: one from Teach For America Admissions with no subject line, and above it one from some lady -I figured junk mail- until I saw the status line reading: "Welcome to Teach for America- Colorado!"

I re-read both emails about 10 times to make sure this wasn't some kind of trick where they say "Congratulations!  Due to your blah blah blah blah....... we are NOT going to accept you!"  Turns out, that didn't happen, so I felt justified to go on ahead and FREAK OUT, running through my house only to find that no one was home.... calling my family.... and fighting back tears.  Yes.  I cried.  Happiness tears are real.

Anyway, I will officially be teaching Secondary English in the Denver or Colorado Springs area... I will be moving to Denver mid-summer.... and my life is about to begin.  So there's my extremely self-involved entry because for right now, student teaching stories have taken a temporary hiatus- but that's just representative of my state of mind at the moment.

The best part of it all?  I think I've stopped the ol' "traditional me fashion" of doubting myself.  I truly believe that this is what I was meant to do. And g-dang it I deserve it.