The Spanish Sorting Hat

Why hello there readers!

So after four of the most brain-draining years of my life, I've finally done it. I am now a college graduate. Hard to believe, I know, considering I look about 14 to some people, but let's just roll with it, shall we?

Like any graduate, I constantly get the question of what I'm doing next in life. To be honest, it gets annoying after the first 748 times. And so, I started this blog to document what I'll be doing, and this first post has the answer.

For my first year in the post-college world, I'm hopping across the pond. Quite literally.

You see, back in February, I applied to be an English Conversation Assistant Language and Culture Assistant (fancy title, sheesh) in Spain. It's a bit of a risky move: the pay is rather low, you move to a foreign country all on your own, and there's no guarantee of getting your top choice region or age group.

SOUNDS LIKE FUN ALL AROUND. Everyone loves living by themselves and being completely les mis.

But in all honesty, I knew what I was signing up for. While I was abroad in Spain, I got a taste of living in Sevilla, and I also got the chance to work as a volunteer at a secondary school teaching English.The only difference now was that I was not picking Sevilla as my top city and I was not choosing secondary school as my top age group. The pay...eh, coming off of a college budget, everything else seems like living the high life.

In March, I received my acceptance letter into the program, but no word on location. Once I confirmed that I would indeed take a place in Spain, only then could they work on assigning me a school. Sneaky sneaks try to trap you into potentially accepting a crappy location.

And so I waited for the Spanish Sorting Hat CIEE to place me somewhere, and last week, I received an offer at a primary school in central Madrid, my top choice city and age group. I debated it, to be honest, because it's still a huge decision to make. But in the end, I decided to go for it and see where life abroad takes me.

Long story short: I am moving to Madrid, Spain, this fall. 

So where, pray tell, does this blog come in?

Well, dear reader, let me tell you.

I'm not much of a blogger, and I certainly am no Shakespeare, but:
1. There are plenty of auxiliares or future auxiliares who might want an honest perspective on the journey. Think of it as Quidditch Through the Ages, Spain Style (Auxiliares Through the Ages?).
2. No matter how much I try to keep in touch with everyone from home, I know I'll definitely miss some details, so I'll try to make up for it here.
3. I have been told many a times that maybe writing in a journal would help make me less stressed. This isn't really a real journal, and I doubt that advice is true in my case, but hey why not.

So where do we stand now? Now that I accepted my placement, it's a waiting game to get my forms from Spain in order to get a visa. I will outline that process in another post, because frankly it's a nightmare. I'm still on the fence about taking the GRE, so that might also come up again. Regardless of that though, I need to mentally (and I suppose physically too) start preparing myself for grad school application extravaganza in the fall. Cue happy dance (loljk).

And that will be all for now, I believe.

Bring in the dancing lobsters. xx, Nic