How It All Began

Wow!  It's amazing how fast life can change.  A few weeks ago I was living life like normal, working toward my master's degree at the University of Maryland.  I figured I'd spend the rest of the semester in College Park happy as a lark.  I even was planning on spending my first summer in MD working in Washington DC doing something political.  That would've been great.  I would have been one hundred percent content.  But life has a way of twisting and turning into beautiful unpredictability.

Within the past few weeks I was notified that I received a Fulbright grant to Uruguay.  I could hardly believe it.  Really, I didn't think that it could be real.  I had applied to Argentina way back in the fall of 2007 through Shippensburg University even before I applied to graduate schools.  I made it to the final round and then got a letter saying that I was not accepted.  Bummer.  I managed to put that disappointment behind me; thinking it wasn't meant to be.  Then, I got word that funding may open up in Uruguay in February of this year, almost a year and half since I had originally pored over the (lengthy and detailed) application.  Not much later, the assistant director for US student programs of the International Institute of Education told me that I was offered the grant.  Seriously?  That was my first thought.  Seriously?

Of course I want a Fulbright grant.  It's a FULBRIGHT grant.  People don't turn those down.  People dream of these sorts of things.

The craziest part however, is that the grant starts in mid-March, not more than a few weeks away.  I have to leave mid-semester here.  My department is amazing though.  They found someone to teach my courses, solved my tuition remission, and are working with me to figure out what I want to do regarding the courses I am taking.  I am so thankful for their dedication to helping me realize this dream.  Seriously?  How often does a Fulbright grant fall into one's lap.  That just doesn't happen.

But then again--maybe it does.