What's Ahead, and Some Things I Hadn't Considered . . .

What's ahead
In my next to last post, Sis. Jewel left a comment asking about what was going on with this talk of moving, etc. and I'm just now getting around to kind of summing up what God is doing, and some changes that are coming up soon.

"Change" has been quite the catchword lately, hasn't it? I might as well jump on the bandwagon. Oh, and by the way, I'm really excited about Barack Obama, and plan to vote for him if/when he wins the nomination. (I don't normally get political here, but anyway, that'll be for another post.)

If you remember way back in the day, well, last year around this time, in fact, I was nervously awaiting news to see if I had gotten in to a certain university. Well, I didn't get in. Once I came to my senses and realized where God was leading me all along, I applied to Auburn University. Things flew in to place. In the end, after taking classes this past Summer, this past Fall, and this Spring, I've been offered an assistantship for next Fall. (I'm still waiting on the official award letter before I spread the news at my place of employment.)

I won't be able to teach as an assistant/attend school at Auburn while holding down my current position in Montgomery, so I plan to resign and move to Auburn. By doing the school thing full time, I should be able to have my Master's degree by Spring or Summer of '09—so basically, in one more year, which isn't bad at all. (And a year goes by really fast. But don't ask me what I'm going to do after that because I honestly have no idea.) So, I've had to secure an apartment and everything now, because it's a college town and one bedrooms go fast. I may not have been able to get one if I had waited. Anyway, I'm also looking forward to going to Spain this summer to rack up some more credits before then—this is not just for fun though, I've got to do this so that I'll have enough hours to teach in the program and so that I won't be pulling my hair out while trying to write a thesis in the Spring. But we'll cross that bridge when we get there.

So, yeah, though I'm looking forward to what's ahead, I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I'm still working to overcome my fear of the unknown.

Some things I hadn't considered
I think I've mentioned before that I keep a personal journal. I've kept one consistently since I was 12. Every once in a blue moon, I read over some of what I've written and it's cool (sometimes painful) to look back and see how I've grown and changed, to realize the lessons I've learned. And sometimes, perhaps rarely, something will make sense. As in, I'll look back at what I wrote then, and realize now why I experienced what I did. I'll see that I had a question then that I have the answer to now. I may have even had a wish then and the realization of its having (possibly) been fulfilled only dawn on me now. Tonight was one of those once in a blue moon times. I went to Starbucks, resolved that I would eventually get to Spanish Civilization, but got caught up in re-reading my most current journal that I'd brought along just in case I wanted to take a break and write.

I'll just say that I saw something that I didn't see before. I realized something that my mind had completely glossed over. And while part of me feels a little encouraged, maybe even pleasantly surprised by the realization, the other part of me feels silly and reluctant to take the "realization" seriously. I've been guilty in the past of turning pure happenstance into "realizations" to mean what I wanted them to mean. And I don't want to do that now. It's truly a waste of precious mental energy. In theory, I'm very frugal about expenditures of mental energy, but in practice . . . well, I suppose I can't be the only one who deals with theory/practice tension. C'est la vie. Oh, and that reminds me, I'm going to make another effort to learn French. I bought a language course back in the day and never made it past the alphabet. This time, it's for real. Oui, oui.