The directions life takes you...

Corie's getting married. My friends are new parents.

It's been such a rollercoaster of raised and then dashed hopes, that I scarcely dare breathe the words - let alone write them - but it looks like there's a good chance that I'll be teaching in Istanbul next year. I now have a proposed match - the materials will arrive in a day or two - and am in semi-regular email communication with my counterpart. There are more conversations that we have to have before we officially accept the match, and then our administrators have to accept it, which should be a formality but one never really knows... but it's looking much more optimistic.

And wouldn't you know, the message arrived just after I finally decided I couldn't wait for news any longer, and went on-line and submitted my name to transfer to several schools closer to my home. So now I'm not transferring, and I'll have to leave this apartment anyway, so when I come back, I will move closer to my school, and deus ex machina, leaving for a year is a promise to return.

Oddly, I'm not nervous for myself (that will come later!). The anxiety that I feel is all about the success of the match on this end, that she is happy and successful in my school, that we make a good impression, that my students are the wonderful people that I know they can be, that everyone learns and grows.

What makes the whole thing even weirder is that she is going to be one of the most experienced teachers in my school, having taught for nine years. More on that later - I'm running off to see this.