"It's Official!"

Thanks to the beauty of Blogger, I can write my posts and have them publish at different times. This works well on nights when I have all the time in the world and lots of motivation for blog writing. (Ex. The blog you read yesterday and the blog you will read tomorrow were written on the same night... my secrets are revealed.) The reason I divulge this information to you is that for the next week or so, you will be receiving regular posts about my kids and wrapping up my school year. You may also receive spontaneous posts about my upcoming move to Malaysia. Hope you can track with me, it may get bumpy. I thought about publishing all of the school posts this week and then starting Malaysia talk next week, but my life is about to get uber-busy and figured I'd keep the school posts a little spaced out so that on the (probable) occasion that I can't post, you can still have something to read with your morning coffee. Plus, Malaysia stuff is happening now, so it's more fun to post it 'live' than to write it in future or past tense! All that to say, let's get down to the topic at hand.

I officially applied to teach with my sponsoring organization on Easter, 2012. I remember pushing the submit button on the online application and proclaiming, "It's official! I've applied to teach overseas!" to my family.

About a week later, I got a phone call from the head of the organization to schedule a phone interview. The interview came and 30-minutes later, I was offered a verbal contract with the school. I immediately got on the computer and emailed my family (they're all spread out around the world) that "It's official! I've got a contract!".

Life happened, a little time passed, school year started coming to an end and I realized I really needed to make sure I was really going through with this, and if so, take the steps necessary to make it happen. So, with a little help from my friend Google, I wrote my letter of resignation and turned it in with my unsigned contract to Human Resources. A few minutes later I got on Facebook and wrote...

Hopefully you can read that. If not, just note that it says, once again, "It's official!" I was overwhelmed by the support and positive reactions I got to the news. I have the best family and friends ever. For real.

But anyway, a few days later, it was the last day of the school year and I packed up my classroom and said some good-byes. Walked out the door and thought to myself, "It's official. I am no longer a teacher at Palmer." (Hopefully you're catching the theme of this post, but if not, a good reading strategy is to always look at the title for the Main Idea. Helpful hint from your favorite 4th grade teacher.)

And that brings us to today. My first week of summer has been amazing, but incredibly busy with hanging out with friends, going to the gym (amazing, but not so amazing at the same time), packing, pool, and ERRANDS! I don't know how it's possible to have as many errands to run as I do, but I feel like I've done multiple errands per day and there are still more! Anyway, today's errands involved going to the Human Resources office to turn in my NNPS ID badge and my NNPS laptop. While I was in there, I saw one of my co-workers and told her what I was doing. You'll never guess what she said. From there, I went to the thrift store and found some SUPER sweet suitcases (no, seriously. I love them. Don't judge me! They're big, light, well-made and were cheap! Not to mention nobody will try to steal them or get them confused with their own... see for yourself.)

I can now officially start packing! Oh yeah, and then I bought my plane tickets.

It's official. I'm moving to Malaysia on July 28th.