Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Rejections & Divine Interventions....Part 2

***Please Note: This post is the 2nd part of a two part series. Thus please click HERE to read the first half. Otherwise, you will be very, very confused!***

Since I have yet to master how to write a short,sweet, and concise blog post, I had no other choice but to split it up into two different posts. For those of you who did not read the first half, here is the abridged, Cliff Notes version: I basically returned back to the States in November of 2010, went back to "the job," and then decided to look for a career. I happened to arrive back in Pittsburgh for a job fair where I made a connection with a recruiter and went on 3 subsequent interviews for his company. After receiving a "hiring procedures" letter and getting excited that I had a career, things quickly turned sour and I was ultimately rejected (why....I shall never know). Now that we got that part out of the way, I shall begin part 2!

As I briefly mentioned in part 1, I had applied for the Teaching in France Program in late December despite the advice from my old college advisor to take my time and enjoy the holidays. I was quite ambivalent about applying for the program since I was rejected in 2009. I will not bore you with all the details but, I literally went through the DABDA (Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance) phases as if someone died (which my dream of doing this program did). Not one to give up however, I found another way to get to France via being an au pair. I had some good times and some bad but ultimately, I am glad I did it. I hate to sound cheesy but my au pair experience really matured me. I accomplished a lot of things I may not have otherwise been able to do had I been accepted into the teaching program (i.e.: French language fluency, living and learning the French culture in an intimate setting, and best yet...free food, transport pass, and housing). Through out my time in France, I thought about applying for the program and I had even completed half of the application in by early November. But then the doubts crept in and I decided that I would not apply. One night in late December I had a vivid dream, followed by hours of insomnia which left me with a change of heart and mind and I decided to once again apply to the program. I scrabbled around like hell to get the application completed and on December 29th, a mere two days before the due date I got the application done with a large sigh of relief (and glass of wine to follow).

I pushed thoughts about the program and my application out of my head due to the fact I was interviewing back and forth in Pennsylvania and also applying for random Study Abroad office jobs in my downtime. By the time March rolled around I got a bit anxious and the dark thoughts crept in: " Did my transcript come out ok ( I had many problems uploading it) to the hiring committee?" "What if I was accepted into a region I did not desire to go to?" "What if I really was accepted?" But also..."What if I was yet again rejected?" I put these thoughts out of my head again and told myself: "que sera, sera" that whatever is meant to be really will be and I thought nothing of it until the email arrived in my inbox in early April...

I had been waitlisted....

I was in complete disblief..."me waitlisted?" I thought I had the entire package, I was a triple threat combination. Meaning that I :
1.) Had lived abroad in France for almost an entire year ( the program likes applicants who have spent some time abroad, preferably in a Francophone speaking country).
2.) I had attended French language school and had a 'prof' that only spoke French and in my classes we were only allowed to speak French (Thus my oral and comprehension skills were probably stronger than many so called "French major" applicants).
3.)I had experience with children (after all I was an au pair) complete with a bit of English teaching thrown in there (Well, my lil one learned English due to the 'chansons' of Justin Bieber).

Being the one to play Devil's Advocate however, I think my late application submission, combined with my top choice region (Paris, which is always really popular) probably did me in. I decided to leave myself on the waitlist since I probably would never be selected anyway. Then came the irony...

As Stated in my previous post, I received a call on a Monday informing me that the job may not be mine in PA. Then the divine intervention came along...the next day, less than 24 hours later I got an email from the Program stating that I had been "Accepted" and into my first choice region (Paris Region...Versailles to be exact).

I honestly believe that everything happens for a reason. The Lord does work in mysterious ways and this is just an example of that. After talking things over with some friends I wrote the head of the program to ask for more time since I was waiting for the "other job" to give me a response. I was granted the extension and then on April 29th, the day of the royal wedding (Yes, I was up at 5 a.m. EST for all the festivities) I decided to head to the post office and send in all my materials....


But alas my friends, an uncertainty remains since I just began working at another job last week. So the question remains: "To go to France or stay in the U.S.A."


A decision will be made come June 23rd....

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