Long Awaited Arrival of Contract

Today, after two months of waiting, endless hours of grief, and anxiety that has by now created an ulcer in my stomach, my contract arrived.  And by arrived, I do not mean the original came by mail to my house.  No, today I received a scanned copy of my contract although at this point, I would take it any way it came to me.

So it's just a chain reaction from here, right? Everything will just fall into place?  Well let's hope so.

This is what I found out from my contract:
- I am located at two different schools, one in Caen and one in Mondeville ( a suburb about 10 minutes out of the city).  The one in Caen is a middle school and the one in Mondeville is a high school.
-I will be teaching through April 30 of next year.
-I believe they have set up housing for me, as it seems I have a room somewhere. Not sure about that one, I will have to check on that.

Believe it or not, now that I have my contract I am almost more nervous and anxious about moving to France.  There is so much for me to do before I leave!  But the only way I am going to remain sane is if I take one step at a time so that is my plan for now.  Next step: Get to my Visa appointment with all of the necessary documents.  Wish me luck!

Here is a map of France so you can see where Caen is and know where I will be for the next year:

Last Day at Work

So I have been meaning to start this blog for awhile now and I decided what better time to create it than my last day at work?  Luckily, my co-workers understand that I did not want to do much on my last day and took care of most of the work for the day.  We decided to have a "grazing" table today which means that everyone brings a food item to share and we set them out on a table so that we may "graze" during the day.  We had an assortment of food including homemade salsa and guacamole, muffins, cookies, amazing brownies, and finished off an edible arrangement.

Having to say goodbye to so many amazing people has been hard but it only makes me remember how blessed I have been to work at this office for the last two years.  I will miss everyone dearly but I am going to make sure and stay in touch.  As I have told many people, I don't think I could forget the Housing address if I tried so they will be receiving many postcards next year.

At the beginning of the day, Iris and Kerry decided that we should do something fun all day so we have been taking pictures at the grazing table every hour on the hour.  Iris will no doubt be posting the pictures on facebook soon, so if you get a chance to look at them, they are pretty funny.

So while it's sad because I have less than an hour left, I think it's time for me to start my new adventure: Moving to France!!!  I am going to try and comment on all of my adventures in teaching English and traveling on this blog so that people know what I'm up to when I am across the world.

Until then, enjoy some pictures of my last day with Housing!