Crazytown U.S.A- My first destination

A springtime Texas twister ain't got nothing on packing for France- Yeehaw!
see all photos »

I am moving to France in three days.

I have verbalized it many times over the last few months, chatting with well-wishers and loved ones, making plans, mumbling to myself as I fight down waves of panic (which have been appearing in tidal proportions lately.) Yet every time I say it and hear the statement roll off my tongue and ring in my own ears, it sounds even more insane than the thousands of times I have said it before.

"At first, I had nightmarish visions of myself as the newest resident lunch lady (slopping up powdered eggs benedict while Adam Sandler's Lunch Lady Land played in the background)..."

Thanks to my wonderful co-workers, I will at least 'appear' the sophisticated world-traveler with my new matching luggage!
see all photos »

You would think there would be a 'crazy threshold,' where the level of crazy would stop and bob in one place for a bit then even out... but no. To my horror, I move closer and closer to padded walls and the unfashionable white jackets with steel buckles that I don't think would go over well as Parisian couture.

This summer I accepted a position to teach English to elementary school kids in France for a year beginning this October, as part of a program sponsored by the French Embassy. I was placed in a town called Nogent Le Rotrou about an hour and a half by train southwest of Paris. From what I understand, it is a smaller town (12,000 people) in the northern Loire Valley. Quaint as it sounds, it has a detailed website, and those of you who are feeling adventurous can surf your way through it: http://www.ville-nogent-le-rotrou.fr/

I will be living at the collège, which to us American-folk is actually the middle school! At first, I had nightmarish visions of myself as the newest resident lunch lady (slopping up powdered eggs benedict while Adam Sandler's Lunch Lady Land played in the background) for my room and board, but luckily it is said to be a charming place. Old, lovely, and I will be surrounded by teachers my own age and will not be required to don a hairnet.

Although the realization I am actually leaving has brought with it the ensuing vertigo, I have also started to speculate on what life will be like in this new, bright place in my world. Every now and then, between smashing my clothes unnaturally flat by sucking all the air out of special suped-up plastic bags, re-verifying the number of antiperspirant/deodorant sticks I have, and mumbling to myself (as mentioned before), I get a strong flash of excitement. It is sudden and dizzying, like something clicks over in my brain, surfacing through the silly fear and apprehension and prods me not to swim against the current, but to relax and let life do what it does. I think, wow, what waits for me in this place? And I realize something must be, and I plan to find out very soon what it is.