The Final Countdown

I leave for Costa Rica in 62 hours.

I have one more full day at my current job, and then I'm out. Being an Admissions Counselor at UC Santa Barbara has been an absolutely amazing experience. To me, it felt like an extension of my undergrad experience: great people, challenging experiences that made me grow as a person, and so many laughs along the way.

Telling my supervisor that I was leaving was one of those conversations where you know everything is about to change, and it's going to change quickly. I told her on June 8th that I was not going to do another travel season from September - November. I was a recruiter who visited high schools in Orange County and Colorado primarily and wanted to give her enough time to plan accordingly, especially since I was leaving for Argentina for my sister's wedding from June 16th - July 5th. I went into that conversation on June 8th not knowing when my last day was going to be. By the end of the conversation, I had an end date of July 11th and I was panicking. I didn't have a job, I didn't even have a fully developed plan as to what I was going to do.

Fast forward to today. A lot has changed in the past month: my sister is married, I'm back from Argentina, and we also executed my sister's California wedding reception flawlessly. I also have a plan: complete my TEFL certification at the International TEFL Academy in San Jose, Costa Rica. I have a flight: Avianca Airlines departing LAX at 1:45am on Thursday, July 13th landing at 9:45am. I have housing: a highly rated host family with a mother, father, daughter, and two grandchildren in the house.

I am so ready for this next chapter in my life. The future awaits.