Nomad

Finals are wrapped up (tightly and in 'A' form, I do hope), and the next few things to plan for are my au pair trip to France and the Music Therapy audition next spring.

Yes. You heard me right. A trip to France. After discovering that I wasn't going to be able to start my Music Therapy program this upcoming fall (bummer, I know, but that's a different, long and discouraging story) I started surfing the internet for alternative ways to spend my year. The options: working, traveling, or doing nothing.

I pondered over my three options:

I could work - probably SHOULD work - but that's no fun and besides, that's what I'll be doing for the rest of my life, so why join the permanent job ranks so early?

Doing nothing could be fun. Laze around. Eat fruit. Watch other students slave over their homework.

And then there's traveling... Which could still involve lots of fruit and slothery (that's a word), but also include some type of volunteer work, or paid work, or struggling-to-understand-that-roadsign work.

So travel it was - and is.

Shortly after deciding I wanted to travel I came across the term "au pair". I was not aquainted with this term and started researching. Turns out au pairing is essentially nannying for a family in a foreign country. The perks are that you get free room and board and the family is somewhat obligated to show you their culture and teach you their language.

It didn't take more than a couple of days before I had myself a profile on an au pair website and had contacted several host families from Australia and France.

Now, I am currently in contact from a little family in France and planning on flying over mid-September and staying until late December. And yes, I am dang excited.

The family lives about 15 minutes by train outside of Paris, France. They have three children - a 6 yr old boy, 3 year old girl, and 3 month old baby girl - and they want me to come help them learn to speak English. Things are getting underway.

I've skyped with them, during which they told me one of their favorite parts of my profile was the line, "I will encourage the children to be out in the sunshine; to play in the water and feel the grass beneath their feet", which I seriously thought about taking out because it reeked of sappiness. Next on the agenda is applying for a visa and preparing all the documents.

Pretty exciting, no?

So as if that's not enough excitement, I'm also considering backpacking through either Europe or the States (can't decided which; to go where where they speak English, or not to go where they speak English - that is the question) after I get done au pairing.

A lot is up in the air, but better something up in the air than nothing at all.

As for this summer, Crater Lake, weddings and reunions will have me booked and smiling.

2012 has got "incredible" written all over it.