bells will ring... the sun will shine

Everything is happening so fast that it still feels unreal to me. Sometimes, just to make it more real, I say to myself, “You’re going to Africa!” and it starts to settle in a little more. But if that doesn’t make it real enough to me, you know what does? The ton of things I need to get done before departing. Thankfully, I can cross two of those things off of my list. 

I’m not one of those women who have been dreaming of a princess wedding since childhood. But I must admit that shortly after the proposal I was pleasantly haunted by visions of the perfect wedding dress. It didn’t exist anywhere but in my head, and I was willing to do whatever it took to have my seamstress-sister bring it to fruition. So never in a million years would I have thought that I would walk into a store on my lunch break and walk out with my wedding dress. But that’s just what happened. Well it’s not a wedding dress in the traditional sense (i.e. white, poofy, sickening), but it is lacy. Maybe I’ll post some pics after the occasion.

What are your thoughts on keeping with tradition? Is it important or stifling? What untraditional aspects have you or would you incorporate in your wedding?

With my dress taken care of, it was time to move onto the second most important task at hand: plane tickets! After checking out some online ticket prices, we decided to kick it old school and go through a travel agent. I thought travel agents were obsolete—boy was I wrong. They’re amazing. Although it took a little longer (about an hour) to finalize everything, we were able to work with an actual person to tailor our itinerary to fit our needs and get our tickets cheaper than the prices offered online. Long story short: travel agents rock!

Do you prefer travel agencies or online booking? Are travel agencies obsolete?

TAP TAP TAP... Is this thing on?

                                                                                                                                                          Source
Peace reader! Thanks for joining me.

My name is Rose.* I was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York.  I wouldn’t say Brooklyn is all I know, seeing as though I attended boarding schools for both high school and undergrad, and my passport has seen its share of ink stamps. But I will say Brooklyn is the only home I know.

I am 27 years old and engaged to the love of my life—let’s call him: The Mister. (His choice, not mine! I actually hate it.) For the past 5 years, I’ve been not so happily working a dead end position at a top NYC law firm. The Mister and I have been throwing around the idea of leaving NYC for quite some time, however the timing never really seemed right. And truth be told, my love for all things Brooklyn probably kept us grounded here far longer than necessary.

One night not too long ago, The Mister and I were talking about future plans and the prospect of teaching English abroad arose. It’s something we’ve both wanted to do and had talked about before, but that night we discovered the fire of desire was well alive. So we researched opportunities and avenues and decided to take an Oxford Seminars certification course. We had looked into Oxford Seminars when we considered teaching abroad in the past—we even attended the information session. But something was different this time. We had committed ourselves to going to abroad.  I’m a firm believer in the adage, “everything happens for a reason.”  In order to take advantage of discounts offered, The Mister and I attended an info session (even though we attended an info session in the past). At the end of the session, as we were filling out our registration forms, a batty old woman who had been interrupting the presenter’s spiel with nonsensical questions comes over to us. She was extremely chatty and invasive of personal space. So we’re both kinda mmhmm-ing her while concentrating on our applications, willing her to go away. Are you annoyed yet? We were. So I’ll save you the details, long story short: she dropped the name of a website that posts paid and volunteer opportunities available overseas. We jotted down the website, wished her luck and went on about our business.

The next evening, I came home from work to The Mister raving about an awesome opportunity he came across on the website the old batty woman had suggested to us. To make what could turn into a really long story short: we both applied, and here two weeks later, we’ve been accepted and offered positions.

Now, in the next 3 months, I’ll be leaving my job, giving up my apartment, getting married, saying goodbye to my friends, family and the only home I know, and boarding a plane headed to Ghana, Africa starting life anew as a wife, teacher, student of life and returned daughter of Africa. 

*Well sorta. Rose is actually my middle name. In the interest of anonymity, I’ll be using it as a nom de plume for this blog. The internet is a very dangerous place for a paranoid like me.