The Latest on the Grand Adventure

Last week's paperwork trip was a complete success, although not for the random black man who asked me out. (I've got to say, aside from the fact that he was a total stranger, he definitely could have picked a better place for it than the county jail).

Anyway, East Coast E has requested the background on the Grand Adventure (i.e., my upcoming job in Austria as an au-pair), so for those whom I haven't already told, here it is.

It's quite simple, really -- I'd known about the position for a couple of years, ever since one of my friends first took it. I'm not sure how she discovered it, but as I understand the family became (through her) connected with and very interested in the community that had grown up around TAC. (They are Catholic). Anyway, I'd heard they were seeking someone for 2009, and automatically rejected the idea as too "scary" and "big" for a homebody like me. I thought nothing more of it until the beginning of October, when my mom called me at work to say that they still hadn't found a girl to take the job yet.

"Well, you already know my answer to that," I said, and we dropped the subject. Two seconds after I hung up, though, I thought -- and why not? The only answer I could come up with was "I'm scared", and that didn't seem good enough, so I applied as soon as I got home (in order to have no time to get cold feet). That's how it always seems to go with momentous decisions -- my cool, brassy, executive alter-ego takes over and lays down the law while my real self cowers under the seat in the control room, watching the proceedings in horror.

Sometimes I wonder if my reasoning is twisted, when I think how it was the "scare factor" that decided me in favor of this trip, but I really think you have to begin doing terrifying things at some time. There's no point in avoiding the challenge -- if you shy away now and seek the easy things, you simply postpone the inevitable. Somewhere along the line you WILL have to get out of your comfort zone, and choosing your own point of departure is the most dignified way of going about it, in my opinion. After all, what is life if we never do difficult things? There's no growth. There's no confidence. There's no perspective. And above all, there's no faith. Faith is easy if you're never tested, just as loving someone is easy as long as they don't require anything of you. If you say you love someone, how will they know you love them unless you act? Or maybe, to put the question as Robert Bolt's Thomas More might have -- how will YOU know you love them?

And that, rather simplified, was how the "Grand Adventure" came about.

Update: Ahh yes, details. I'm afraid that for this past month I've been thinking so furiously about the details that I unconsciously assumed I must have actually talked about them. Well, anyway, here they are -- I will be staying in a town called Scharnstein, which is in Upper Austria and located at the foot of the Salzkammergut, a countryside of mountains and lakes (a resort area, apparently). It's about 140 miles west of the city of Vienna, and somewhat southeast of Linz. I will be looking after three little boys (Mikhail, Johannes and Josef, ages 7, 5, and 3) and their baby sister Maria. I'll also be taking a year-long German course while I'm over there; not sure where that'll be, but it will be awesome, I'm sure. I'm already studying German with my mom and really enjoying it. I'm confident I'll pick it up really quickly once I'm over there.

My duties as an Au-Pair are looking after the children (playing with them, helping them with homework, teaching them a little English) and helping Anita with the housework. They like to "go on excursions", so I'm going to get a fair bit of sightseeing in just going out with them. (In fact, they've already got quite a few vacations planned, as I may have mentioned -- for instance, they are going to Rome in the spring to celebrate Easter at St. Peter's!) I also have some friends attending ITI in Gaming, whom I will hopefully get to visit. And my dad might visit me also, if he goes to the international evolution conference in March. So I expect to be very busy and possibly quite stressed at first -- but I'm hoping to adjust to the novelty of a fast-paced, hardworking life and be a much healthier person for it. Being somewhat independent will be a good experience as well. Sigh. A world of good and improving experiences awaits me. I'm awfully glad to have this opportunity, but all the same, it's hard knowing ahead of time how much growing I'm going to have to do. Being there in the middle of it would be better -- all this waiting, knowing how much I'm going to have to change (like breaking bones set wrong and resetting them again, to put it melodramatically) kind of freaks me out. That's why this waiting is so frustrating. Of course, I can't really predict how the whole thing is going to affect me. I just know it'll be a good change, whatever it is, if I'm open to it.