The final countdown...

It's now exactly a month until I leave for my American adventure and I'm a veritable maelstrom of emotions. Last Autumn I applied for a place on the Fulbright Teacher Exchange Programme - run by the British Council in the UK - which enables British teachers to swap jobs, and lives, with an American counterpart. The programme is extremely prestigious in the US, so I consider myself lucky to have made it to the final fifteen. I'm excited about the opportunity to experience America, a country I've never visited, as a 'native' as opposed to a tourist, to really immerse myself in the culture and develop not only my teaching skills, but as a person too. That said, the sheer enormity of the preparation involved in organising everything is somewhat overwhelming!

Surprisingly, I'm not remotely worried about living and working in a different country, aside from a slight concern that I won't be able to teach my exchange partner's classes - an alien curriculum - efficiently or be able to adjust to driving on the 'wrong' side of the road! I thrive on challenging myself and find it easy to establish a rapport with virtual strangers, so am not daunted by the prospect of having to make a new social circle; I'm sure I'll come home at Christmas having made some fantastic new friends. It's those I'm leaving behind who are the cloud on my horizon. I'm lucky enough to have the most amazing boyfriend, family and friends and the thought of being without them for the best part of five months isn't exactly filling me with joy. We'll keep in touch using the interwebs but it's not the same. I'll also miss Fairfield, my colleagues...and even my students (well, some of them! ;))

I'm going to be teaching at Northbridge High School, a modern suburban school of 750 students - small, but still double the size of Fairfield! I'll be teaching Literature to grades 10 to 12, which is roughly the equivalent of years 11 to 13 in the UK. As I've missed teaching sixth form since coming to Fairfield I'm looking forward to working with older students again. I imagine I'll find it strange not having any Key Stage 3, though; I know my exchange partner is certainly amazed by the range of ages and aspects of the subject we teach here. Northbridge is a quiet mill town, about 40 miles from Boston and three hours' drive from New York, in central Massachusetts, surrounded by lakes and home to a large population of swans. We didn't have a choice in the location of our exchange - Fulbright and the British Council match applicants based on complex selection criteria - but I couldn't think of anywhere I'd rather be in the fall than New England. All that beautiful foliage and hopefully some snow in December: perfect! I'm looking forward to experiencing an American Halloween and Thanksgiving, too.

Henry Thoreau once said, "Wealth is the ability to fully experience life.” He was right. We only live once and I fully intend to grasp each and every experience within my reach. So, even though I will miss my loved ones, this exchange is a once-in-a-lifetime experience and I'm feeling pretty rich right now.

I shall be posting updates of my experiences here. Watch this space!