Why D.C.? One, I’d never been to D.C. and not only is there a lot to see, most of it is free. Two, it is conveniently located in the middle of the east coast, so I can take road trips north or south and see a large part of the country that I’ve never seen before. I’m hoping to visit Baltimore, Richmond, New York, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, etc. Three, I actually know one or two people in the area, so unlike my move to Nevada, I wouldn’t be completely alone in a new place. Four, I wanted to move somewhere more urban, at least for a while.
After many applications and a few interviews that came to naught, I was offered a one-year, long-term sub contract at a high school in Fairfax County. I was a late hire, so I really scrambled to get packed and hit the road on a ten hour drive to the east coast. Like my experience in Nevada, I missed all the staff meetings that led up to the school year and would have been helpful in meeting people outside of my department. But, unlike Nevada, I arrived a couple days before school started so I was at least able to arrange my classroom furniture and do some minimal decorating.
So, now I’m here in northern Virginia, or NOVA, as they call it, navigating the culture and the traffic, scrambling to get caught up at work, and wondering how it’s all going to pan out. It’s a new adventure, and I hope you’ll join me on it as I blog some of my experiences.
Next post: Adventures in apartment hunting