Sitting in the Thinking Chair

After the initial thought of becoming an au pair, I began to think about it endlessly. I consulted family, friends, work colleagues, Americans that I know, people who had taken me under their wing, people from my church - basically anyone who would listen to me - and sought their advice. I was overwhelmed by their encouragement and positivity. They were so supportive that I began thinking up negatives just to balance the argument out a little! 

I was invited to an info night, and despite my crazy schedule of drama teaching and private tutoring, managed to make it in on time. I came armed with hundreds of questions that I had jotted down throughout the day. As luck would have it, I was the only person who turned up to the info night, so was able to have all my questions answered, and discuss the whole thing is greater depth. It was terrific. I was also given a huge ream of application papers that I had to fill out! Most of the questions looked straightforward, but I dreaded having to somehow schedule time to go to the doctor to get my medical form completed - my daily timetable was fit to burst as it was!

Also on my mind was the fact that I didn't have my full driver's licence. I was eligible to sit it, but I had been putting it off and putting it off. Now that I actually needed it, it seemed my whole application was halted just by that one little thing! 

I got home from the info night and sat down with my father. Together, we started seriously considering the pros and cons.

My pro and con list looked a little like this:

Pros:

- Visit, explore and live in America

- If I work with special needs children it would be a great experience that directly relates to my career ambitions. 

- Get to study in America

- One month to travel US after job finishes

Cons:

- Teaching registration paused for 1 year.

- Unsure about what happens to my NZ interest free student loan (would I have to pay interest forever now that I was leaving the country for a whole year?)

- Little things: What if I don't get along with the family or something like that?

After a while we could see that the pros outweighed the cons, and as someone pointed out to me: "when you're 67 years old, you're not going to regret doing it, you'll only regret not doing it."

As a Christian, I seek to live by God's will - and my biggest concern was that this was either the wrong timing or just the wrong thing completely. I prayed that if it was His will, the doors would keep opening; and if not, that they would shut tight. I prayed about it, and decided that I would continue in the application, since by doing it I could still back out. Besides, it was the only way to get to see the potential host families, and I was so looking forward to that!

And thus, I got out of the Thinking Chair and began filling in the application.