How did this happen again?

I'm in grad school for my MSW. I'm just finishing up my foundation year field placement at Legal Aid Bureau. Our applications for our advanced year field placements were due February 1. My plan was to do the Title IV-e program for my advanced year field placement. I'd complete my internship at DSS in child welfare, receive a stipend and tuition remission, and have an essentially guaranteed job after graduation. Awesome, right? Right.

But no. The state decided to cut the program's budget a week after the last minute (meaning after applications were due and everyone else had started interviewing and receiving their placements). Now, only foundation year students were eligible to enter the program. So I was left with options to work either in a school (no interest in school social work, thank you) or at an organization with whom I have significant moral objections. Awesome, right? Wrong. 

And then our field liaison/adviser came out to meet with the four of us interning at LAB. She happens to be in charge of the Title IV-e program, and so she knew I was one of the folks who had affected by the state's poorly timed announcement. At that meeting, I discovered she was also in charge of the India Field Placement program. On a whim, expecting nothing but a raised eyebrow and a big fat 'no', I asked if I could just apply for the India program since I wasn't going to get any of my top choice placements.

To my considerable shock(which still hasn't gone away) , she said yes. She said they had ten students already (who applied back in November), but she didn't see why I couldn't be an alternate if someone wasn't able to go. She gave me the information and told me to submit my application as soon as possible and to attend the orientation meeting the following week.

I did both, and at the orientation (which I nearly skipped, as I had a lot of work to do that day and figured my chances of actually going were slim to none), she told me she'd talked about it with the others coordinating the program and they had decided that they could make room for an additional student. I interviewed a few days later and was accepted into the program. Within a week and a half, I went from having a field placement I was utterly uninterested in but within a couple of miles from home to a field placement eight thousand, six hundred and thirteen miles away, in a country I'd never been to, where they speak a few dozen languages I have probably never even heard of, much less am able to understand or speak.

Now I have to find temporary homes for the animals, get out of my lease early, and get whatever shots/medications my doctor and I agree on. Packing for India will be a lot easier than packing up the house, since I plan to bring only my traveling backpack and maybe a messenger bag. I can get nearly everything there, and for far less money than here. Plus, the clothes I can get there will be far more suitable to the weather than what I currently have.  


Time to go back to looking at what diseases I could catch and what places I need to make sure I see before I come home. Just kidding, Mom. There are no diseases I could catch. It's perfectly safe.