The good news is I’m no longer freaking out about not being in the first group to fly over.  I’m totally at peace with it all until the next batch of tickets go out and my email stays ticketless.  I’m sure I’ll relive all those stages of grief again!  The bad news is I’ve been sick (so it’s a good thing I’m not flying).  I’ve not had a cold this bad in a long time.  The problem is it’s hard to get anything done when you’re hacking up a lung, so now is as good a time as any to write down my goals for this upcoming journey.  It’ll be good to go back this time next year, and see what I’ve accomplished. P.S. this will probably be a very boring post for most of you, so no worries if you move on to something else right now.

Personal/Family wishes:

• I want to fly my children to different parts of the world.  This first year I hope to get them to at least two countries they’ve not been to yet.  More would be nice, but considering I’m flying them from the U.S. it’ll be costly, so we’ll see how it goes.
• I’d like for my apartment to be my little nest, not just a place to sleep.  It’s really important to me to have a home to escape to.  What I like most about this is for the first time I’m building a nest just for me, so I’m designing it NONmama style!
• Since I’ll be on my own I’d like to get more regimented with my writing and reading.  Actually do it daily versus when there’s free time (or when I’m too sick or lazy to do anything else).   Maybe I’ll even put together some sort of plan of what I’m writing — who knows?!  Is it a book, more articles, what?
• I hope my parenting from a distance will help my children discover more of who they are.  Oh how I hope they find what makes them special and fine tune it.  I really, really do.
• And while I’m pretty grounded I too hope to discover more of who I am, and how I fit in this crazy world of ours.
• I hope to embrace change even when I don’t understand or like it, and I hope to remember to calm my shit down when it overwhelms me.
• I hope to become part of my new community of so many countries and add more people to my lifelong friendships.
• I know I’ll never be fluent in Arabic, but I’d like to integrate more than just a few words into my life there.  I really do want to connect with the people who are making this journey possible for me.
• Be the best tour guide ever for my friends and family who are coming to visit. I cannot wait to show off my new ‘home.”
• And last but not least, please oh please don’t let me accidentally offend the people around me.  I’m so loud and so obnoxiously me that I’ll have to work hard at keeping it down while keeping it real (or something like that).

Career

• I want to figure out what to do to help my students learn this thing I’m teaching not because they have to, but because, eventually, they’ll want to (ha! isn’t that what all teachers wish). Oh, how I hope I get to see some kids light up with their own magic, which has always been my favorite part about teaching here.
• Build relationships with the teachers, admin, etc. I’ll be working with — not just the English speaking ones.  There’s so much for me to learn.
• Figure out where my next step should be.  Will I stay in the classroom, or should I move on to something else when my time there is done?
• Um, not fall flat on my face.  It’d really suck if I failed at this.

Financial:  Basically save while I spend!  Hahaha sounds so simple.  Okay, so year one I want to pay off:

• Credit cards (should have this one accomplished the first few months)
• Student loan (possible IF my $5.000 grant comes though like it should)
• Car loan — pay it down enough to where I can either sell or decide to just go ahead and keep it (lord knows I do love that car, but is it wise to hang on to it).
• I’d also like to start contributing to another retirement plan.  The goal is to start this my 5th month there — by then I should have paid off a good chunk of debt.

Travel:  OMG there is so much I want to see!  So for year one I’m saying I’ll go to the following places:

• Germany (summer 2015 soooo doing this one!) and possibly Amsterdam
• Oman (I’m cheating here since it’ll be an easy one to do)
• Turkey
• Jordan and the dead sea
• Nepal
• Sri Lanka
• a place I never heard of before I decided to move to Abu Dhabi (don’t know which one yet)
• an Asian beach — so many to choose from, so we shall see where I end up!
• other emirates in the UAE!  Hello?  A girl needs to learn the lay of her new land.
• India

Okay, I think that’s enough to list.  Of course there are more places in Europe I want to see, more places in Africa, ha! more places in general, but this is just year one.  Hmmm, wonder if I’ll actually get to see all those places.

This is a pretty long list.  Sorry if I’ve bored any of you, but this one is written more for me.  Wow.  I wonder what will be going through my little pea brain this time next year.  Cannot believe that any day now I could be writing from an air conditioned pod somewhere in Abu Dhabi!