Turning the Page

So last December, my brother gave my parents a DVD set of the complete series of The West Wing. With my interest in politics having recently exploded into a full-time obsession, I promptly swiped it and started working my way through all 7 seasons. It quickly became my new favorite show (despite the whole, you know, ending 3 years ago thing), and I even tried to use an episode of it in my student teaching. For the record, the show doesn't help teach 8th graders about government. Not even a little bit. When I realized a few weeks ago that I was getting ready to leave the country for the year and still had 2 seasons to go, I kicked it up a notch and started blowing through the last episodes to try and get to the end. So now, it's 2AM the night before I leave for Israel, and I'm finally about to watch the final episode. It's been a little anticlimactic - I knew the Democratic candidate was going to win, I knew Josh and Donna were going to end up together, and I knew it wasn't going to be as good as the first few seasons just because Aaron Sorkin wasn't writing it anymore. But here I am, after 155 episodes, getting ready to watch the last one.

So now you're probably reading this and wondering... "What the heck is he talking about?"

The point is that I'm getting ready to close a chapter on my life. And in a big way. Even when I've moved on to other points in my life, it hasn't been that drastic of a change. Going to college in my home state, realistically, ain't the biggest risk. Now, jumping on a plane and moving halfway across the world for a year? That qualifies as a bit of a leap. The two most common responses I've gotten from people when I tell them what I'm doing are "Wow, isn't it dangerous over there?" and "Wow, I could never do that." And I could? When I picked up my first DVD of The West Wing, I never even dreamed about doing this. Then again, at that point I was SURE that I was going to go straight to grad school, I was SURE that I was going to get my M.A. in curriculum, I was SURE that I would teach high school history for 5-10 years, and I was SURE that I would move into school administration after that. Now, I'm not sure about any of that, and to me, that's a good thing. Who knows, maybe I'll even go into politics! (Oh lord, a life decision based off of a TV show...) The point is, the next chapter of my life is here. In 10 hours, I'm boarding the plane to New York, and from there we're off and running. The bags are packed, and while I've still got a little more cleaning to do, there's nothing left. In fact, pretty much the only thing left to do is to watch that last episode. And then it's time to turn the page.