trade-offs

a friend left to work on a federal AIDS project in mozambique, africa in september, another friends wife went over to ethiopia with doctors without borders, another friend led a group of students from kenya to cape town setting up meaningful service abroad contacts, and yet another went with a women's initiative here to support a co-op in kenya, and lastly we ran a study abroad to tanzania from my office for the last 2 years. sooooo, i decided it was my time for africa and mary agreed. i figured the xmas holiday break was a good stretch of 'free' time off and although a tad too hot for my constitution, i'd make the journey.

simultaneously i decided to pursue graduate school what with the poor economy and it being no time to change jobs and thus i began the process of taking the GRE, gathering recommendations, and writing a fine statement of purpose with the editorial help of good people who know me. and for two months i have waited. yesterday the ball dropped. i had just tried to confirm flights to jo-burg using a delta buddy pass when a red flashing screen alert notified me that a travel embargo was now in place for all buddy pass travel between, yep, you guessed it, ATL and JNB from Dec. 20 to Jan. 4. their reasons were sound:

As a proactive measure, buddy pass travel is embargoed for all flights to/from Dakar (DKR) and Johannesburg (JNB) from Dec. 20, 2008 through Jan. 4, 2009. During last year's busy holiday season, the Dakar and Johannesburg stations experienced a tremendous backlog of stranded buddy passengers. Many were removed at the stopover in Dakar in the middle of the night!

yikes! not exactly the kind of risk i wanted to assume so africa is out...for now. i can only hope that mary's project is extended and she is perhaps still there at spring break. meanwhile, i still haven't heard about graduate school and i know that as of yesterday folks are registering for spring classes; so i write another email to the admissions staff and receive no answer...well not right away anyway.

and then today...it happened, they let me in! yep, i'm allowed to pursue a masters of public administration. yahoo!!!!!! AND they tell me, make sure you are here on January 2 for a mandatory orientation. whew, good thing that africa trip fell through or i'd woulda missed it. so i guess things really do happen for a reason and i'm glad i didnt fight it too much. it all worked out in the end. trade-offs and my new home, baldwin hall.