After an awesome interview, I was told a few days later that I didn’t get the scholarship. I was SO ANGRY because I’d spent literally hundreds of hours preparing… basically every free second of the day went toward this enterprise.

I felt so desolate because I just wanted out of my job and this was an escape route.

Something else came along, although it’s a lot more uncertain than the Rotary thing. Australia and the U.S. just signed a Working Holiday Visa agreement this month, which means that if my visa request is approved (and it should be), I can spend 12 months in Australia. Since I was aiming for Melbourne in the interview, I’ve decided to start there. Not sure when this will happen, but I’m aiming for a quit date of Feb. 1.