What the Sam Heck am I doing?

Whelp… I’m moving to Spain! What the Sam Heck is happening?!

It all started when I was casually looking at programs abroad just for funzies (you know, a little wanderlust scroll), and I stumbled on the Meddeas Language Assistant program in Spain.

It is a program that you get placed in a school to help teach English to many classrooms. I started to look into, and it seemed like a really cool opportunity! So I filled out the application and then next think I knew they were contacting me for an interview.

The first interview? 4:30am on Zoom 😅 — thanks to that 9-hour time difference with Spain. So that was fun to wake up and be prepared for. It was a pretty typical interview; asking about why this program/why Spain, about my teaching experience, and general information about the program. It was a pretty good interview…it also didn’t hurt that the Interviewer was a handsome Spaniard man 😏.

How fun and peaceful I think this experience will be

After that interview you have to get another one so he told me I would be contacted if I would be getting another one. So now I’m like okay…I have a life…and a job in Reno…but this would be such a cool experience so how do I make this happen.

I started to look at “leaves of absences” through my school district and that’s when I just happen to stumble upon a paid sabbatical they offer. It was in the negotiated agreement between my district and union. So I started to do more digging and found out this may be the way to make this happen!

So a sabbatical is a leave of absence usually for study or travel. Sometimes they can be paid and luckily my district does pay! They usually have to be every 7 years which was perfect because I had just finished my 7th year of teaching! The agreement also said the sabbatical had to be because you are in an “advanced program.” Which the Meddeas program is, to apply you have to have graduated with a bachelors or a masters in the last 4 years (I graduated with a masters in English language learning in December.) You also take a post-grad course (360 hours/24 credits), and the internship part is being a language assistant in a real classroom.

It was time to start looking into how to get this approved! I figured out who to get it approved by, got my leave of absence form filled out and signed by my principal, and wrote the sabbatical proposal! I then got it turned in and the wait began!

While that was cooking, I got the second interview with Meddeas! This interview happened a week later and luckily was at 5am 😂 so a little better time wise. It was pretty similar to the first but I did have to talk about the word “talent” for 3 words which was actually really hard and a lot of rambling. I think this was just to make sure I’m fluent in English and can use the language After that one I had to wait to hear if I got into the program.

So here I am waiting to see if my Sabbatical gets approved and if I get into the program. Meanwhile I’m freaking out because if I don’t get this paid sabbatical I’m not sure how to make this happen and I’m set on going at this point. So I’m looking into selling all my stuff for money and to get over there making my plan B.

Then I really started to look into my plan b when I got into the Meddeas program but hadn’t heard from my district yet. I decided I needed to really advocate for myself and this sabbatical so I was going into the HR department, who was in charge of approving/denying the sabbatical proposal, and talking with them and really pushing for it! Luckily bugging them worked and they approved it!

The chaos this experience will probably be

So I’m officially going to Spain for a year — to take a post-graduate class, teach 2–8 year-olds in English classrooms, and immerse myself in a brand new culture!

If you’re wondering what the Sam Heck happens next… stay tuned 😉 I’ll be sharing everything — from packing chaos to first-day nerves — right here. Let’s do this 🇪🇸✨