A New City: Washington, D.C.

Something very different and not Chicago. Here's the story of how I ended up in our nation's capital...

Sometime near the end of 2006, maybe in November or so, my mom forwarded me an e-mail announcing a job opening at American Councils in DC. At this time, my parents were hosting Sasha, our exchange student from Melitopol, Ukraine, a scholarship student in the U.S. as part of the FLEX program (Future Leaders Exchange). American Councils administers this program and places about 40 of the total 1200 high schoolers who come over every year from former Soviet countries. I had first learned of American Councils (aka ACTR) while I was in Ukraine. I'd applied for a position there when I first came back home (at the beginning of 2006) but to no avail. So, my interest was piqued when I learned of this new opening.

After submitting my resume, I was asked to have an interview over the phone which then led to an invitation to Washington for a meeting in person. I originally planned to fly in and out of DC on the same day, Tuesday, February 13. My interview was scheduled for 2pm and I had made plans to meet my friend John for lunch beforehand. As things often go, I was running late, had to forego lunch with John and head straight to American Councils for my meeting. At this point, it had already started to snow. American Councils operates on the same schedule as the federal government which was shut down at 2pm. This meant, that when I arrived at the office, much of the staff was leaving or had left. Luckily, the people I was supposed to speak with had not.

I ended up being stuck in the DC area for three days and flying home Thursday evening. All this time, my good friend John, his wife, Susan, and their family, were kind enough to put me up for those nights. School was cancelled for two days and the kids were very grateful to me for bringing such splended weather and freeing them of their educational responsibilities. (I should note here that DC, for some reason, has no idea what to do with itself when faced with snow. Although the governement had been shut down Tuesday, within several hours that same day there was not a trace of snow on the ground, though it snowed again that night and stuck for the next several days.)

On Thursday morning, I got a call with a job offer. They wanted me to start work on March 1, a mere two weeks away! I jumped for joy and then packed to fly home to Chicago that night, periodically calling the airline to make sure my flight hadn't again been cancelled. It wasn't and I made it home.

At the end of February, having said many goodbyes, I drove out to DC in my car with whatever stuff would fit, leaving the rest of it in storage in Chicago. Again, my friends John and Susan, being very generous souls, offered to have me stay with them for a few weeks until I could find a place of my own somewhere in DC, Virginia or Maryland. My aunt and uncle on my dad's side live near DC, as does my cousin David. While out at a dive bar one night doing karoake with Dave, I met a number of his friends, including the girl who would soon become my roommate, Gina (not to be confused with my Chicago roomie, also Gina). I moved into her place, where her former roommate was moving out. I took her old room, she took the basement room, and someone new, Michelle, took the old roommates spot.

Come the middle of April, I flew back to Chicago where I met my dad, who had flown up from Orlando. The two of us rented a truck and drove all of my stuff back to DC, where I am today.

So that's how it happened, minus about 250 details. As I've been heard to say, I really think it would be difficult for me to imagine a more perfect position for me right now. One of my former students in Krasnograd asked, "Мистер Петерсон, вам нравится новая работа?" My answer - "Да. Очень."