Pardon me, let me introduce myself

My name is Amber Hall and I am 21 years old. I grew up in upstate NY in a very small farm town where everyone knew everyone. I graduated high school in 2010 and spent my first semester as an undergraduate student in London, England. I moved to Boston in 2011 to attend Northeastern University. I first entered college in Army ROTC and was a cadet for a little under 2 years before being medically discharged. I first attended university as a health science major with a pre-physician assistant track. In 2012 I enrolled in a human services minor and then dropped my pre-PA track about six months later. I started volunteering and working with persons who have disabilities and loved the work I was doing. In the beginning of 2014 I started volunteering in an elementary classroom for children who have a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder. I fell in love and about a week after I had started, a Teach For America (TFA) representative emailed me due to my vast involvement on and off campus; the timing couldn't have been better. After talking with the recruiter I immediately applied to TFA. I also was in the process of applying to graduate program for social work, public health, and human services. I was overjoyed to find out I made it through the first round of the application and was asked to complete a phone interview. I then was advanced to an all-day in person interview. After two and a half long weeks of waiting I was chosen out of over 50,000 applicants; TFA has under a 10% acceptance rate. March 13th, 2014 marked a new beginning. I was assigned to teach either elementary special education or middle school science in Southern Louisiana near Baton Rouge; I accepted the offer immediately. The past two months have been a roller-coaster ride of trying to prepare to move 1600 miles away from where I have learned to call home. I leave for induction and institute, an intense five week training teacher "boot camp", on May 31st. I will be in Baton Rouge for a week before I travel five hours to institute, which is being held at Delta State University in Cleveland, MS. Institute finishes on July 12th; I then have six days to fly back to NY get my car, drive to Boston, pack a pod to ship to my new home in Louisiana, drive back to NY, and then say farewell to my parents and start my drive to Louisiana on July 18th. I will be in Louisiana for at least two years. I decided to start this blog to tell my story since I will be 1600 miles from home, from my family, from my friends, and from familiar territory. Let the adventure begin.