Life in Austin

Things are starting to fall into place with my new life here in Austin. This past week, I was offered a full time position with Alumni Football USA and we completed our first weekend of games here in Texas. It was a lot of fun and I've met some cool people.

Another thing I'm really excited about is PAX. I was officially offered a position as a Community Coordinator. PAX stands for Program of Academic Exchange. My job is to go to local high schools and see if they have room in their enrollment for foreign exchange students. Once I find a couple schools that have spots available, I find potential host families in the area. I use marketing tools to find families that are interested and then interview them, visit their home and determine if they would be a good fit for the program. Basically, see if this is a family and home that I would be comfortable letting my own kid live there. Once the family clears the background check and everything, then I'm their 'go-to' person for the academic year. I check in on the foreign exchange student as well as the host family monthly and make sure they are both having a good experience. They can come to me with any problems that might come up throughout the year. The financial compensation probably isn't that much compared to the number of hours you spend, but this program is just so rewarding to me. I'm so excited to have the opportunity to meet foreign exchange students, learn about other cultures and meet families here in my own community. There are some potential travel benefits as well.

This week, I'm working during the week and then traveling to West Texas, near Odessa for our second weekend of alumni football games. Should be fun, interesting and hard work all at the same time! That's a quick update from me. I'll try to post something more soon and not go so long in between posts. So long!