Pennding No More

Well, it looks as though my grad school dilemma is over. I have finally made an executive decision to attend the University of Pennsylvania's Master of Science in Education program in Intercultural Communication.

A big part of that decision, as regular readers of this blog know, has been financial. Penn has shown me the money; no other school has. But the more I've thought about it, the more I've realized that Penn's program has some strengths beyond affordability. The faculty is small, the Graduate School of Education's reputation both generally and in this specific field are excellent, and internship and graduate associate opportunities abound.

There remains only the paperwork to be dealt with, but that will not be a major hassle. I need to send in only a couple of forms--an acceptance form and some forms officially accepting the scholarship Penn has given me--and I will officially be a Penn student.

In fact, as of last night, the other decisions I've been struggling with lately ceased to be pending. I managed to score a ticket back to the States for a mere 500 dollars, so at least I now have a definite date of departure. On the 23rd of June, I leave Moscow behind and head back to America. I will be staying with one (or more) of various friends in New York for a while before I set off on some travels in my native country. Boston is first on the list--followed, I think, by Chicago and San Francisco. Now that I've made a decision to go to Penn, however, I don't see a real reason to spend a lot of time playing tourist in Philadelphia.

For that I'll have two years.