YAY!!!!! and OUCH!

I hurt my foot last night. As I D-Queen, I'm supposed to keep my feet out of harm's way, but this just couldn't be helped.

Just before leaving for choir rehearsal, I did a quick check of my email.

And the email I had been waiting for was there. If you have Gmail, you know that it displays the first sentence of the email's text, so when I saw an email from the Fulbright commission and the words "Dear Jasmine, I am pleased to inform you...." I started yelling, "NICK!!! NICK!!!!", I clicked the email open, and I started jumping up and down. In very close proximity to my desk. And I kicked my desk chair with the back of my heel.

So envision me yelling "NICK!!!!!" while leaping in the air, pulling my feet up 90 degrees or so, and bashing my foot on my chair. Ouch!!

So Nick runs into the room, says, "WHAT'S WRONG??" while I run at him, jump on him, and say "OW!! Read the email!! OW!!" Then he put me down on the floor, where I proceeded to lay on my back like a turtle saying, "Yay! Yay! Ow! Yay! Yay!!" while he read the email.

The buzzing in my foot finally subsiding, I got up and did more prancing. One little email turned me from an anxious basketcase to overconfident in my abilities and potential. I was immediately convinced that I would get all of the grants I applied for. ALL SIX! My foot might hurt, but I AM AWESOME!

While I'm still on a bit of a high here, the truth is this is really just a miniature moment. It's the first grant I've heard about, so that makes it pretty exciting. But really what it says is that the national committee has sent my name and materials, along with around 35-40 others to Italy, where they will then be whittled down to 22 awardees.

And now I must exercise patience, probably until May, to see if I am one of the winners.

And nobody gets all of the grants they apply for. I am sure to get more rejections than offers. I must keep telling myself that this is a long process, a difficult and very competitive process.

But I'm still extremely excited. And to know that other people, strangers even!, are excited about my project too, is incredible.