Greetings from Portland, Maine

It's unbelievable for me to think that just a year ago (almost to the day), I was on my way back to West Virginia from my first trip to Portland, Maine. It was a solo "lets check out this city'' trip, so I did a lot of walking and adventuring in the cold. I had walked into what I thought was an art gallery and to my surprise, it was a school. The Salt Institute of Documentary Studies...I wanted to be knee deep in it...I remember just going on and on about the program, an intense three and a half months long certification course, to anyone and everyone who would listen and I also couldn't stop talking about the fact that it was way out of my league.

So I went home, researched a bit more and decided that I was going to apply. You know, just give it a try because they could really say is no. I really love Maine, so naturally, I loved Portland, so it all seem like a great fit. I started my application process, in August of 2013, hoping to meet the early decision deadline. I hemmed and hawed and put it off for a while because it was a bit too expensive for me. When my grandmother passed, I basically put everything down. I didn't even want to look at the application. The mere thought of moving away now was out of the question. I wanted to be close to my family, I wanted to be close to home. After receiving an email from the school about my unfinished application, and a lot of encouragement from my family and friends, I finished up my application and applied...at the very last hour on the night of the deadline. Long story short, I got accepted a couple of weeks later.

The moment I got accepted into Salt was very bittersweet. I was extremely excited at the thought of going to school, but I knew that I couldn't do it financially, even after receiving a grant from them. It's times like these that you learn how much you are loved. My good friend set up a fundraiser on my behalf, people offered to send me care packages, another friend and his generous family offered me a place to stay in Portland, and the school agreed to put me on a payment plan...something they do not often do. You might be wondering why I didn't apply for a loan...I did, I just could not get approved for anything...not even a starter credit card.

We arrived in Portland early this morning on little sleep...high on excitement I suppose. We spent an extra hour in the car waiting for the sun to rise and braved the cold morning air as we watched the sky turn from dark blue to purple to pink and orange over the bay. I'm slowly settling in to my temporary home for the next couple of months. It's crazy how everything has worked on for the best. What a difference a year has made.