FINALLY!!!

My H1B was finally approved. Yay!!! You can't even begin to imagine how relieved I am. These past few weeks were rough, but now I can start looking toward the future again.

As often when you spend days/weeks waiting for something, when it finally happens, everything happens so quickly that it feels almost surreal. I had stopped at the post office to check my PO box (I was passing by the town where my new school is) and when I checked my e-mail, there it was...my H1B had gotten approved. How random that it happened when I was only minutes away from the Residence Life office! I stopped by and chatted with a few people. Now, a little more than 24 hours later, I am sitting in my new apartment at my new institution ready for a new school year. :-)

I feel like I can finally start planning again, start dreaming again.

I'm ready for a new experience, a new year - I'm ready to shake some things up.

What I'm not really ready for is dragging all my boxes from the storage unit to my new apartment tomorrow...haha. But that's all part of moving on and change...and we all know I LOVE change. ;)

Not a vacation

Everyone keeps acting like I am on this long, fabulous vacation. But let me tell you, this is ANYTHING but a vacation.

I don't know how people can be unemployed for a longer period of time; it is driving me INSANE. I'm so sick of waking up in the morning with nothing specific to do. I try to fill my days with hanging out with friends, going hiking, doing this and that - but it's hard to enjoy anything when you're always waiting...waiting for something to happen...waiting for something to end the waiting.

Everything that's usually fun isn't fun anymore. I usually love roadtrips - but after a month of traveling and when you travel without a real destination or end in sight, it's just not fun anymore. I love getting a chance to hang out with friends. But I've been in such a crappy mood that I'm worried about dragging everyone else down. Since I've been crashing with friends lately, I've been trying to be in a cheerful mood, but geez, it's EXHAUSTING. I notice myself falling silent - staring at space not thinking of anything. Who wants to hang out with someone like that?

If I knew that in three days, a week, two weeks, I definitely have a job, a home, something to do, I'd be okay. I have been on LONG vacations before. I was never one of those kids that was ready to go back to school after the summer vacation; on the contrary, I always wished the summer was longer.
I'm good at keeping myself busy. I can read a book and forget about everything around me. But there's some things I just can't completely forget right now....

Ugh, I'm so ready for this waiting to be over.

The adventure continues...

I did sleep in my car that night. It continued to rain all morning and into the early afternoon and then it got ridiculously beautiful out, as if the weather was trying to mock me. My tent was dry before I knew it. I decided to return to the campground, but instead of staying at the beach, I found a little more sheltered spot further back in the woods. I debated for a while whether or not I should pull out the tent again, but in the end I just didn't want to deal with the hassle, so once again I crashed in the back of my car. With the soft breeze coming in through the open windows, it was actually pretty comfortable.

The next day, I headed to my future home (hopefully) in an attempt to take care of some errands that I probably won't have time for once training starts. Without having time to settle in before training, I want to get as much done now as possible because I know I won't get around to it later. I was also in dire need of new reading material. I'd gotten my first mail in my P.O. Box (the information for my new car insurance), which allowed me to get that library card. I borrowed the first two books of the Twilight saga. It was about time I figured out what this hype was all about. ;)

After that, I headed to a nearby town and a cheap hotel. After a few nights of showering at the campground and crashing in the car, I wanted/needed a real shower. It felt amazing!!! You really do start to appreciate the little things when you're on the road.

The next day the good news came. My immigration paperwork had been submitted. Progress!!! I guess now all we can do is wait and hope that everything will work out. How long that'll take? Who knows! But at least it's a step in the right direction. I'm not so sure though if it'll be on time for training and that still worries me. But as long as they say yes in the end - I guess I can work out everything else.

The joys of living on the road...

I'm sitting at a Starbucks (free Wi-Fi and I LOVE Vanilla Bean Frappucinos) and am trying to figure out what to do next.

I survived the move. I crashed at a friend's place on the way up, then got a hotel once I got close to my new school. I spent the next day putting my belongings in storage, getting new car insurance (my old one expires today, so I figured this was a good time to switch over to this new state) and taking care of a million little things. Everything seemed to go wrong though. So U-Haul says that they give you a month free storage after you've rented a trailer - "at participating locations." Well, I clicked on the link in the e-mail with this offer and picked the first location. Once I got there, the staff informed me that they did not participate in this program and that it would cost me $100 per month to store my stuff here. What??? Ridiculous!!!! After some arguing back and forth, I gave up and called U-Haul in hope of finding a "participating" location that actually participated in the program. I found one, about a half hour away. On my way, I stopped by the public library. I figured, since I'd be on the road for a while, it'd be good to have new reading material. Well, it would have been.... The library required that you had proof of your address - a letter that was mailed to you, a billing statement, something. Since I don't have a new address yet, I got nothing. :( I guess I'll be re-reading the same four books I've been reading all summer. Ha.
I made it to the storage unit and spent two hours in the sun unpacking the UHaul trailer and moving my belongings into the storage unit. By the end, I was sweaty and gross, but since I hadn't planned on staying here for another night but wanted to drive to the place where the concert was the next day, I had no other choice but to keep going and just I didn't smell too bad. ;)
Next I tried to tackle the car insurance issue. I'd been doing research for a while online, asking for quotes, communicating with various companies. The first one I stopped by, the one who'd given me by far the lowest rate in our online communication, suddenly had a completely different rate. How does that happen? I'd given them all my information! *sigh*
I moved on to the next one. Fortunately, the rate for that one only went up about $30. I guess that 's something I can live with. It was still cheaper than the others.

By now it was 5 pm and I still had a 5-hour drive ahead of me. I jumped back in the car and started driving. I like driving. I love the freedom of the road. I love blasting music, singing along and not having to worry what anyone thinks about me. The first day of a roadtrip is always fun. By the second though, I can feel my butt and my back hurting; I can't find a comfortable way to sit in the car anymore. I stop every few hours, just to get out and move around a little. I spend hours sitting in fast food restaurants, eating my food very very slowly and reading a book. By the third day, I know I need a break. This was day three and while running errands hadn't been fun, it at least gave me that much-needed break.

The next day was then a lot of fun - a concert, hanging out in the sun outside, NOT DRIVING!!! Well, at least not driving until late at night, when I'd decided to put in a few hours in the direction of my next stop - a friend's wedding. I drove until I got tired, crashed at a rest area, and as soon as I woke up, continued to drive.

The wedding was in the evening and since the hotel didn't let me check-in until 3 pm, I barely managed to take a shower and get ready. Once I got back from the wedding (which was wonderful...it was nice to see friends again that I hadn't met up with in a while), I took another shower just because I could. ;) Well and the wedding had been outside and I'd once again gotten kinda sweaty and gross. But yeah, you really start to appreciate showers when you're traveling.

Now yesterday was supposed to be fun and it started out that way. I only drove for a few hours, then set up my tent at the beach (literally on the beach) at a campground. There were a ton of people around (also with tents) and I'm not that big of a fan of being surrounded by crowds of people when I'm on vacation, but I dealt with it and just enjoyed sitting out in the sun reading and relaxing. I got ready for bed around 10 pm. I could see lighting moving toward us from across the ocean - it looked impressive but I started to wonder a little how safe it was to sleep in a tent when there was lighting. But then again, there were a ton of people around - why would the lightening strike my tent (okay, not the best logic but it made me feel better)? What I hadn't even thought about was what to do if it started storming. Oh and how it stormed. I found myself crouching on one side of my tent, holding on to the tent poles in the hopes of stopping the tent from blowing away or falling on top of me. I could feel sand hitting the side of the tent. And then it started to pour. Now my tent usually stays dry (I've been caught in rain a few times before), but this time it was different - the whole tent was leaning over to the side because of the storm; the water was able to get in through the windows on top that are usually covered by the second tent wall - but that one was being blown in every direction and it was surprising it hadn't been ripped off and completely blown away yet. I didn't know what to do. How long could I sit there like this? When would this stop? How wet would the tent get? I really didn't want to get sick again - I'd been sick the last four days in Austria and it had NOT been fun.
I started to throw my belongings in a big bag, so I could grab them, in case I needed to run. Suddenly, an especially strong wind gust hit the tent wall and pushed over my little cooler. Now there was ice cold water and ice cubs everywhere. I decided this was the sign that it was time to give up. I gathered as much as I could carry and ran to my car. Once in the car, I tried to clear my head and figure out what to do next. I should probably go out and take down the tent - at least so far that it wouldn't be blown away and maybe hit someone or something. But before I could get up the courage to go out in the downpour, someone knocked on my car door. It was the guy from the big tent next to mine. He'd been outside tightening the strings holding down his tent and was soaking wet. He offered to take down my tent. I was beyond relieved and could have hugged him at that moment. :) Now I only had to move some of the bags in my car around to create more space and then I could attempt to get some sleep while the rain was pounding on my car.

This morning I woke up at 5:30 am. The sun was coming up and it had stopped raining. I went outside and tried to look at the damage. My tent was a heap of soaking wet material - with my poor air mattress still inside, equally soaked. I sighted and tried to put up the tent again in the hope of getting it to dry. Once I'd accomplished that, I crawled back into the car and tried to get some more sleep. I kept waking up about every hour and looked out to check on my tent. It seemed to be fine and the weather didn't look too bad either - until I woke up at 9 am and it was once again pouring. My tent had also once again decided to collapse. I checked the weather on my phone; it said rain for the rest of the day. Yikes! It was time to just give up and cut my losses. I grabbed the tent and stuffed it in the back of my car. I tried to spread it out as much as possible but even a Jeep Liberty can't fit a tent in the back of it. I just hope it doesn't start molding or something. It'd be so much easier if I had a home to go to where I could set up the tent and let it dry out. Instead I'm not sure what to do next. I've paid for two nights at the campground. I could go back and just sleep in my car; provided I can move the tent over enough to find space for me to sleep. I don't feel like driving for hours and hours, which is what I'd have to in order to get to a friend's house where I could crash for the night.

And I'm still waiting to hear about what's going on with the immigration paperwork and when I'll be able to move in.... It'd be a bit easier to plan the next few days if I knew those answers.

Random Thought About Facebook

Is Facebook turning us into 5-year-olds?

I like Facebook. Some may say, I'm obsessed with Facebook. I have it on my Blackberry. I regularly update my status. I use it to stay in touch with friends. I use it to communicate with my students (let's be honest, most of them check Facebook more often than their e-mail) and to advertise for events. I also use it to stay in touch with my family and friends in Austria.

But lately, I've been wondering what Facebook does to our maturity level? Facebook makes it so easy to be passive aggressive. Oh, you did something I didn't like - let me de-friend you. Seriously???

I get that sometimes people just end up with too many friends (some may argue, my 778 are too many...LoL) and so they go through and delete the people they don't talk to. Others just want to keep their number of Facebook friends limited, so they know who's reading their information and it becomes more personal. That's cool. But what about those, who after a disagreement, just end up de-friending you? Having those 778 friends, I don't even realize when someone de-friends me. But then - a few months later - I randomly look for this person or go to a picture in which I had them tagged, and I can't find them. I'm confused. I think back of when the last time was I talked to them on Facebook and then I remember - oh, there was that awkward moment/that disagreement/or something along those lines. Hmmmm. Did they SERIOUSLY just de-friend me? Come on, if you got a problem with me, just let me know instead of me finding out months later that you no longer want to be friends on Facebook.

I'm not a patient person

I've spent the past 10 days hanging out - mostly at the beach. My friends have been at work during the day, so what else was I going to do? The first day, it was amazing. Sun, sand, ocean. What else could you ask for? The second day, it still felt pretty good. But soon, it became routine. I would be stretched out at the beach, trying to read, occasionally jumping into the waves, walking up and down the beach - bored and anxious at the same time. I may have been able to enjoy it more if all the immigration stuff had been figured out (it still hasn't been). Yes, yes, I know, don't worry about things you can't influence. But we all know that immigration stuff freaks me out. I tried not to think about it, but I couldn't help the anxious, restless feeling. So relaxing at the beach just wasn't really working for me.

So yesterday, I came up with a plan. I need to be in the mid-west on July 17 for a wedding. Yes, I could hang around here and wait to hear more about this immigration stuff - driving to the mid-west for the wedding and then coming back - but it seems to make more sense to just get my stuff now and start the move. The rent on my storage unit is due on the 15th anyway; so why not move now and then just get a storage unit close to my new school. My car insurance also expires in a week; great opportunity to just get a new insurance in the state I'm moving to. And besides, at least I'll be doing something instead of just waiting.

The plan is to get a U-Haul trailer on Monday, pack that day, then leave on Tuesday. I should get to my new school on Thursday. I'll put stuff in my new storage unit, run some errands and in the evening, I'll be heading out again. There's a concert I'm hoping to catch on the way to the wedding. You know - me and concerts - haha. I haven't been to one since I saw Pink & One Republic in Austria over a month ago. I'm going through total concert withdrawal. Haha.

Today was a pretty productive day. I reserved the U-Haul trailer, reserved a storage unit near my new school, got my hair done, had an oil change done for my car (= my home for the next few days/weeks), bought a wedding present for my friend and got some car insurance quotes. It felt nice to be "busy" and "productive" after such a long time of doing nothing. And I'm kind of excited to start a new roadtrip/adventure on Tuesday.

You shouldn't worry about things you can't influence...

A while ago, I decided not to worry about things I can't influence. Easier said than done. I thought I was doing pretty well. At least better than I had in the past. It's not that I didn't worry at all...I'd go through these phases of panicking, but then I'd tell myself that there really was no point in worrying and that I'd just have to wait and see...and then make the best out of the situation...and I was able to stop panicking and get back to enjoying life.
I was tested quite a bit right before I returned to the US. I just always get nervous when I have to go through immigrations and this time, there were just a few things that I wasn't sure about and I was worried that for various reasons, I may be denied entry into the country. I managed to not worry too much until the night before my flight. That night, I was plagued with nightmares - I tried "not to worry about things I couldn't influence" but how do you influence your thoughts while you're sleeping???
I did alright on the flight for the most part, except the last hour really during which I couldn't sleep, eat, read, or do anything than sit there and worry.

And then I made it through immigrations alright. I had THE nicest immigration worker I've ever met. Usually they seem grumpy, but this one actually smiled and asked some nice questions and we had a fun little chat while he looked over my immigration documents.

I was back in the country *relieved sigh* and thought now everything should be smooth sailing.

Hmmm, not so much. Apparently there may be a problem with me being in the country - in H1B status and in between jobs - and I may have to leave and wait outside of the US until my H1B transfer is approved. They're still looking into it - so please keep your fingers crossed for me that there'll be some way around. After all, leaving the country is easier said than done. That would mean booking a flight last minute, which could cost me up to $1,500. And how do you book a return flight when you don't know what date you'll be able to return? After all, once I've left the US, I wouldn't just have to wait to get the approved H1B but would also have to apply for a new entry visa then, which can also take several weeks. And whenever you ask immigration how long a certain process takes, you just get a vague answer and they basically tell you to wait and see.

I don't know who wrote those immigration laws and I'm sure there's some reason behind all the madness, but they are really anything but "user-friendly."
So you shouldn't resign your job until the H1B transfer to your new employer has been approved? But how do you do that when your current employer asks you to tell them whether or not you're returning for the following academic year in January (and asks you if it's a no that you turn in a resignation letter immediately)?

I wish I'd studied law, so I could go into immigration law and make some drastic changes. Or even just so I understood the whole process better...and also so I knew if my employer is doing something that isn't right. I've recently been telling friends stories about my past institution and one of the most frequent response has been, "Is that even legal?" Oh, if I only knew.... But then again, even if it's illegal, what do you do? You could confront your employer; you could try to get a lawyer and sue them...but then what kind of climate would you be working in after all that (even if you were right) and what kind of job recommendations will you get from there when you decide to leave? Life is really a lot more complicated than I thought when I was 18 and I was excited to be an "adult."

But enough worrying....

I had another random thought today...How do we effectively prepare our staff members to work with a different supervisor? I went through that a year ago when I left my old institution and left RAs who had worked one or two years with me and had overall enjoyed working for me. They were used to my style. They were comfortable with me. We'd talked a lot about change for those two years, but talking about change and going through change such as getting a new supervisor with a different style are two completely different things. And as the leaving supervisor, you can talk with your staff about these changes; you can encourage them to be open-minded, to give new ideas a try, but in the end they're the ones who have to deal with that.
I talked with one of my RAs from this year and once again I became worried about how he'll be dealing with the transition. It's never easy.

I guess all I can do is continue to stay in touch with these RAs - like I did last year - serve as a sounding board but continue to encourage them to be open-minded and to make the most of their experience.