Tuesday, 07.21.2015 - 11:46 am.
It's been long, over 10 days since my last update. I've been pouring my heart out in my written journal, partly because I enjoy handwriting and doodling, and partly because I'm in a hurry to finish it before we leave in September so I won't have to carry it with me. I'll be done with it in 10 days or so, I think.
So what's been going on? Well, we're on winter break. That hasn't stopped my boss from sending me work though, and I feel compelled to answer her requests as soon as possible. She never stops working. While she doesn't demand that we keep up with her, she...still asks, and it's hard to say no. Sometimes her e-mails say "when we return from the break" and then you know it's cool. Sometimes no such message is added and then you go "ugh".
I've used most of this free time to keep up with my writing. So far my Psych blog has enough entries to update itself until September 24th. I deserve a pat on the back for that! And I still need to prepare enough entries to last until the last monday of November or the first monday of January (December is for a well-deserved break). Because once we leave in September, who knows when I'll be able to get back online on a regular basis while we settle. My personal blog and the webcomic are not as well-prepared for that but I'm getting stuff done anyway.
As for preparing the moving overseas...we haven't made much progress. Andrew's paperwork has had a setback thanks to bureaucracy so he hasn't even signed his scholarship contract. We scheduled our appointment for the UK visa and we were slapped with a 4-year-long health insurance payment, on top of the visa itself. I died. My savings have died. And we still have so many things to pay for.
I regret self-publishing my book. I could've used the money on other things. Plus, I haven't heard from the editors in a while and that book must be ready by the first days of September, so I'll have time to pick up my craptacular 200 copies, some to give away to friends, and others to mail to my parents so I can make them proud (and they can distribute them at my homeland).
Speaking of my parents, things are not looking good for a December get-together in Houston, as it was my joy back in my day. It's more and more difficult to gather everyone in one place (each of my four siblings with a partner and/or children, and three out of my five nephews and nieces are now over 18 and thus with a schedule of their own), and we don't know how my mom will be by then, if she will be able to travel at all. Her appointment to check the cancer and establish course of treatment is until August. It's been a while since they found it came back and they're still not seeing her.
So there are many scenarios regarding my family get-together but the ideal one is most certainly not happening: Andrew and I traveling, and everybody else traveling, to be together in one place for the holidays. Andrew said that, in the end, if my mom can't travel, I could go to my home country and spend the holidays with her and my dad and my two siblings there, and perhaps my two other brothers, in the US, could travel for a couple of days, too. But I don't want to leave Andrew alone for Christmas, especially this year, the first anniversary of his brother's death.
Alright, so such is life. I talked to Brother #1, who was visiting my parents from the States this past week, and he said maybe we could get together, all of us, later next year. Without the burden of the holidays, in which everything is rushed and more expensive. I guess that would be ok, too. I'm both relieved and broken-hearted.
And last but no least: our cats! Air France has been a pain in the ass and in the end we could not get the airline-approved kennels from them. And we still haven't heard from them for our refund. People working in the AF store, not quite associated to the airline as it turned out, only speak french. That's the worst costumer service ever, considering they serve internationally. No e-mail, no website, no Skype, they do not reply to anything. Fuck them.
I ordered kennels on Amazon which also are airline-approved so hopefully that'll do. I hope those fuckers from the AF store get us our refund soon because I'm working on borrowed money now. I hate using credit cards but this time I had no choice. Also, my friend Michelle in Sweden tried to make a call for us and had no luck getting through. AND she was told AF does not fly animals into the UK.
What? No. No, no, no. I haven't seen that information explicitly anywhere, in fact it seems to be the opposite. I freaked out when she told me, and I figured it had to do with AF not flying monkeys to their death to labs anymore. I mean, most likely that's not it, but the only things I know about Air France is that they had a horrible plane crash in the middle of the Atlantic in 2009 that took two years to resolve, and that they used to take monkeys from breeders to labs. That plus getting ripped off by their store and of course I'm not thrilled to fly with them (the scholarship office buys our plane ticket and it works with AF).
Argh.
So there it is. That's what's been going on. I'm a little dizzy, I've been working on the computer since 9 am...writing! I updated my Psych and personal blog and this one. It's been a productive morning and now it's time to go do nothing for a while!
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