Updates

TODAY is the 26th day of January, year 2008. Ms. W is in Stony Brook, New York to begin a second masters degree. She just moved into a new place where she shares a dorm apartment with another Chinese student and two Indian students. Ms. C was informed that there was no funding for a new position in the large IT company that interviewed her and she is now preparing to return to Indonesia and planning on looking for work in Singapore. And I have settled into somewhat of a routine at work and am starting to make new friends and seeing possibly new adventures here in the Denver area.

No longer scared of weekends

I have lived in my one-bedroom apartment for about four months. I still have no major furniture, like a bed or sofa. But little by little it's starting to feel like home. No longer do I feel the need to fill my weekends with activities so I won't be lonely in my apartment. I don't dread weekends or holidays as much. I know that if I plan ahead, I could have at least one adventure per weekend, whether it be seeing a new museum, going to a meet up, spending time with other Filipinos or maybe dragging J off to see a movie. I also feel now that there are warm mornings when I don't want to be outdoors. All I want to do is take it easy at home, putter around and lounge with the cats, like I am doing now.

Still, I'll admit that it is a challenge to make new friends when you're new in any city. However, I feel it is easier here in the Boulder-Denver area than it was for me during my short stay with family in Las Vegas. There are more people my age in this area than in Las Vegas. There are also more varieties of people in different lines of work. Now, it's true that Las Vegas is more diverse. But then when I was there, it just seemed that too many people were in the real estate industry.

When one seeks the company of strangers-who-could-be-future-friends

Yesterday I went to a "meet up". I'm registered in a website called meetup.com and chose different activity categories. I had gone twice to my Denver museum meet up and liked the time I spent with other museum-goers. Last night, it was the northern Denver group and the scheduled activity was a stand up comedy show. I met a woman named Nancy, a guy named Shawn and a couple whose names I have forgotten. I thought there wouldn't be much time for socialization, but Nancy, Shawn and I got to chat before the show started. I like them both a lot. They seemed nice and genuinely pleasant people. The comedy show was very good too. All three comics. The opener, the featured comic and the main attraction (who happened to be the writer for "Cow and Chicken", a favorite cartoon of mine in Nickelodeon). I wasn't really in the mood for going to the bar next door after the show finished. Neither were Nancy and Shawn. But I guess the odd part was how the goodbyes were awkward. You chat all evening, get to know their jobs and likes and even some bits of their personal philosophies and then after that you never really know if you're going to see them again. My Filipino self wanted to ask for their contact details. But I have lived here long enough to know that sometimes first meetings are like that...and sometimes they aren't.

Still, I felt a certain connection with Shawn and I wonder if it's because his ethnicity is Asian. I didn't ask him where his family was originally from because, from his accent, he sound like he was born and raised in the US. But some of his humor and his manners where somewhat Filipino. It's a kind of humor or carino I also associate with men who grew up in my province. He flatters, but in an endearing and non-threatening way.

I also felt a certain disconnect at his very, very American accent. An Asian face and a non-specific but nonetheless pronounced American drawl. It as a combination I felt I was resisting or even rejecting.

No OPT for second master && 3 phone interviews

I found I made a huge mistake before today- I am not able to get OPT if I quit the second master. I supposed I could. How stupid I was! I felt really dumb since I've been here for 2 and half years and never paid much attention on visa issues which should be my main concern.
I made a big decision and it was based on false assumptions.

Luckily UMD has not released my I-20 number yet and I did not graduate in December due to the thesis. The release date for my I-20 is on Thursday. I have 1 day left to decide whether I want to continue a second master degree or not.

If I choose to apply OPT on this last day, I can get the next in February and the H1B quota will run out pretty soon after April 1st. It's highly impossible to find a company to support me during that two-month period. But I can change back to F-1 student status in Fall and thus save tuition for one semester. I can gain one year working experience but have to prepare to go back to school by next spring. It's hard to go back home and come back to US again while holding an OPT which means I can't go home for consecutive 3 years.

If I choose to continue on a second master degree, I wasted this one-year OPT and have to pay at least this semester's tuition, or even the whole 2 years' tuition since it's hard to get financial support if I only pursue a master degree. But I can apply for CPT during the summer. Unless some company agrees to give me sponsorship by April and wait me until October to work, I won't get H1B this year. So hopefully next year October I can start working. Between this period, I am free to go back home and us.

So my decision is still: I am going to pursue a second master in SUNY at Stony Brook by family financial support.

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It's amazing that I got 3 phone interviews during this week. I sent out the resumes in early Novembers and did not hear a word from those actuarial companies during December. So I just gave up. And now they came together. Do they follow a common schedule?

But 2 of 3 are full-time positions which I am not able to do under my current status. So I am just going to use them as practice. The first phone interview was scheduled 2pm this afternoon. I was so nervous that I did not sleep much last night. But I was totally in sober today without coffee. I prepared a list of problems and practiced with Ran. She's so helpful. Ms. N also gave me some great suggestions previously.

I did anything that can keep me busy during the last hour. Finally the call came, I was asked the following questions:
Do you willing to relocate?
What's your expecting lowest salary?
what's your highest degree?
how many actuary exams did you past?
Can you give me an example of miscommunicate?
Which excel skills do you use? do you know ...?
Which computer skills do you have?
e.t.

I felt better than I did during last interview with the Mayo Clinic woman. But they were two different kinds of jobs, maybe I can't compare them like this. I could not perform well while giving some answers. Any way, this is my first step. There's a long way to go.

I schedule the second one on Wednesday and the third on on 29th. It seems a job hunting season.

Done school in Duluth

I felt like a super women in the last week. I finished 2 exams, 2 final projects, 4 homeworks , and passed the defense. I stayed up until morning for 3 days and drank 2 cups of coffee per day(I used to only drink water.). I also attended 5 parties, 2 alcohol and 3 non-alcohol.

Hooray! Now I am excited about the moving. Happy holidays, Ms N& Ms C!
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It's been 6 days after I started packing. And it seems I will never finish packing. I got around 20 used boxes from walmart last Saturday. It was today that I noticed these boxes originally were for diapers or underpants... T_T
I began to imagine my friend's expression when he received the boxes.

Giving thanks in a New City

IT did not occur to me earlier, but I now realize that I was lucky to move to a place where an old friend already lives. A. and I were not in the same groups or barkadas in grade school or high school. We were classmates once or twice. But I guess the fact that we all knew each other and practically grew up with each other has made it easy for us to pick up where we left off and improve from there.

This Thanksgiving holiday I cooked the turkey for A's family and met her other friends and family during a lunchtime party. I met her younger brothers and sisters and their spouses and children. I met her friends who were all very warm and welcoming. I also got to spend time with her kids who are just adorable. G is this endearing 18-month old, huggable and always a joy. K is an intelligent and pilya 6-year-old. I remember spending a lot of time helping out in the kitchen, aside from doing the cooking, because I really wanted to help out with the cleaning and also because I just wanted to keep moving. This is probably a remnant habit from my barista days. I also remember not really wanting to socialize much with her friend's Caucasian husbands. Was I selfish to just want to have an easy day talking to people from my country and speaking my language? I wondered that briefly, but didn't really care much to exert an effort to be magnanimous that day.

In the evening, I we all went to this wonderfully large party, where there was karaoke. On the table were dishes from home I hadn't had since I left in 2004. I had to restrain myself from taking more of my favorites because I knew other guests deserved to have a taste too. But it was so hard!

It occurred to me that if A. were not in Denver, I would have probably been invited by an officemate, or I would probably have flown to Las Vegas. But I was grateful to be part of this particular community through my friend. I know I've been here in the US for quite a while, but this was one of those moments where I fully understood the importance of friends and family in a new city.

The United States will always be primarily a foreign land to me with customs and social norms I am still trying to understand. But it is always nice to have a piece of home with you through friends. Specially those who have known you for a long, long time.

OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG

I just got an email from one of the employer that I thought had forgotten about me asking if I am still available for employment. And because I was at school all day, helping out the Indonesian Student Organization selling tickets for the coming Indonesian Kitchen, without internet access, I just checked my email after the work hour is over. Darn it. I would have to wait until tomorrow to really know whether I will have good news. But nevertheless, I'm so psyched!!!!!!!!!

Grandma

My grandma was gone last week. She tripped over some rock and got a stroke. It happened suddenly and I had no time to say goodbye.

I'm not close to any of my grandparents but she's the closest. She lived in a small village and my parents live in the town. So I only visit her during breaks or festivals. She sometimes visited us with various product she grew by herself. But she never stayed long since the village is what her life is about. When I visited her, she served me all kinds of food and snacks. When I was playing around the village, in the mountain or down the river or in some cousin's house, she would call my name to go home for the next meal. I normally ate 5 or 6 meals at her place per day. Filling grandkids' stomach seemed to be one of her hobbies.

She had 8 kids and was a hard-working mother. Mum told me when she's young, when the hungry year came, grandma did all she could to feed them. She was once a daughter of a good family. But time was once very hard for everyone of her time. I only heard about that but never experienced so I could not tell how hard that is. All I know is she lived through lots' of hard times.

I could not help wondering, what did she look like when she's young? what's a normal day looked like when she's a girl? what's her life's most important days? I would never know. She never went to the school and she had no photos from her young age. I did not talk with her often. Even when we talked, we talked very simply. I was glad I called her this new year. She could not hear me very well then but she finally figured out who I was.

She's gone on a full moon day. She might have gone up to the sky. She might have gone up to where the moonlight comes from. She's going to stay there peacefully watching over her husband and kids.

Hormones & the New City

DURING the last couple of days I thought I felt the intense loneliness of being alone in a new city. I went to dinner with old high school classmates and their spouses Friday evening. Spent the night with one of the classmates (let's call her A.) and her family. Spent a lovely morning with her, her husband and her lovely children. Then I explored Denver Saturday afternoon. When Sunday rolled by, loneliness lodged in the pit of my stomach like a heavy boulder. I spent most of the morning in bed then willed myself to brave the snow and do some grocery shopping in the afternoon. I hung out at Barnes & Noble to read books I could not afford to buy, and I watched other people and wondered if they were just killing time like me.

I began to question why I was still in the United States in the first place. I missed seeing Asian faces. I missed my friends. I missed the status and the reputation I built back home. I missed the convenience of getting on a tricycle to go to a carenderia to address a food craving and not having to search for ingredients in an expensive Asian grocery or the "authentic foods aisle". I reminded myself that I came to the US for further studies and to see if a relationship would work out and that now I have finished the degree and found out the relationship did not work, why am I still here?

It was a very dark Sunday for me and it stretched on to Monday. I told Ms. C about it. All day long at the office I was mildly grouchy. I closed my office door so I could cry.

And then my period came.

Now I'm a little confused. Was all that darkness just because of my hormones? Or did my PMS enhance feelings lurking deep within my brain? It's the second day of my period now and I'm feeling a little better. However I am still feeling unsettled about being ambushed by my hormones. I know have more empathy for women going through post-partum depression.

Why are women's bodies built that way? Was there some evolutionary use for PMS? What did women gain by these blues? I do not know the answer to these questions. At least not right now.


In the meantime, I will continue to slog through the remaining PMS by taking longer walks during my two breaks and my lunch break. I need to cut myself some slack. It IS difficult moving to a new place and I know that occasional loneliness is natural. I've already make some new friends and I will make more.