My second holiday season in the UK. Thanksgiving has come and gone, Christmas et. al. is coming, and I have this vague unsettled feeling that I should be homesick. But I’m just… not. I don’t really feel anything.
I mean, granted, I was never hugely into Thanksgiving. I thought it was kind of an unneccessary pre-Christmas-Christmas. And in recent years I’m either just so freaking burnt out on Christmas or I’m becoming cynical in my old age that the only thing I want to do with the holiday is use it as a chance to sleep in and play video games. But between being overseas and my dad’s family having basically fallen apart the past couple of years, it’s like, well, what’s wrong with me that I can barely remember past holidays and the bits&pieces I do remember don’t really affect me all that much? Am I headed for a breakdown and don’t know it yet? Am I doing the thing I learned to do in middle school where I just turned my feelings off? (Sounds like a great ability, right? IT ISN’T.)
I was reading something the other day about how someone else felt being an expatriate. About her experience of culture shock, and how she couldn’t feel like she was a part of the world she was living in. And I thought, “But I always feel like that. You mean that’s not normal?”
So, uh, I’m so broken that I’m actually coping really well. XD
(I am going to do card exchange this year. That part of the holidays I do miss. I'll do the 'address exchange post' in a bit, when my pie's in the oven.)
Got fired from the grocery store on Friday. For not being "happy" enough. Apparently such egregious sins leaning on the register and letting the manager be the first to say hi in the mornings are unforgivable in the 'disposable register monkey' field, and so I find myself disposed of.
...hell yes, I'm bitter. I didn't even like the job, but I did everything I was supposed to do and made an effort to be friendly with customers. And that self-same manager didn't give enough of a crap to ask me if I was okay when I asked her where the first aid kit was the morning I came in with scrapes from falling off my bike, so I'm calling bullshit on her ass.
So now I have to go through the job-seeking process all over again, which y'all know destroys me. I've got an interview tomorrow, actually - it's a temp job, but y'know what? The pay's better. So there's that.
Well, this is my third week at the little grocery store, and I'm coming toward the end of my ability to use "sorry, I'm new here" as an excuse for my fuckups. (Today I almost gave someone thirty pounds more cashback than he'd asked for. I am NOT at my best in the mornings, guys.)
There was a couple of days there when I was pretty sure I was going to be let go, because one of the supervisors was kind of giving me the cold shoulder when before he'd been teasing me a lot, but yesterday he went back to teasing me, so I guess I'm still okay. Honestly I'm still not sure I'm going to keep this job though. My second day they got us all together and told us the owner was selling the franchise back to its parent company. "Nobody's losing their jobs," they were quick to assure us, but realistically, if they decide to tighten their belts I'm first on the chopping block as the new kid. Also, it may not be a good sign that I don't have a name tag yet.
But if I do get to keep this job, it's not terrible. Magazine-sorting and doing home shopping orders are kind of fun, and some of the regulars are nice. (I basically channel my mom talking to those people. It's kind of unnerving how much I sound like her. XD)
I, uh, got two jobs today. Well, a job offer and an informal freelance project.
The job is just part time, weekday mornings at the local grocery store, but it's paying enough that I can stop living off my savings and start contributing to rent. The freelance gig - basically 'Boots acted as my agent, so now I'm doing an animated informational video for her boss. XD
I'm fairly sure imposter syndrome is going to hit me hard as soon as I start work on it, but since I'm not doing it in front of her I can fake confidence in my emails to her and have my breakdowns in blessed privacy. And tentatively, maybe start to believe that my diploma-mill graphic design degree was not the waste of two years and thousands of dollars that I've been convinced it was since about six months after I graduated.
I DON'T HAVE TO JOB-HUNT ANYMORE. HOORAY. JOB HUNTING IS THE ACTUAL WORST.
(On an unrelated note, I wrote a thing. TW: two instances of a common gendered slur. Also probably going to get a certain 90s pop song stuck in your head.)
When ‘Boots lost her job last month, it was mostly a relief - her coworkers were horrible to her - but it also brought us into the domain of the Worry Wyvern. In order for the Powers that Be to approve my visa, we had to meet a financial requirement: namely, that she be employed six months at a salary meeting or exceeding a given threshhold. When we sent in our application, ‘Boots’s job meant we exceeded the threshhold by quite a comfortable margin. A month later, her income was zero, I’m not even allowed to look for jobs, and all was HOSHIT.
Mostly, we tried not to think about it while ‘Boots threw her resume at everything that moved. Aside from muttered confessions of “oh god what if-“ “oh god no” when we were both too tired to filter. I was haunted by visions of being shipped back to America in a small cardboard box with holes in the lid. …okay, not that last bit. But we were trying to enjoy our unexpected vacation together and leave the paperwork to fall where it may.
“We should call the Visa Guys and ask for advice,” ‘Boots suggested.
Haunted by visions of immediate deportation, I winced, “Maybe we should consult the UK Yankee forum first.” What if we called, they rejected our visa in light of this new info, but if we’d just sat tight it would have been fine? It’d be another six months before I’d be allowed to even apply again, and oh dear Primus what a nightmare that was the first time around. The plan became “call them only after Newjob has been secured”, and I very quietly held my breath.
A month later, ‘Boots gets offered a job - more than that, it’s a position they created just for her. Because she is fabulous. ^_^ I had gone croaky with illness by that point, so I sat by clinging to her hand while she called up the visa office and asked the fateful question.
“Here’s our situation, and I was just wondering… …oh, it won’t? And we don’t have to do anything? You have no idea what a relief that is!”
Cue the theatrical collapsing on our fainting couches.
“I wasn’t at all sure about this,” I told ‘Boots after, “but I’m really glad we called.” Just - you call someone up about government paperwork, where they’re not trying to sell you anything so they're not compelled to be nice, and they just - help? Just like that? What a novel concept!
“If only,” I keep hearing, whenever the subject of male entitlement or gun violence comes up. “If only some kind woman had given that poor boy a chance. If only she’d given me a chance to get into her panties. Then I wouldn’t have been so sad and lonely. Then he wouldn’t have shot six people. I feel for him. Poor guy.”
This is the story of the time I gave a sad, lonely boy a chance.
Ladies and gentlemen and otherwise: after a comedy of errors, little sleep, a lot of panic and a really long wait, I am SLAGGING THRILLED to announce that I have my entry visa and 'Boots and I are finally setting a date!
That date, namely, being December 1st. If all goes well I'll be flying out at the end of this month. I'm excited, terrified, mostly relieved.
OKAY. Lots of things have happened in the past month. Quick summary:
- Quit my job at the animal hospital. Everyone was very kind and claimed they were sad to see me go. I too experienced some flicker of emotion. ;) - After a lot of runarounds, blank looks, misinformation and general bullshit, I have FINALLY got all my visa stuff done and am now just waiting for a decision. According to the government-run website, 75% of applications get processed within 1 month, and 95% get processed within 3 months. I'm... really hoping to be in the 75% here, seriously. - Went to visit the extended family one last time before The Big Move. It was nice to see everybody (even the cousins, who are almost strangers to me), but the aunties have not, it seems, given up on their campaign to get me to join Facebook. Aaaagh.*
Jobless-me is falling back on old patterns of sloth. I'm trying to keep busy with gym time and various writing projects, but currently I've got my nose buried in Final Fantasy IX and may not come up for air anytime soon. (Kupo.)
*'But how will we keep in touch?' ...same way we always do, with the occasional email. Seriously, why does this only come up now that I'm moving?
ecstatic