About To Dive Off The Deep End...

Yes, it's been a week, and thanks to Karen for keeping me honest.  I've had a bit of a weird week.  Feeling like when you're on a rollercoaster and you're just starting to fly down and suddenly you're aware that your stomach is not with you.

Well, the day after I last wrote, I had an appointment with a lawyer in Hartford.  I had not yet up to that point consulted a lawyer about anything to do with my immigration status or any new status I was trying to achieve.  However, as it has become clear to me that all this travelling is going to become a serious problem I decided to see what a lawyer had to say.  Which was nothing.  Along with reaffirming my conviction that I know just as much, if not more, than most regarding this subject.  So I'm going back to relying on my own ability to learn and understand all this nonsense rather than trust that someone else is going to be nice enough not to screw me whilst they take all my money (I've got nothing against lawyers, I just don't trust anyone else handling my affairs).  I will be applying for naturalization as soon as I am able, which probably wouldn't have been very difficult had I not been out of the country for 7 months, as opposed to the 6 month hassle-free maximum, during 2004-05.  All I can do is hope that my skin color and country of origin assist in making me a "shake 'n' bake" case - and that is by no means an attempt at humor, I really think that's what it comes down to most of the time. 

I spent the next two days researching immigration law while I wasn't working, and then Saturday I had The Worst Shift Ever at the restaurant.  In only one evening I managed to have a table which had to order three bottles of wine before we actually had one they ordered, which of course went down like a ton of bricks, then we ran out of one of the main meals which was ordered so the customer had to order a substitute (usually not a big deal but when combined with the wine being out of stock, it did almost seem like we were playing a joke on them), two customers ordering something completely different to what they wanted, so of course when their food arrived they were like "what is this?" and another table whose food was cold when it arrived (after they took 45 minutes to eat their salad).  I know this doesn't sound like much, but when combined altogether at the same time (I was only seated once) it was an absolute nightmare.  The only thing that kept me going was the thought that I was never going to be doing an evening shift again.

The next day I worked my final shift, a Sunday brunch.  At the end of the shift I told the owner "I won't be coming back after my vacation period so this is effectively my two weeks notice" to which he replied "OK" as he was walking away from me... and that was that.  Jeremy couldn't believe that I wasn't going to tell them I was leaving before I actually left, but when I told him the owner's reaction he realised that I had done the right thing - if he was that immature when I quit, who knows what might have happened if I had actually given time to react.  At the end of the day we achieved our goal, which was earning enough to fund this trip, and I'm glad I didn't give anyone the chance to jeopardise that.

I would have liked to celebrate quitting but it didn't really work out like that, so I watched a movie in bed and had an early night.  Monday I worked on the Fiji movie (I'm so embarrassed that it's taken so long) which has been all but finished for about a year.  We've finally burned the DVDs and they're ready to mail out.  Yesterday I had a non-productive day, it all finally caught up to me and I was exhausted all day.  Today I have to study the Connecticut driver's manual as I'll be doing a driver's test tomorrow - it's about time I got a US license.  Hopefully I'll pass... how embarrassing if I've been driving all this time and I fail! 

2 sleeps until San Francisco now.  I'm feeling a little bit of a lull in my energy levels, I think I need a holiday but I sure don't have time for one.  Hopefully this will pass and I'll be just as excited when I get there as I was to go there a week ago.