RBoG (Random Bullets of Giddiness)

- Now that I have the news from the Assoc. Dean at NES that I'll have three courses for the fall, and two of them are the Women Writers to 1900 course, which I've never taught, I can't stop thinking about all the wonderful possibilities for the course! I'm actually giddy with delight in thinking about which anthology to use, which supplements to include...Should I focus on British women writers because that's really who I'm most interested in? What kind of assignments would work well and are appropriate for this 300-level class? And, how can I make it the Best. Fucking. Women's Writer's Course. Ever!?


- Everything is connected. Getting the third course pretty much gives us the green light on the house, as well as a decent monthly budget. In turn, this means that we can proceed with buying things like furniture, bedding, a bed for our oldest daughter, dishes...you know, things that people kinda need to have when they move into a new house. While in NET (New England Town), I went ahead and picked out a bedroom suit that Hubby and I had agreed upon previously, as well as a mattress/boxspring set. I put down a 20% deposit, and that ensures they'll have it in stock and ready to deliver the day we move in--yay! I also picked out living room furniture, of which Hubby approved, and all I have to do is call to place the order to get it in stock and ready for delivery as well. I'm holding off on dishes because the ones I really, really want
(aren't they gorgeous?)

are almost double what I budgeted. I'll wait and see how all the other expenses turn out--especially the inevitable unexpected ones--before I buy anything. We will, however, need to buy a refrigerator ASAP since the house doesn't come with one. I have one in mind, and we don't have many options because of height issues, but again, I'll wait until we get on the ground before doing the buying.


- The Assoc. Dean was happy to submit a verification of employment to our mortgage lender, and he just passed along the good news that he was able to lock us in at a 4.5% rate for the loan, which is fantastic! Given that the closing costs are approx. $3,400, and we've already put $3,000 down in escrow, the money we'll need for pre-pays and escrow is very reasonable. We're not required to put down anything on the house since we're using the VA loan benefit, thank God!


- The only thing I'm not so giddy about is health insurance. Since we'll technically be unemployed for July and August (our contracts don't begin until September), we'll have no insurance unless we: a) pay for COBRA at over $900/month, b)apply for MassHealth, the state-subsidized Medicaid program that we may or may not qualify for, or c)buy short-term health insurance, which really isn't an option because they don't cover pre-existing conditions and two of us have them. That takes us back to option A: COBRA. In addition, NES has a probationary period of 60 days before employees are covered. This means we'll have to purchase coverage through COBRA for 4 months at more than $900/month. Don't know how we're going to do it just yet, but it has to happen. Right now, we're just saving everything we can, trying to live frugally over here (a difficult feat in Doha), and plan for all the relocation expenses we can foresee.


Many of these things--the good stuff and the bad--have been keeping me from getting any sort of sleep. I don't remember the last time I went to bed before 11:00 p.m. Staying up that late is very rare for me, so most of the time I'm exhausted in the mornings and trying to talk myself out of napping the rest of the day. I don't want to make a habit of taking sleeping pills, but the anti-anxiety meds my U.S. doctor prescribed haven't been helping lately. Not sure if there's anything to do other than just ride it out for the next five weeks.

Finally...I can breathe

I should have been listening to this for the past six days. Or better, I should have sent the e-mail to the Associate Dean to the correct e-mail address! I just got spoke to her, and she's confirmed that they've worked out a three-course schedule for me in the fall AND that she's happy to write an employment verification letter this afternoon and fax it in to our mortgage lender. For the first time in weeks, I feel like everything's gonna be okay.* Some serious Marley shall be added to my iPod tomorrow.

*And that's saying a lot, considering I got into my first fender bender in Doha today, two days before we are scheduled to pass it along to the buyer!

Home/Work

Another week went dramatically downhill after I messed up the account number on a $5,000 wire transfer, trying to get money from our US account to our new account in Doha. The advice I was given by the US bank's rep was to simply "change" the account number online. Yeah, well, that duplicated the wire request, and POOF-- $10,000 was in cyberspace limbo.

Fast forward to today...I'm home sick. Nothing serious, just a cold and general tiredness. I have tons of papers to grade, so I figured staying home might help me get caught up. However, I've realized two things. One, I'm always tempted to do "home" things rather than "work" things when at home (cook, clean, etc.). Two, this isn't home. Even though it's the space I am sharing with my husband and three children, where we eat at least two meals almost every day at the dining room table, where we will all come closer together as we make it through the next 21 months--this is not home. There's just something empty in the marble floors, vast quiet (since the kids are at school and daycare), and infinite summer outside my windows. It makes me feel like a stranger in the house, like I shouldn't be here while the family who lives here isn't home. I tried lighting a Fall Harvest-scented candle to trick myself into a little bit more comfort, but it isn't really working.

From now on, there will be no more working from "home".

The Roller Coaster Ride

...that is international relocation to the Middle East is at a high point for the moment. Two fabulous things happened today: our things arrived from the States, and Hannah got accepted into ASD (the American School of Doha)! She tested yesterday and thought she did well, but said she had some problems with the reading part of the test...just some words she wasn't familiar with. Evidently, she did just fine, because she's IN!

It's like Christmas in our house now! Eliza keeps saying how much she loves the boxes of her stuff....doesn't always even know what's inside, but she's so happy to just have her things here that she's smiling from ear to ear. Our own swing (not one borrowed from the neighbors), our own wagon, our other car seats, my kitchenware, which has been so very missed (the other night, I pounded chicken breasts with the bottom of a rum bottle).

HANGERS! Hangers with the clips on them! You have know idea how important these are until you move to a place where they don't exist. Pictures of my girls, our family, things that will finally make it feel like we're living in our home instead of a McMansion in the desert.

These first two weeks or so have been harder than I ever could have imagined. My days ususally start off hopeful and positive, but by the end of the day, I'm exhausted, depressed, homesick, and wondering if we bit off more than we can chew. I was warned this is how it would go...that this is all normal, but I don't have much patience for simply surviving it each day. But today--just for today--I'm happy to have the rest of all the little pieces of our life back.

More to come on: being in the presence of a Sheikh, what Eliza thinks about how people dress here, and getting a medical exam at a government-run medical clinic.

EconoLodge Limbo

The international relocation company has come and gone. Unfortunately, they forgot to get several drawers of clothes out of my dresser, which has left me with more stuff than my luggage can hold. So, I can either throw them out, put them in storage, or pay an enormous amount of money to have them shipped over. For now, I'm hoping the campus support office will make an exception and let me get by with shipping a box through them :)

The garage sale has come and gone. I had two wonderful friends spend hours and hours in the hot sweaty garage, setting the whole thing up. We did really well, clearing about $700, which isn't bad for a garage sale and doesn't include the $250 we sold our living room furniture for.

The moving crew came back yesterday to move our remaining stuff into storage. There were some kinks in the deal, a private arrangement between us and them...an off-the-clock kinda job. Luckily, everything worked out okay, and they wrapped our stuff air tight. I really think it will stay protected while we're gone.

Today was my birthday present: a spa day! Nothing like a Swedish massage and European facial to work off some of the stress of moving.

Good karma came our way when the orthodontist decided not to charge us the $350 to transfer Hannah's file out---woohoo! That definitely made it easy for me to make the decision to just hire someone to clean the house. Never mind that one of the people doing the cleaning is totally high on meth!! Yes, that's right. Totally wacked out, scratching her hair, sunken cheeks, hopped up higher than groceries. The whole story is that the assistant teacher in the baby's room at the montessori mentioned that her mother does housecleaning. I called, offered her $150 for the job, she accepted and said she could do it tonight. When she showed up, she explained that she'd brought a friend to help her do the job in order to make sure it got finished tonight. It took less than a minute for me to tell that this other lady was completely strung out. Don't get me wrong, she's on speed, so she's cleaning faster than Wonder Woman over there. And they both seem really broke and really shocked at the amount I offered to pay, so I don't doubt that they'll get the job done. I just still can't believe a freakin meth head showed up to clean my house....well, it used to be my house.

Now, I live in EconoLodge Limbo. We've set up shop, complete with bottles, formula, bottle drying rack, brush, way too much luggage, and a couple more boxes of stuff I need to figure out whether I need to take or not. What sucks right now is that I can't find my cell phone charger or a book that was lent to me by my department head....argh! Hopefully, they'll show up soon.

We still have a walk-through for the house tomorrow, I need to pick up medical files for myself and Hannah, and we have an emergency appointment with HR because there's some screw up with the benefit enrollment for Amelia, which should've been taken care of two weeks ago when we met with the HR coordinator!

At this point, I'm feeling more calm than I thought I'd be, yet there's still plenty of stress. I feel like I'm bound to forget a thousand things, and I'm just ready to be at my mom's house, spending a few extra minutes with her and going through the stuff that *will* fit in my luggage. On top of everything, we still have to take a look at the short-term housing units back in Home State on Thursday and re-pack all of Hannah's stuff after her being at her grandma's house for a week (with God knows how many shopping trips!).

A Brief Post from Home State

Yes, I'm still here...temporarily. We've been back in my hometown since last Friday, and the internet connection at my mom's house is intermittent at best. Finally, Hubby and I worked out an arrangement in which he got four hours to work at the local coffee shop yesterday, while I watched the kids, and today is my turn. Unfortunately, I actually have work to do and cannot sit here endlessly kvetching about all the drama that has unfolded over our one-week visit. Let's just say that it is no longer a healthy option for all involved to have my family of five invade my mother's home for any longer than a 3-day stay. There's just too much crazy and too little space.

Some good things have happened though:

• We have both a pack-out date and a fly-out date! The moving company will come to pack up our things on Friday, July 17th. We will fly out of Houston for Doha on Saturday, July 25th. I still sometimes can't believe we're doing this.
• Somehow, my 10-week old baby managed to sleep through the entire night last night! Seriously, from 9:30 p.m. to 6:30 a.m. Don't know what caused this, but man I'm a well-rested Mama today!
• We found a storage unit for the mani-van. We'll store it here in Hometown, and when we come back for breaks, my mom can simply use it to come pick us up at the airport, and she'll be able to drive it periodically to keep it in working condition. The owner of the storage place was willing to give us a really good rate, too, because we're willing to sign a long-term lease.
• We also got more solid information on the availability of a 3-bedroom, furnished corporate apartment. Since my hometown is about 40 minutes away from the airport (and capital city), this works out well for all sorts of reasons.
• I got to take a picture of all my girls with my last remaining grandparent, my grandmother, who has Alzheimers. To be honest, I don't think she even remembered that I had been pregnant. In fact, one of my cousins told me that she'd previously told him I'd had a miscarriage. Regardless, she was thrilled for us to visit, and she was even able to hold the baby. It did, however, cause her to break down in tears. Every birth of another great-grandchild makes her happy, but sad that my grandfather isn't here to enjoy it with her. The loss of her husband almost 20 years ago is the dominating memory in her mind, and she seems increasingly haunted by his absence from her daily life.

Okay, this will have to suffice for now. My task for today is to go through the entire dissertation and review my advisor's suggestions, questions, etc. and make sure I understand exactly what she's asking me to do in terms of revision. We've agreed to meet one more time before we leave the States, which will give me the chance to ask for any clarification I might need. So, to the real work.

Organized Writing and Thought Fail

Apologies in advance to the lack of organization (possibly coherence) of this post. I feel lucky to be getting/taking the time to post, so I'll take what I can get.

The chaos seems to be increasing on a daily basis. Some days are worse than others, and I expect(ed) things to get more hectic the closer we get to our pack-out date, but Holy Hell Batman! Yesterday was the absolute worst. It's the closest I've ever felt to what might be a panic attack. It's no one thing alone. Rather, it's all sorts of little and big things that fell on my plate at once yesterday. For example, the Sec. of State office sent us the wrong form to authenticate our criminal history reports (my job to figure out how to fix it); our relocation allowance won't be issued until our visa comes is (my job to see how we might expedite the process by having direct deposit paperwork filled out in advance); I was under the impression I'd be teaching a Rhetoric and Composition course for the fall (it turns out that it will be, for all practical purposes, more like a developmental writing course, my job to re-do all my prep work thus far)....you get the idea folks.

On top of these things, I met with the former liberal arts program coordinator for the overseas campus on Monday (he and his wife have recently finished their contracts and returned to the home campus), and he had all sorts of helpful, terrifying tidbits of information. Things like....

• there is no cold water in the villas...water tanks are kept outside, so the temperature of the water is, um, hot, hot, hot. To avoid ruining clothing one must either let the water sit in the washing machine until it's room temperature or pour additional chilled water in the machine. I'm guessing the same goes for bathwater for the kids.
• the sand gets everywhere. I'd heard this, but he explained how this relates to other things, like not being able to help keep your car interior a tad bit cooler by rolling the windows down because the sand will invade your vehicle.
• and Ramadan...I knew about that, we'd heard how it gets tricky to get/eat food during this time, especially in public, but I he explained that this basically means you eat from home the entire time unless you want to join the rest of the town at the restaurants when they finally open after sundown. Um, with three kids, I think not.
• the pools?? They aren't heated. They are CHILLED. That's how freakin hot it is.

There are various other things that have added to the craziness. I feel like my list of things to do is always five times as long as Hubby's and, to some extent, that's often the reality not just my feeling. The main problem is that I've lost my ability to be realistic about a)what deserves to be on the list and b)in what order those things should be listed. Yesterday, it was 2:00 p.m. and I realized that I hadn't eaten anything all day, and the only thing I'd had to drink was a morning cup of coffee. Even worse, I felt compelled NOT to stop and eat anything because there was too much stuff to be done while the baby was napping.

I know I'm a control freak, and I'm trying to get better at asking Hubby to help me with things, but I still sometimes resort to quasi-sabotaging his efforts b/c I can't keep from following up on him and directing the task myself--micromanaging is probably what it is--which defeats the purpose of delegating some of the tasks to him in the first place.

The one main saving grace of the day is that I was able to contact the finance person in Doha, and she indicated that we might be able to get our relocation allowances next week!! You have no idea how big this is! I mean, technically, we are officially unemployed until July 1. Neither of us have had any summer funding, and we've had to take out short-term loans just to make sure we'd have enough money to pay bills in July, since we weren't given any clear information about when we'd get our relocation funds. Making this particular issue more complicated is that I had been given the wrong info from our support office here. All this time, I've been told that we couldn't get our funds until our visa came in. I found out just YESTERDAY that the visa has nothing to do with our funds! The only thing that needs to happen is for our signed contracts to hit the desk of the finance person in Doha! Once I found this out, the finance person was able to quickly track down our contracts and get the ball rolling.

Yesterday, I seriously needed to be talked down from the metaphorical edge. The stress and anxiety are creeping into the daytime hours now, not just preventing me from getting to sleep at night, but making me feel like I'm simply going nuts trying to keep track of and prioritize all the things that need to be done (the list that now includes me completely changing my syllabus and assignments for the writing class). My doctor is increasing the dosage on my medication and he's given me the go-ahead to take it as needed during the day also.

Oh, and did I mention I have a defense date scheduled? Yes, Wednesday, April 7th. Making it official has simply reinforced my anxiety about making sure I get the time I need to finish my revisions in the fall....this has simply reinforced my anxiety about getting as much course prep done as I possibly can now, so that I can put the classes on "auto pilot" once I get there. You get the cyclical nature of all this?? Thought process fail. Control fail. Planning fail.

Spring Break 2009: Doha or Bust

Good News:

The tickets are being booked today for our Spring Break trip to Doha! We leave on Saturday, March 14th, around noon, and get to Doha Sunday evening--a 26-hour trip if you include layover time, etc. Then we return Friday, March 20th. I'm exhausted just thinking about it, but hoping that I won't be so excited that I can't sleep on the first leg of the trip.

My mom and I actually had a productive and healthy conversation yesterday about the move. She was receptive to my suggestion that she take a look at the Relocation Binder available online and provided by the support office here at my university's home campus. The girls were originally going to be in Home State over Spring Break, but we'd scheduled H's time so that she'd have some alone time with my parents before going to her dad's house. Because of our trip, that's no longer possible, but my Mom took the change with a grain of salt and said no big deal! At first, I thought she must be self-medicating, but it appears that her Jeckyl & Hyde mood swings are the result of menopausal hormone issues, so there you go. Too bad there's not a schedule she could give me to let me know which are the good days and which are the day ;)

Also, she said she isn't ruling out international travel! She isn't making any promises to come, but she's not saying it's out of the question. This is progress people!

Bad News:

We found out Hubby, who has been teaching 2 classes at a local CC this semester to help us put back enough money for the summer and pay off medical bills from my neck surgeries last year, won't have ANY summer teaching opportunities! Evidently, the full-time faculty are scared of the unknown economy, and ALL of them have requested summer teaching, usually something happily delegated to the part-timers. Luckily, between our tax refund, which we put into savings, and the extra money he's bringing in this semester, we should have enough to make it through July and August. At that point, our salary from the new positions should kick in, but I'm still checking on this. Either way, we'll be moving before August 1, and our living expenses for the month prior to the start of the fall semester are covered. What does this all mean???

More Good News:

Both Hubby and I will not be teaching this summer! He'll be able to help take care of the new baby, while I continue to get some dissertation work done, and we'll be able to work together on the relocation process! On one hand, I kinda feel like we're being lazy bums. I've NEVER not worked...ever...like since I was 15. This already feels weird. On the other hand, I have no doubt I'll be plenty busy and in definite need of hubby's help with both baby and relocation, which also includes a massive garage and moving what we're not selling into a storage unit back in home state.

For those of you who've dealt with international relocation, what are the biggest glitches you've run into?