The Transnational Optimist

I'll be getting familiar with the website of the Canadian Consulate in Detroit, as it turns out.  My stress level has plummeted after giving it some review, as my work experience that related to U.S. immigration and visa laws led me to expect far greater difficulty.  (The hardest part, if I could call it that, will be getting the financial aid piece hammered out over the coming weeks.)  As if to assuage people who work with numbers constantly and have been conditioned to expect the worst, they have a breakdown of how many applications are processed within various timeframes ranging from 2 days or less (49%) to 28 days or less (81%).  Not weeks or months, but days.

My friend Don gave a great recommendation to ditch the U-Haul idea and pay someone to move everything from here to there (which will surely cost more, but saves a flight back from Toronto to Minneapolis to get my car and our two cats and do the whole 1000 miles over again).  Now, if only Allied Van Lines would stop calling constantly to set up my in-home moving cost estimate (honestly, it's been over a dozen calls in the last ten days, from the same 260- number in Fort Wayne, Indiana).  At least I know what it's like to be desperate for a callback for work that doesn't come, so it's easy to put that insistence aside.

I can't really explain how unemployment eventually improved my outlook on pretty much everything, but it sure as hell did.  Especially since I only ever stress out about things when I'm tired.  More and more (and timed well with Jen's new job), when I get stressed, I think, "it's time to go to bed," and eventually I get there, sleeping it off.  I've become a big fan of the quiet, late at night.