It feels like our hard work of the last few years have finally paid off.

Hard work:

• I moved to New York to work on my own, leaving Leah in the UK to mob up the company tax mess.
• Leah moved back to her mum’s place and occupied the basement to save rent.
• I worked as contractor/consultant for 3 years, with the fear of being deported if I lost my job as my Visa is tied to one employer only.
• Leah could not stay with me in the US until we were married.
• I worked my ass off last 18 months to build up our saving again after it was depleted by the wedding.

Rewards:

• Our Green Card applications are near the end. Hopefully we will get a decision from INS this year.
• I have a steady, permanent job that I know won’t disappear overnight. Even if it does, I can now go and get another job.
• My new job gives the weekend and week nights back to me. Now I can plan ahead and socialize with my friends.
• Leah is studying what she likes and, apparently, excels at.
• Our saving is back to respectable level, with more tax refunds coming and share option sales from my last employer.
• And last but not least, we are living in a country that we love. We don’t feel restricted by social behaviors, stereotyping, and bound by peer pressure. Our American friends take us for what we are, not what we were.

[Posted with ecto]

We’ve finally received the Notice of Action from INS to go and get our fingers printed in 3 weeks time! So we will be legal aliens very soon and nobody can kick us out of the country! About bloody time too after 3 years of waiting.

Not that I believe in bio-rhythm but the last two weeks haven’t been that great for me. Nothing particularly bad happened, just nothing great happened either. I started a new job, got new glasses, got a new home theatre system, and released my own software. What more can a man want? I hear you ask.

Well, I am still trying to fit in at my new work environment. Still feeling like an outsider from time to time. I am also no longer the domain expert/leader of the development team so I am not feeling ‘needed’, I guessed. The home theatre system is great but I started having a ringing noise in my left ear the same day the system was delivered. Talk about irony! Couple both of these with the very non-existence demand of my blogging software (though there is a very promising lead developing) and you can see how an optimist like myself can feel a bit down.

May be dinner with my friend Wendy, who had just came back from two weeks of vacation in Florence, tomorrow evening will lift my spirit. Or I can try the material route and order the new cell phone tomorrow when I get paid. Or better yet, the tax software will arrive new week, I can file my tax return and get some money (well, more than some) back from IRS!