As with everything else about this whole process, it got here much sooner than I had expected. Yesterday, I got this letter from the Department of Justice welcoming me and saying that I would get my greencard in a few months. At the consulate, they told me it would be 3-4 months. When I arrived here in Miami, at Immigration, they said it was more like 6-8 months. Today I got home and there was this blank envelope with something “card-shaped” inside. I figured one of my credit cards must be about to expire. Then I opened it and there it was. And it’s only been 3.5 weeks. All I can say is, I’m not complaining…

I went to the pub last night and there were some people there rooting for Costa Rica. They were mostly American and European. When did Costa Rica become a favorite among that crowd? Anyway, I was just bitter that they were against Brasil.

I didn’t get up at 2:00 AM to watch the match but I’m especially happy that we won. After dating a Turkish guy for 3+ years and hanging out around a bunch of Turkish soccer fanatics, it would have been too painful if we had lost.

Friday Lisa had a barbecue at her place. I ate way too much of the veggies and Portobello mushrooms she made especially for me.

I’m back in the US and now I’m a permanent resident alien (or something). How cool is that?

I really believe in this quote. I’ve been so busy lately that my time is planned to the tenth of a second. And then life throws you a curveball and you realize that we really have no control over what can happen every minute of our lives.

Last night I got home and there was this manila envelope in the middle of the living room floor, in the pile of mail I get every day. I decided to sit on the floor to sort through my mail (I never do that but there was too much to sort this time and I was in a hurry so I thought it would be more efficient). I’m sorting through all the mail order catalogs and then I glance over at the manila envelope and see the stamp: US Consulate in Rio. Shit! That can’t be. I open it and there’s a stack of papers. I start reading the first one and it seems like they are just letting me know about some additional documents I’ll need when I go for my greencard interview at the end of summer.

See, my company is sponsoring my greencard and I chose to do it via the consulate, which is riskier but faster, and it also means I have to go to Brazil for the interview. I knew that it could happen in very short notice but I had planned to buy an open ticket and be ready in August-September to pick up and go any minute (that portion of the process was filed 3/6 with the consulate in Rio and the lawyers told me it would be at least 6 months until I got my interview). And that’s when God laughed…

I turn the stack of papers over and realize I was reading the last page. And what do I see on the first page? Interview Date: 22-May-2002 8:30 AM at the Consulate in Rio. My heart stopped! I started calculating in my head. Oh shit! That’s less than two weeks away. Yep, and that’s why I’m on my way to Brazil this Sunday. One day to wrap things up at work and one day to pack and get all my shit together for the interview. Planning? Who needs it?

Jenny’s blog inspired me to finally post the picture of this boxelder bug. Yes, I did scan the bug. But there’s a reason for it. My house was surrounded by these bugs so I thought I would try to identify what type of bugs these were before calling my landlord. I tried taking a picture of the bugs with my digital camera but it came out too blurry since I needed a close-up. So I trapped one of them inside a ziploc bag and scanned it. I then surfed the web and quickly matched it to the picture of a boxelder bug I found on some site. The scanned bug wasn’t harmed by the way (although I did scan him so that my landlord would know how to kill all of the bugs so I guess I’m a hypocrite).

Why does everything always happen all at once? I was invited to a party Wednesday night, I have to meet some friends for drinks on Thursday, two other friends want to go to a fondue place on Friday, and on Saturday, I was invited to another party (which will probably be lame) plus I told some people I would see them at the pub. Now, the question is "why"? Why are some weeks totally boring and you find yourself with nothing to do while others keep you wondering how in the world you will make it to Sunday?

I’m still here, just swamped.

Anyway, check this out for now: The Flo Control Project.

Woo-hoo, the heater repairman is here fixing the heater as I type this. Apparently the computer malfunctioned. Why does a heater need a computer is what I would like to know.

I think one of the biggest disadvantages of being single is that you don’t have a guy around to fix things and set things up. Everything else doesn’t really require a serious boyfriend. But when you need to get complicated stuff hooked up, you can’t really call your one-night stand and ask him to come over and set up your new DVD player so it works with your Tivo, your digital cable, and your VCR. And I’m just using one-night stands as an example. It’s not like I actually condone that practice. And I say complicated stuff because I think that for the most part I can do things on my own. I mean, I can set up my Mac pretty well. I can do some basic fixing of stuff around the house. But anything beyond that and I become pretty useless. So when I switched to a laptop at work and had to buy a DSL router for home so I could hookup my win2k laptop and my G4 to my DSL, I knew that I was in trouble (especially since the router manufacturer doesn’t support Macs and didn’t include any instructions on how to set them up).

That’s why it pays off to have a friend like angryheidi. It’s not because she comes over and does those things for me. I mean, she probably could if she wanted to; after all, she is a smart girl (and angry too so I kinda had to say that). But the real reason why she’s such a great friend to have is that she did a really good job in picking her boyfriend. He’s not only totally knowledgeable about all things electronic, he’s also the calmest person ever and he is blessed with the pokerest of poker faces so that he never laughs when I ask him a silly question.

For that, all I have to say is: "Thank you Heidi!" And most of all: "Thank you Chad!"