Emigration Blog

The most wondrous fog

2006-12-24T14:17:00.000-08:00

The fog has cleared now, but it was wondrous. For the past week, all day long, every day, there has been thick fog throughout a large portion of the county of Norfolk where I live. At the same time, the temperature wavered just above or just below freezing. The result was beautiful. Up until the temperature suddenly dipped to freezing and the fog came, it had been unnaturally warm here. Even under normal circumstances, these days, there are some flowers right through winter, but this year, many flowering plants had been fooled into flowering. So when the fog came with the temperature hovering around freezing, all the leaved and flowering plants became etched with frost. The longer the fog and the just freezing temperatures went on, the more layers of frost were deposited, and the results were magical. The news has been shoing the pictures that people had sent in. Whole bushes apparently made entirely of delicate white ice crystals, a rose in full bloom, each petal and stamen edged and etched with sparkling frost. And what made it all especially magical was the fog. I traveled on a train this last Friday. With the fog, these visions appeared suddenly out of a white blankness only to disappear again a second later. You get the same experience walking a familiar path. A tree you had seen every day was suddenly a work of art.

At the same time, the fog has made the sidewalks carpets of moss and lichen. Even my doormat has moss growing. Fences of all materials are topped by moss. With the fog going on for days on end, it almost seemed as if we had somehow moved through a doorway between eras, returning to a time when it would not have been a surprise to see a faerie sleeping in the hollow of one of those roses, or to meet the green man, his features edged in frost. You begin to understand on a heart-deep level the England that faerie tales were born in. Perhaps there's still a bit of druid in each of us. I felt my part stirring this last week.

Dec. 3, 2006

2006-12-03T01:46:00.000-08:00

Today is my birthday. I'm 56.

We're going out! To a pub! Why does this deserve exclamation marks? It's been so long since we have been out at all. My husband, in all the time we have been here has not felt comfortable with it. Part of it is the alcohol-centeredness of pub life. I've tried to tell him that it is not the same as a bar in the US, that it's OK to bring the kids or granny (if we had any), that it's more like Central Perk (with alcohol), that it's a neighborhood gathering place more than anything, that hanging at the local pub, even for a cup of tea (which, surely, we could have afforded), was a good way to "join", so-to-speak, the neighborhood, to get to know our neighbors, to form relationships of all kinds.

When we first came here, we had one meal at the pub down the hill. It's a rather classy place, where young people who have money lunch, apparently, though it has a pizza place as well. It stretches along the river, as three out of the four pubs in our neighborhood do. We are older and have no money. It would take more than one visit, but I do not think it matches us.

We will go to the one pub that does not stretch along the river, although it is across from the riverside park where we feed the swans. In warm weather, folks hang out at the picnic tables out front and in the beergarden created from an old building on the side. It's an old building, next to the church with net curtains (lace curtains, I live the US word for that much better) and fairy lights.

Sweetie has put aside enough to have a celebratory meal, he thinks. He may be right, or we may need a bit more. If so, I have it. I appreciate that he will finally come out. A meal is not likely to be the socializing experience that I envisioned, but it's a start, and it is what he is presently comfortable with. I hope it will be good enough that he will want to come back. If not, there are still the other two pubs to explore.

A day of variety and major family events

2006-11-22T13:46:00.000-08:00

I love a life of variety, a day in which what I am doing varies by the hour. However much it wears me out, it leaves me feeling that I've really lived the day intensely.

Today, for me, started out with a photography class, the last of four. I'm taking the class to improve the pictures on my welbsite, to learn, finally, to really use all those bells and whistles on my digital camera, which in itself is already far behind the cutting edge of digital cameras. I've learned things that should allow me to take better pictures of other things, for example sites that I think would make good paintings, as well.

Today I came away with the idea that maybe my website pictures should be different from the pictures I might use to jury for a show (should I ever be rich enough to risk a major show application and booth fee again). Slides for such a purpose would generally be very spare and formal, no extraneous materials around, for example. But for a website, might they not be more interesting if they included the materials and tools and inspirations that brought a piece into existence? I may try a few such illustrations and see what the response is.

This has to do with emigration, because already in the year and a half that I have been here, I have acquired three new class-acquired capabilities, a basic business qualification, a knowledge of basic website design and construction (enough so that I have even been asked to create one for someone else!), and now a digital photography course. The possibilities for further education here are endless. Surely that must make for a more valuable working population in general, and probably a more satisfied one.

Then I moved on to acquiring the fabric to construct a mediaeval gown for myself. It's to be worn at a "Mediaeval Fair" at Dragon Hall, a local merchan'ts hall from the 15th century recently brought back into functional condition. All the sellers at this fair are to decorate their booth mediaeval style and wear mediaeval costume. I assumed there must be simple way of doing the costume since the original would have been from handwoven fabric, which usually means limited cutting and waste, since fabric making was so labot intensive. Norwich was a fiber-centered town at that point. I don't have to be sternly authentic, so I chose a light wool in a red-violet. I'll also be sewing it by hand because I imported my mom's sewing machine and have not yet dared to try to "transform" it to English electricity. After all, the original would have been handsewn, too.

Another experience I would not have had if I had not emigrated. I hope I sell enough (not exactly mediaeval goods) to justify the cost of the gown (another reason to choose the light yarn.)

And then, after acquiring some fish from a local market stall and having lunch at Pret a Manger, an hour of Chemistry tutoring. Yes, I'm doing that again.

And the major event? My husband is back at work, not the work he would choose, since he's still UNJUSTLY on that list that prevents him using his real degree, but work. He's come through a huge amount of mental anguish that finally ended in a deep depression, all of which I put at the door of the Suffolk Council. Having your means of living, which you worked very very hard to acquire and were very proud of pulled out from under you on the basis of an unfounded accusation has to be one of the worst things that a person could go through. Work does not define the person, though. He will find unofficial ways to help people, and will put in one more appeal, this time while not trying to deal with a mental crisis at the same time. He will move on, And I will love him through whatever he has to deal with.

November 9,2006

2006-11-09T14:15:00.000-08:00

Let me just say how proud and pleased I am with the US election. Congratulations. I had really wondered if the American people had it in them. The job is not finished, just because you did your part by voting. Hold those legislators's feet to the fire! Make them do what you want instead of what the corporations want! Let them know you'll be paying close attention over the next two years. Ignore any hype or swift-boating or scare tactics. Make the US what it should be.

Oct. 17, and History Matters

2006-10-17T14:14:00.000-07:00

Today I participated in a very cool UK thing. You've seen those collections of photographs: A Day in the Life of the USA or some such? Well, today there was a history project of a similar nature done as a surt of universal blog. Whoever wanted to could go to a website and blog what they did with their day. The total results will be held in perpetuity both in electronic and hard form as a record of what life was like for individuals in the UK on this particular date. I loved having that opportunity.

Other than that, I am particularly enjoying the leaves this autumn. I grew up in West Virginia where the leaves turn like crazy, but I never much got a kick out of those projects revolving around collecting autumn leaves. But UK leaves are different.

I know you don't believe me, but they are. US leaves turn some particular color, the whole leaf. UK leaves? I've seen leaves where the veins and the edges were one color and all the rest of the leaf another color. The multicolor leaves, each leaf in and of itself being multicolored, fascinate me. I wish I could figure out a way to preserve some of them permanently.

And then there is the Virginia creeper ivy. For all I know, from the name, it may be an import from the US. (Yes, I know the name of the state Virginia came from the UK.) What I do know is that it turns the most intense bright red, and it covers whole walls, or falls from the edge of a roof, or covers the side of a house. or creeps along a wall in graceful lines of shiny red red red leaves. Some houses, it blends into the bricks, as if the bricks themselves sprouted leaves. It is so beautiful.

On the other hand, it's beginning to get grayish, and coldish, and dark too early for my taste. I'm going to need a very warm holiday sometime this winter and I doubt that I'll get it. Working (at a "real" job) three days a week may save me because I can come out into the light on the other days. Actually, I probably work as many or more hours on the days I have off from that job, because on those days I do what I love, or at least things to do with what I love, such as updating and improving my website.

One of my necklaces sold at the Fringe Festival. Depending on what it sold for, I hope it was the Egyptian one, but I suspect that it was the amber colored one, because that's the one that I consider the best, one of my best for some time. I guess that's it for now.

Another thing that's different

2006-09-16T10:00:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I was at work. I had printed out something and when I went to the printer, a local woman was there who has worked for the company over the summer. She is a student and is going back to school in a week or so. She had had a discussion about the payback consequences for some student loans she had taken out. First of all, the tuition for a year of university is not as high here in general, and there's guaranteed tuition relief if you are low income. We're talking grants, here, not loans. But loans are often necessary.

The difference comes when it's time to pay the loan back. You pay nothing, not one red cent, until you have an income of £15,000, an amount that would be pretty easy for a single person to live on here. Families could do it, but it would be really tight. The rate is about 2%, I think she said. Anyhow, even then you could be paying as little as £5 per week, a bit more than you'd pay for a meal at Mickey D's. And if you end up still oweing some when it comes time to retire, it's forgiven.

Meanwhile, they keep raising the rate on mine back home. And not too long ago, I read that a court had ruled that they could take 15% of your SS to pay it back. At the rate I'm going, that may happen.

One of my favorite things about the UK

2006-09-08T12:59:00.000-07:00

Actually, for all I know, this might be true of other places and other emigration circumstances as well. Maybe it's true of life, and I'm just now finding out. All I know for sure is, it works here in Norwich, Norfolk, UK.

What is it? Volunteering, especially when you initiate. Today, I had two contacts out of the blue. Only they aren't really out of the blue. they are both just unexpected results of things I did without consideration of benefit.

One came as a result of my participation in the Norwich Fringe Festival (assuming I somehow manage to get hold of a lot of cardboard tubes and other largish bead-shaped items. My initial ideas of how to manage this have not been panning out well.) Anyhow, one of my attempts to obtain these cardboard tubes (as in when you've used all the toilet paper, or the paper towels, or the wrapping paper, or the fabric, or the wax paper, or aluminum foil, or plastic wrap...Youd think it wouldn't be so hard to get hold of a lot of them!) Ahem. One of my attempts to obtain these tubes was to put a notice on the local freecycle site. (When will I learn to add links to these blogs!) I mentioned my website in the notice, and a woman saw it. Not just any woman. A woman from Hurricane, West Virginia living in Norwich, better yet, a woman artist from Hurricane, WV, living in Norwich! Cool, huh? I could have lived here a long time and never known there was another West Virginian living not two miles away. But because I decided to apply to make a giant fringe for the Fringe, now I know! If nothing else comes of my participation in the Fringe, I've earned a profit in the way that counts.

The second resulted from a conjunction of two or more things. I've been trying to figure out how to establish some sort of market/teaching venue/studio thing to be shared among artists. This idea has been through several incarnations, none of which have come to absolutely nothing in the end, because they are all still open, somewhere supposedly in the works, and none of which have come to anything what-so-ever concrete either, I confess, so far. the latest incarnation comes as a result of seeing a notice at the local art store about two rooms to rent as artists studios. One with water, one without. No way I could afford to rent them on my own, I thought, but maybe, if I got together with a group of other artists, each of whom put in enough so that we had the rent, then we could each have use of the rooms for classes, or maybe one for classes, and one for shows/sales, whatever. A friend I hadn't even told about this latest incarnation, a friend I met through taking a free business course, a friend whose website just happens to be the last one, I think, on the page of Norfolk artists on my website (www.donnajcarty.co.uk) and contains the word "shed", met someone who is trying to do the same sort of thing! So now there will be two of us, and I know another person who's interested in participating, too. This idea of mine keeps reviving from the apparently dead over and over again like something from a horror movie.

What a horrible analogy! Still and all, I am just loving how things sort of keep coming together in unexpected ways, as long as I keep acting like some kind of cock-eyed optomist trying to accomplish things on almost no budget. I get richer and richer in the ways that count here. And that's one of my favourite things about the UK.

August 24, 2006

2006-08-24T03:34:00.000-07:00

Time passes so fast. I'm sure it's because I'm 55 rather than because I'm in the UK. I keep finding out good things about the UK. The experience my husband has had with his company in getting back to work after health problems has been excellent. They provided support for the first part of his recovery, then reduced it somewhat, but by that time I had been able to take on more work so we could manage, and this coming week, he goes back at reduced hours, slowly working up to full hours over a month.

My website went up yesterday. It's www.donnajcarty.co.uk and has too-busy backgrounds and some typos and an undeveloped link and no back-to-the-top buttons and a rediculous amount of variation in the quality of the photos but its there. I did it myself with Dreamweaver and will make the corrections with Dreamweaver. And in November, I will take a course from the same place, Norwich Art Center (I HAVE to find out how to link from here!), in digital photography. And I can take a membership there and use their computers by the hour for future updates. There are just so many resources for moving ahead here.

In the meanwhile, I'm going to be on the radio at the beginning of October plugging all the places that have helped me and have been resources for me as well as talking about my work. One of the things I will get to plug is my fringe for the Norwich Fringe Festival. What can I say. I'm a beader. I proposed a huge fringe (one in which paper-towel tubes will play the role of bugle beads) for the entrance to the show, and it was approved. A lot of work, probably, no pay, but it's a funny thing here. I keep doing what I can think of to do, pay or not, and they keep leading to other things, like tutoring led to my job, like making up a survey for a local artists group led to being on the radio, and so on. It really give me confidence that I can make it here. I wish I could say that I've had as much success in getting my husband to follow that path.

I've joined the local Red Hats (and thus had a bit of my mediocre calligraphy presented to Prince Charles' Camilla. I've eaten a lot of found food this summer. The blackberry bushes are overflowing, leaning down to the ground because they are so heavy with berries. Cherries fall down on us. A plum tree grows on a bit of un-claimed ground at the bottom of our close. And edible mushrooms (I have a book, and as a result of telling people about the ones I knew about, I have found out about others.) are popping up everywhere. If you are ever in England, (I read this in my Sunday paper, so blame them if this is wrong and please don't sue me.) all the bolete mushrooms (Those are the ones with pores rather than gills.) that don't go red or blue when you expose their flesh to air are edible.

June 30

2006-06-30T13:04:00.000-07:00

It's been a year and three months now. The last two months have not been easy. My husband has been through a couple of intensive medical problems and it willl be some time until he's entirely back to normal. I am thoroughly impressed with the NHS. I think we would have had to sell the tiny house I "own" (meaning I'm still paying on it) in the US to pay for comparable care in the US.

Otherwise, things have been slowly but surely improving. I have a job. It's only part time, doing the "fiddly" little jobs that come up for a company that does impressive custom electronics for a very narrow range of customers. Some of it is soldering, which I have learned is called brazing here when it involves high melting point silver solder. Some of it involves office work. I've had the opportunity to learn Visual Basic on my own to do part of it. I've also done two cheap shows, which together resulted in my selling one major piece. I'm doing some freelance work that is actually related to my textile design skills. I've taught a workshop on basketry to little kids. And I've just begun learning how to build a web site, so perhaps I'll have to learn how to set up links on this site.

The best thing though, may be something I instigated. I saw an article in a free advertising paper that comes every week about a local building I'd had my eye on for my pie-in-the-sky idea of an arts center with studios, a gallery/shop, rooms to give classes, etc. The owners of the building, who had been supposed to develop it but hadn't, had decided to give it up. Now what was to be done with it? So I thought what the heck and wrote the two people mentioned in the article and one of them, with an organization to back him, took up the cause. He got an article in the local real paper along with a supporting editorial and sent a letter to the owner. I haven't heard whether he has managed to get an answer back or not.

I'm feeling relatively secure with the various resources and relationships I have been forming. On of the very best things that has happened is that I realized a friend's husband (who had advanced degrees, but like many of us among the over-educated had been searching for work for some time unsuccessfully) had the right qualifications for an opening at the company where my part time job is. The connection has been made. It feels good to be able to fascilitate such things.

Between that and the arts center initiative, I'm beginning to accumulate a history here that includes having contributed to the well being of some of the people I've met. That's when I begin to feel that I've earned my place here.

My plans? More networking. More relationship building. More follow up on every opportunity I can find to develop my art or to use the skills I would like to use to earn my living. I bought a minimal set of acrylic paints today which I'm hoping will let me paint as I see the world, dark with lights on top, instead of the other way around as you must with water colors. I guess you could say I think shadows and distant to close and light instead of the other way around. For me, it feels really strange to paint the dark parts to define the light parts. A website through which I can sell. A really good source for beads. Some killer beading/embellishment/whatever pieces. Completing my AA2A pieces whether they make it onto the website or not.

And the aim at the very top? An actual holiday. It's funny that a part of the reason we came here was the balance of life and the time allowed by employers for holidays, yet we have not yet managed a single one, unless you count a day at a time on a weekend at one of the beach towns, and very few of those. Still life is good.

Middle of the night thoughts

2006-03-23T16:52:00.000-08:00

It's now the end of March, and I still haven't found a job.

My agency has not come through. Several other agencies have simply sent letters saying they have nothing to suit me. I had an interview at the bridal shop, but I guess they didn't choose me. Neither did the childrenswear shop, or the designer shop, or House of Fraser, nor Borders. I had the arts-related interview. Thought there was a good chance there since they were only interviewing 6 people and choosing 4, but they didn't choose me.

I recently put in an application at Pret a Manger. I went to the job center and looked on their computer and found a few things of interest. Three were very short term jobs at the Norfolk Show, one handling costumes backstage. Since I've done that, both in theater and backstage at a fashion runway show in New York, I thought that would be a shoo-in. The woman on the phone said she'd send the application package, but she didn't. Yesterday I had an interview with a company that transfer prints T-shirts and does custom embroideries like those little logos you see on uniforms. The job is in production, actually managing the embroidery machines. I had a job in New York for a while doing designs for a company that does first sample machine embroideries for the garment trade. This job is full time and minimum wage, but I'd learn something new that might well be of use to me as a textile designer. I'd rather have part-time, but I'd deal with it, I guess, even though it would mean giving up my tutoring and selling at shows these next few months.

I truly don't know what's wrong. Is it that I'm American? That I'm 55? That I'm overeducated? (B.A. in chemistry, Ph.D. in biochemistry, and A.A. in textile design, in case anyone's interested) I've got about ten versions of my CV now, even one in which I do my best to hide that I ever had any degrees other than the AA or any work other than the temp office work I did at the end of last year.

I just found out today that I may have been answering one of the standard application questions wrong. They ask: Do you need a work permit to work in the UK. I have a spousal visa with full working rights connected to my American husband's work visa. I figured that that meant yes, I did need a work permit, the one I already have. But a friend tells me no, that that question is meant to ask if I will need the employer to go to a whole lot of paper-work-involving trouble in order to hire me. The answer to that is no. I have full working rights already.

The other thing it says on my visa is "No Recourse to Public Funds". I don't think the folks who turn me down for jobs consider what that means in terms of life consequences of finding or not finding a job. If a Brit looks and looks and keeps getting turned down for jobs, they still have a certain amount of income, access to council housing, other types of benefits. I have none of those. If I don't find a job, there's just that big empty hole in the family budget that has to be filled from somewhere. That somewhere is my retirement account from the US, which has now practically been stripped.

And that's why I'm up in the middle of the night worrying.

Update in March

2006-03-04T11:49:00.000-08:00

We've been here nearly a year now. My husband has been totally cleared of all the accusations, with the help of the legal system. It sure has taken a while, though, and in the meanwhile, he must start the process of getting the final approval of his qualifications all over again through a different agency. His strongest skills are being used in the most mundane way in his present job. We have learned, though, that patience and not giving up do eventually work here.

As for me, I have set out again on the path to employment. I complete the WEETU course tomorrow and the AA2A mini-residency at the end of March. Because my jewelry is in two shops and I am tutoring three students, i will only need to take on part-time work at the moment. I seriously hope it will not be office work. I simply can't build a good work history here doing work I do not enjoy.

I've contacted the temp agency I worked for just before taking on the AA2A and during it up to December. I was doing data entry, mostly. I've also left off my CV at four places, each time with a little speech about how I hesitate to leave it without talking to the hiring person because my extensive background tends to discourage hiring for lo level jobs. One was at Borders. I actually have bookstore experience and enjoyed the work. Ironically, it was at the Borders at the World Trade Center (sometime before the fall). I also left it at a bridal shop which needs someone on Saturdays. Some of my beadwork would be great for weddings and I'm a whiz at hand sewing and embroidery in particular, but I left it there once before with no response. Another place was a kidswear store, where the clerk at the sales desk was a textile graduate herself, but not the hirer, of course. And the last was a designer shop, where the sales clerk was impressed with my NY fashion background, but also not the hirer. If nothing happens on Monday, I'll be out to the other agencies on Tuesday.

I do have prospects. The costumer I worked with in NYC, Lara of LaraCorsets (google it), who has a side business in historically accurate corsets and gowns, wants me to do hand embroidery on two gowns. One will be floral, the other blackwork. I'm really looking forward to it.

I also have an interview on Thursday for a local arts project that aims to reconcile older folks with young folks in a dodgy neighborhood. I studied criminology (the main problem for the elders seems to be fear of crime by the youths) and race ethnic relations, which should help, and I have several ideas. But I am not interviewing for lead artist, so I may not have the opportunity to carry them out. The lead artist was to have experience in a project with young people. Another case of the type of thing artists in the US don't document, though there is no doubt that I was one of the best demonstrators at the West Virginia fair when it came to interacting with young people.

And then there's no telling what the AA2A show or the other show might bring me. Not to mention the fact that I am getting to know quite a few of the local artists through WEETU, the AA2A, an artists networking group, and all the other resources I have used in the past few months. I'm seriously hoping I will eventually be able to do some reenactment work, though I simply cannot afford right now to volunteer.

I'm wondering what difference my activities since my last search for work here will have. I will be very disappointed if there is no discernable effect.

And on the employment front...

2005-11-16T12:31:00.000-08:00

I finally met another American in Norwich. And guess what she told me. When she and her husband first came here, they had a very hard first year. She submitted 57 CVs/applications and got not a single interview. Which is both bad news and good news. On one side, it tells me where I should put most of my available make-a-living energy, and on the other side, it tells me that those energies should probably not into submitting further applications. Which is the bad news. I guess I'd better figure out how to provide myself with a good living on my own.

So, how do I do that? Today I went to an introductory meeting for WEETU. It's a Grumere Bank (spelling my be wrong) type local organization that gives local women the training and information and connections they need to start small businesses, and also, once you've completed the training, there are loans available. The training leads all the way to your having a business plan and a qualification that is valuable in applying to a bank for a loan.

I'd deffinitely like to take it further, but their funding is only certain through March. This next round of training may be their last for a while. And until March, I really need to devote a certain amount of hours to the AA2A residency, and I still need to earn a certain amount one way or another, the way I now put it together from the temp job, selling the jewellery I make, and tutoring math and chemistry. The training takes about 10 weeks, about half a day 2 and then three days per week.

I've got some thinking to do. Any comments from the peanut gallery?

Knowing that it is so hard for an American, even a highly qualified one (It turns out the other American's qualifications are in editing, as are some of mine), to find employment here makes me feel angry. And anger about a social issue doesn't die down until I do something about it. Just for this evening, this is what I'm doing about it. But believe me, this is not the end. When I do have my business, I may well go out of my way to hire emigrants.

Singing out loud, among other things

2005-11-15T13:02:00.000-08:00

I may have turned a corner. Then again I may have finally lost my marbles. I blame it on the day-light bulb we've put over my chair at home in case that might cure my recent down feelings. It has been getting darker and colder.

Today, as I left work and walked the half mile to the bus (and remember that this is the same boring data entry work), I sang out loud. "Cockeyed Optomist", "Small Pleasures" from Oliver, and my favorite old folk ballad "Black Jack Davy". I sing well enough that whatever negative reaction there might have been, it wouldn't have to do with bad singing. It was dark enough that I don't know what people thought of it. Light may not have helped. The Brits might not show what they thought of it. I figure the most likely thing they thought, considering that it was near 7:00 was that I had stopped off at the pub after work. Actually, I don't drink at all, a psychological residue of being raised by parents so serious about teetotaling (sp?) that my dad and mom wouldn't even drink a toast of champagne to a bride and groom for whom he had performed the marriage an hour before. They always requested ginger ale. i just don't like the taste of anything alcoholic.

Tomorrow the teachers of the school where I work go on a strike. When I read the e-mail about it directed by the school head at the strikers, I was amazed. It was almost threatening. Something like: If you're going to strike, you should know that you are violating the terms of your employment. I would imagine it puts the teachers in a real bind.

I came from an area in the US where the unions were life-savers for the coal miners. I know what the conditions were for them before the unions were organized and how fierce the fight was that won them decent working conditions. And over my lifetime I have watched the anti-union propaganda sold to the people of the US to the point that many are very anit-union. It is no coincidence that this has happened at the same time as the minimum wage has fallen to about half a living wage, and the weekly hours worked has gone up and up, the benefits and vacations down and down. I'm pro-union.

So I asked my co-workers how others responded when a group went on strike here. What's the norm? In the US, crossing a picket line requires stopping to think about your decision whether to do it or not, at least for me and for lots of others. This is true even if you don't work at the place and are just doing business there. I guess another part of my pro-union attitude is having actually known individuals involved in Solidarnosc in Poland and heard their individual stories.

For my fellow workers in an administrative department, it seemed to be a no-brainer. If it wasn't your union that was striking, then you went ahead and worked and thought of the record-keeping of who worked and who didn't as an inconvenience. I wish I knew more. It bothers me to cross a picket line, but if such a decision would be considered totally outside the norm, then I guess I'll do it.

On the other hand, it violates one of my guiding principles. This one comes from my favorite book of all time "The Greening of America" by Charles Reich. I have never gone without owning an extra copy of this book that I could give away since I read it the first time. It explains how to live your life so as effectively cause changes of the type you want. And it works. The principle is simple: "Reveal options by living them." What that means is make the decisions that others may believe unfeasable and, by the lack of horrible consequences, give others the courage to also make such decisions. If you think about it, all the great influencers of change did that. Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, the Suffragettes, the first gays who came out, Ghandi.

Even my moving to the UK is a part of it. Like John said "Imagine there's no borders." If you can find a way to do it legally, choose the country you will live in. As for doing it illegally, I have mixed feelings. It violates the Golden Rule to turn folks away when if you were in the situation they were in, you'd want to be taken in. I can't condemn someone for making that decision. I certainly couldn't turn in an illegal. But I wouldn't actively aid anyone in doing it either. Or I think I wouldn't. If it came to that, would I violate the Golden Rule or help. Luckily, I haven't been put to the question.

Golly, this posting took a turn I wasn't expecting when I started writing.

My daily life here, and whatever else

2005-11-12T12:17:00.000-08:00

On weekdays, we set the clock for 6:30. We're still sleeping on the blow-up bed we got when we first got here. It's not bad at all, tends to favor togetherness as we sink into in and end up rolling toward each other. My husband has to get to work at 9:00 and leaves about 8:15 to catch the bus. The bus that goes near his workplace comes about every 30 minutes. I'll take just a moment now to brag about my husband. He get's out of bed and goes to hold my robe for me to put on. He has already set up the coffee maker and the cups. We have shortbread fingers with our coffee, which I prepare and bring to him. Then he has a bowl of cereal with some of a banana and brings me the rest with some vitamins. I stay out of the way while he gets ready for work, usually checking my e-mail. I get a daily list of arts jobs, but so far, most of them seem to be in London, very few near Norwich, and quite a few are volunteer jobs.

I wish I could volunteer. Before things went nutty with Steve's original job, I had begun to network my field by volunteering to make an embroidery piece for a 17th century room in a local museum-house, Strangers Hall. I also had essentially "auditioned" to volunteer as an embroiderer with the Norwich Cathedral embroiderers. Both of these fell by the wayside when I needed to get work, any work. It seems that I'm not meant to volunteer for a while yet. About two weeks ago, I went to a local theater to volunteer a morning a week to work on costuming. The very next day, I got a new student to tutor who wanted me to tutor in the morning. I had thought that I could spare one morning a week for the networking benefits, but I need the student and her fees more, so that volunteer thing had to be put aside.

Anyhow, after Steve leaves, I do the dishes and take up any other household tasks that need done. One morning a week, I go to the grocery store. I take a wheeled carry-on bag down with me to wait for the bus, take the bus to the store, do the shopping (We love trying the different butters and cheeses and other things that are new to us, and we try to find substitutes for the things we miss from home, like A-1 sauce, russet potato chips, bacon [called streaky bacon here;just plain bacon is more like ham]), load the groceries back into the cart, load up the carry-on with as much as I can, haul it back to the bus stop, ride the bus back, and climb the hill up to our place. The sidewalks on our street are very rough, and green. Sometimes I think back to our first day in the UK when I asked what kind of tree those were along the road, the ones with green trunks and branches. They were the same kinds we have in the US. They just had so much moss on them that thier trunks and branches looked green. Well, that's why our sidewalks are green, and the moss is why they are rough. I put the grocery store groceries away, make any calls that need made, and head for town, by bus again.

There are usually a few errands to be run in town as well, some things we buy at Norwich's absolutely wonderful outdoor market. I go out of my way to buy from the vendors there because I believe it's worth it, even if you pay more, to patronize locals. A bank run. Something the Poundsaver has good prices on. Something needed from Boots, which is almost a generic word for pharmacy here, even though there are other drug stores. Something to be delivered or picked up from one of the galleries selling my work. A meeting with a friend. I only really have one here so far. Getting around by bus and having such an intense schedule makes it harder and making friends is not one of my best skills, though the ones I make seem to last.

Then I go to the Norwich School of Art and Design and work on my project for as much time as I have before I need to leave at 1:00 to go and eat lunch and be at the bus stop to go to work at 2:00. I miss pizza by the slice, which I had every day in New York. Here, I often have a Pret (a-Manger) sandwich or a distinctly Brit snack like a pasty or a "steak bake", a pastry stuffed with some meat-vegetable combination. I think it will take a long time for it not to grate on me to have to pay more for my sandwich if I intend to sit inside and eat it rather than carrying it away. It's cool enough that I pretty much always prefer to sit inside these days, though it's not as cold as New York. We still haven't had a freeze here.

By about 2:00, I'm at the bus stop, and I'm usually at work around 2:15. Employers don't seem so clock-bound here. Originally my job was set up for 2:30 until 6:30, but I soon found out that if I didn't leave before 6:30, I;d miss the last bus for an hour. They didn't bat an eye when I told them I need to work 2:15 until 6:15 instead. Almost everybody else leaves at 4:30 or 5:00, and then I'm by myself. I'm doing data entry for a school, getting paid peanuts, and I am not happy. It's mind-deadening for me. All the job advice writings tell you to take the job you have and find a way to apply your strongest skills to it. I'd like to know how you are supposed to do that with this kind of job. I finally managed to do an element of that on Friday, writing down the method I had developed for doing a routine rechecking of the database after getting frustrated by everyone doing it differently and by the basic fact that you either trust your data base data or you don't. Hiring people to go along behind your database checking on it basically negates the whole reason for having it in the first place. It was supposed to save labor, I assume, and you aren't going to get valid results if everyone does it differently, either. I used to be known for my experimental protocols, the set of instructions for an assay or a technique. I put in all the details that made it work and why. Writing instructions is something I'm really good at, though I'm not formally trained in it, and formal qualifications seem to count for everything here, at least until I manage to network.

I leave at 6:15, walk about a half mile into the center of town and catch a bus home. I get home a little after 7:00. By the time we have made and eaten dinner, there may be an hour or so to blog, work on a new jewellery piece, prepare for a tutoring session, or - and here's the hard part - apply for a job that suits my skills more closely.

I run out of energy before I get around to doing the type of thing that might lead to a better way to put together an income. At the moment, with the part-time job, three hours tutoring (walking or taking the bus to and from their homes), and selling some jewellery that I make in galleries, I manage about what the full-time job paid and manage to put in less than 10 hours per week at the school of art.

"Invigilator" and other thoughts

2005-11-02T23:59:00.000-08:00

I started another blog, Artist Access to Art Journal, to document the progress I'm making with my mini-residency and I've been posting a lot to that blog lately, but its time to return to this one. Every once in a while, I google to see if either of my blogs comes up at all. So far, I haven't found either of them. However, yesterday, I found another blog called Gone Away about emigrating in the other direction from the UK to the US. The URL is www.britblog.com/directory/interest/emigration.html . Or at least that address will get you there. That blog also includes fiction. I haven't read the whole blog, but I think it would be interesting to anyone who reads mine.

I picked up a brochure yesterday about a poetry contest and was thinking about writing one about emigration to counter the attitude toward immigrants that I see so much. I think folks just don't realize what it requires to successfully manage to do it. I just wrote a new CV and I put the three international moves of an entire household I have done as significant management and organization experience.

The poem would start out:

Immigrant.
Try the word on.
But first.....

followed by a few lines on how suddenly you wear different sizes in everything! And some of them have different names. I still haven't figured out at which point a knit top becomes a "jumper". What do Brit's call a sleeveless dress designed to be worn over a blouse? You might need a whole different wardrobe. My working wardrobe has always been jeans and long-sleeved T-shirts. As a low-paid office worker here, I need to wear "smart casual" wear. Never mind that I'm not really sure what that means. I've figured out that most people here could put together a basic office wardrobe from the elements of their school uniforms. As I've said before, it's a very boring wardrobe we're talking about. Suits. Ugh! Conservative lines and dark colors. This is especially grating for me because I adore this year's gypsy styles, color and glitz and fluttering lines everywhere! I have almost no money for clothes, so it's a real frustration for it to be necessary for me to spend that little bit, which so far has added up to about £30, on boring stuff. What has that bought me so far? Two slightly less boring than "normal" skirts and a pair of black non-jeans. A robe to wear now that the mornings have become cool, and so that I can quickly change into it before dinner so as to preserve my tiny working wardrobe. And a trenchcoat-style raincoat. Thank god for charity shops. My only comfort is that next year perhaps the gypsy clothes will be in the charity shops. I won't care if they are out by then. By then I'll really be a practising self-supporting artist (and slightly excentric tutor perhaps) and be able to wear what I want. And the heels! Why do all the office women wear heels! Boring heels. I WILL NOT wear both boring and uncomfortable shoes! It's my Birky's for me, and socks over my hated tights to preserve them, because I've always resented having to buy stockings in any form.

If I can get all worked up about that, imagine what the following sections of the poem will be like. What I want to say is that the slightest things in life cannot be assumed. Your assumptions are so often turning out to be wrong in this new culture, even this one that speaks my language, that you end up allowing extra research time for almost everything. Anything new you set your mind to do starts with: But first....

And now for "invigilator". I LOVE that word! I saw it in the internal vacancies list of the school where I am presently doing data entry. (A moment to Grrrrrr about still doing data entry when I could easily teach the chemistry or math or textile classes if they would just accept my credentials! A waste, I say! A waste!) Apparently it means examination proctor, which I did as a part of my role as a professor for medical student, but we Americans don't go around documenting and getting credential certificates for every single thing we've ever done, so I can't prove it. When I think of it as being an "invigilator", I see myself wandering the room carrying a huge ostrich feather with which I tickle any student who dares to look away from his or her own paper. That or something more sexual and kinky.

And for now, that's what I say.

Should I write my autobiography?

2005-10-06T04:25:00.000-07:00

I e-mailed an old friend recently, telling her about my adventures in the UK. This time, it was a positve e-mail, all about how I've just gotten this mini-residency at Norwich School of Art and Design. It comes with absolutely no money except for a 200 pound materials allowance, but it gives me access to all the textile toys and their bulletin boards and just plain access to other artists. And my husband will have a new job in just a few weeks. So with me bringing in a bit from temp work and selling the things I make (I WILL eventually have a website.) and tutoring and whatever else comes up, we'll survive, starting when he gets paid, whih is not until a month after he starts.
In the meanwhile, we've raided what remains of my retirement accounts, we've used our one UK card, and out of deperation, I've taken a minimum wage clerical assistant job which is driving me nuts. It's like being busted back to my employment situation just after high school. Could it be that I'm the only clerical assistant in the UK with a PhD in biochemistry and a degree in textile design as well? Lord, I hope so. I don't want to wish this on anyone with a significant amount of education and experience.
Now here's what made her say what she said: There's an opening where I work for the head of the Creative Arts Department, and I applied. Talk about a promotion, huh? It's now almost a week past the deadline, and I haven't heard a thing so I assume I've been turned down, but at least they know I'm here and can do morethan I'm doing now.
Actually, since this job' full time, I can't afford to stay in it. I need tome for the non-paying internship. So I've made a deal with the temp agency which is looking for someone new for this job so I can move on to a 4 hr per day data entry job. Then with any luck, and a lot of time spent at the school, I'm hoping to end up doing some kind of work I will enjoy doing.
It has been such a pain to find work in general. The Norfolk area has essentially no garment industry. I've got publishing experience, but I don't know Quark and can't afford to study it until I have decently paid work. It's been 15 years since I left science, and I don't want to go back to it unless as a teacher. But I don't have any teaching credentials, coursewise, though I've taught grad students and med students. Because I hadn't worked in the UK, I had no UK work references, and the temp agency said that very few employers would hire you for anything without them! So finally I took this clerical assistant job just for the UK work reference, though whether it will be positive or not I haven't a clue because I can't hide the fact that the job bores me to tears! Not literal tears yet, but I've come close.
There was a very good reason I didn't go into office-type work in the first place. It doesn't suit me and I don't suit it. I hate dressing up for work and dressing in what I consider boring clothes.
Enough. I'm going to depress myself if I go on this way, which is called whinging (rhymes with hinge) and is highly disapproved of here. I have GOT to find the folks here who think like me if I'm to go anywhere at all. I know there must be some in Norwich.

INJUSTICE! BIG TIME! SUFFOK COUNCIL!

2005-09-01T03:55:00.000-07:00

Here's the story. I hope someone reads it.

Five months ago, the first of April, my husband and I moved to the UK. He had a job as a social worker with the Suffolk Council working with cared-for (read foster) children. Because he had been through a lot of the types of things they go through, he thought it would be good work for him, but it wasn't. It brought up all kinds of trauma from when he was a kid. Especially the older kids who were headed down a path that had led him to homelessness. And he couldn't do a thing to steer them from that path. It all got to him and he took off to the US for a day and a half.

The thing was, when he took off, we had just gotten the money for a car loan sponsored by the Council, and he took it all with him. A day and a half, he came back bringing every cent of the money, but in the meanwhile, I had been frantic and had contacted his "befriender", unfortunately, it would turn out, another Council employee.

The Council said there would have to be a meeting to determine what happened next and it was to be on the 14th of June. This is a very important date for the rest of the story.Remember that in the time between his coming back from the US and the meeting, I barely let him out of my sight, let alone out alone in the car. In the week before than meaning, we had gotten my husband counseling and all other help we could. At the meeting, they asked and he handed back the money for the car. He had arranged to take a few weeks off for stress but had decided he wanted to try to stick with the job, at least until the six-month probation period was over.

The evening before he was to go back to work, the Norfolk police turned up at our door. They took my husband down to the station. It turned out that a woman had reported seeing a man outside her home masturbating in his car and had given our license number. He was assigned a lawyer, insisted he did not do this, and, over the next few weeks, we heard several versions of what she had claimed happened, even several different dates. Eventually the date settled down to the 13th. Yes, during that time when I wasn't letting him out of my sight. So I knew for sure myself that he didn't do it.

He didn't tell the Suffolk Council. He simply assumed that she would not identify him and it would be all cleared up easily. He went back to work. Later that week, the Suffolk Council called him in and asked about his meeting with the Norfolk police and why he hadn't told them about it. He said it was embarrassing, he wanted to go back to work, and he didn't do it, so it would be all cleared up.

They said they would have to suspend him, with pay, until further news. He said he understood. A month later, the woman picked him out from an identification parade (line-up) after hesitating over two people. He reported this to the Suffolk Council, and they said there would have to be another meeting which they scheduled on August 8.

At that meeting, the Council operated as if he had been convicted. What is more, they suddenly brought forward a series of incidents that had happened in Suffolk in the week before my husband went off to the US. It had been reported that an American, wearing a suit (my husband doesn't own one) driving a silver Peugot estate car (station wagon) (ours was a silver Ford Mondeo hatchback!) had tried to get two little girls to enter his car. Now mind you, the Suffolk police had never even contacted my husband. Apparently they had contacted the Council because they had put out a bulletin for an American in a silver car and my husband's car had been reported by someone. My husband was given the time for one one incident and no other details. The Council had apparently decided that he was the guy who tried to pick up the little girls on nothing but the coincidence of a silver car and an American. On this basis, they said they would hold a serious disciplinary meeting.

That meeting was a week later. In the meanwhile, we did what we could to reconstruct where my husband had been when on the day of the incidents with the little girls, using our bank and credit card records, but since the incidents were the last of May and this was in August, there was not a lot we could do. The Suffolk Council dismissed him for gross misconduct as of August the 19th.

Fine. We thought he would get paid until then, and we could look for other jobs, and we were (are) determined to stay and clear his name. This could take a while, since the Norfolk case may not reach court until next year.

Today is Sept 1. We just found out that the Suffolk Council decided to confiscate his pay for August plus any vacation pay as partial payment of the relocation money they had provided us with in coming here. This leaves us with approximately £200 to our names in a strange country. We invested everything into this move. Our only resources are two very small retirement accounts that I have in the US, which, if I cash them out entirely, may keep us for a few months.

Because of the circumstances under which they dismissed my husband, no other social work agency will employ him until the case is cleared up. I have a Ph.D. in biochemistry and a degree in textile design, but in five months of hunting, the best I have been offered is a full-time clerical job at the local college for £5.50 an hour, though I was slowly putting together some income from my designs. I turned this down yesterday because other sources of income were looking positive.

We have no access to public funds, and because my husband was not employed with the Council for six months, he has no recourse to help from an employment lawyer that we did not pay for.

It is 12:30. We're in shock. We called the American Embassy, but they said there was no help available for us.

It heps just to write all this down, but not enough. What do we do?!!!!!

Why I'm emigrating.

2005-01-30T20:18:00.000-08:00

Every day I stay in the US I see more reasons to emigrate, particularly among the Craiglist discussions I participate in. Today's discussion of interest regarded vacations and how few American even have passports or have ever traveled outside the country. When I graduated from college, it was pretty normal for college graduates to take a summer trip to Europe after graduation. Of course, only 20% of American ever graduate from college. I think the college part is significant. I always advise kids to go away to college and live in the dorm. There is just so much to learn outside what is taught in the classes of any college. For many people, it's the first time they meet people who challenge the values they were raised with just by being. For example, I was raised by very strict anti-alcohol parents. I grew up knowing where I would go to college, a church-related school. And I arrived there thinking maybe 5% of people drank any alcoholic beverages and those were all bad people. Well, I think I found out the first week that that wasn't true. I never have been able to develop a taste even for beer, myself, probably entirely psychological, but certainly not worth a big effort to change.
Anyhow, the classic American 2-week vacation was brought up as part of the reason Americans don't travel. I understand that. Once in a while, you have to visit the relatives, and once you've gone to see them for Thanksgiving or Christmas, there's just not much vacation time left. Then there's the problem of jet lag. You have to deal with that in both directions, so by the time you go somewhere far enough away to induce it and get past it, it's time to go back home a touch early so you'll have time to have got past it before you have to start work, especially since at a lot of jobs, no one will have done your work while you were gone. Taking a holiday has already meant working extra hard the week before, and you're going to have to work extra hard the week you come back as well. No wonder so many folks chose just to not take the holiday in the first place, let alone taking one outside the country.
What is going to happen when Americans finally realize that the same companies that are giving them vacations of only two weeks and keep increasing the portion of healthcare their employees pay and cutting back on their contribution to the retirement plans of their employees, these same companies are paying their employees in other countries more, giving them 5-week vacations, giving them much greater benefits, and.....GET THIS!!!!....they still manage to make a profit from their offices in those other countries. Why would they be there at all if thei weren't. What is going to happen when american realize all this?
When they start traveling outside the US and find out how good things are alsewhere. That's when.
Me, i realized it a long time ago and it's a big factor in my leaving.

I did not forget. I did get busy.

2005-01-27T19:50:00.000-08:00

Although this blog has been costantly on my mind, the demands of a move overseas have commanded the use of my hands, and other significan parts, since I last posted. For one thing (dum de de dum dum dum dum DAH!) I got married. This means that I can move to England with my sweetie and have full working rights. One very very very long honeymoon in Europe is anticipated.

Another thing that has taken a lot of time and effort is beginning to get rid or all the things we're NOT taking with us. A few years ago, when we combined households, a lot of my sweetie's possession had to be put in storage. These include a huge MAN'S couch. You know the kind. Swede. Three generous seats, two of which have lazy-boy type foot supports. A huge TV. Two tables, no make that three. A vacuum. Two big speakers. A chair. Etc. Etc. Etc.

I decided the best way to sell them would be to post them each on Craigslist (a website you ought to check out for any number of reasons) separately. This took one evening. And every evening since I've spent some considerable time replying to enquiries and trying to organize a time when a good number of the folks who replied can come to the storage space, look things over, make deals, and carry off their prizes.

And my sweetie started a new job. Ever start a new job after a considerable period of not working? Doesn't matter how easy the job is. You come home feeling like wet spaghetti for the first week or so. We're both having some trouble adjusting to the new schedule and just getting everything done that needs done in the time available with both of us working. And he says it's very weird to be starting a job and not being able to tell his coworkers about one of the biggest things on his mind. It just wouldn't do to blurt out "I'll be moving to England in about two months!" when you've just started a supposedly permanet job.

So why start one? Because you never know. The move to England could still fall through for any number of reasons.

Speaking of the new schedule, I MUST get to bed now. Hope to post sooner. Resolve to post sooner. Promise to post sooner.

Sorry 'bout that

2005-01-11T17:00:00.000-08:00

The time since my last blog posting has flown by. And we have done several things to further our move to England.

1) We visited our storage space to distinguish between things that woud go with us, things that will be sold (we hope!), and things that can't be sold and can be let go of. That's one of the best things about any move for pack rats like me. I have to let go of a lot of things that I have kept in case I needed them again some time. When I say it's one of the good things, that doesn't mean I enjoy it. it just means it's good for me.

Memo to self: MUST balance good-for-me with fun-for-me. Balance is tipping toward good-for-me.

2) I finished my application for a BRIO (Bronx Recognizes Its Own) artists award. It would be a big boost for the budget that would make starting my textile design business over again in England much easier. It would also involve a trip back for a community service project of some sort, which wouldn't be a bad thing either.

3) We got our marriage licence! We've been meaning to get married but the difference it will make for my statis in Britain has motivated us to finally get it done.

Memo to self: Stop now before getting gooey!

The Wall

2005-01-01T15:36:00.000-08:00

Just a few words about my New Years Eve.

First, quickly, we watched the movie "Barbershop". I'd heard about it and knew a little about it and it had three stars in our TV listings, so I thought, why not? It desrved much better than that. Perhaps as a white person, I had been thinking of it as a movie that would be of interest to black people. Perhaps I might not even understand many of the jokes or references. I was wrong. Dead wrong. And I'll admit it. That was one meaty movie, a movie with so much substance to it that I might well watch it again to catch the things I missed the first time around. And for me, it's a very rare movie that I want to watch again for that reason. So to anyone that hasn't seen it, see it.....for what my opinion is worth, of course.

Then I watched a movie about The Band's last performance. i enjoyed it a lot. It reminded me how much music of my youth is classic and still able to stand up to the test of time and stand above a lot of what's coming out lately. I'm not saying that what is coming out is bad, but will it stand up and still be played from the college dorm rooms of 20 and 30 years in the future? I doubt it. I could be wrong, though.

The third thing we watch was Pink Floyd's performance of The Wall in Berlin in 1990 just after the Berlin Wall had been opened up. And this is why my New Years Eve TV watching belongs in a blog about emigration. My SO in 1989 was a guy who had spent several years studying in Berlin. The Berlin Wall opened up on Novermber 5, 1989 or close to that. We watched it all closely, and he said he just HAD to go there, to BE there. I didn't really understand why it was such a big thing to him, but I never saw anyone organize a spontaneous trip to Germany quicker and more efficiently. This was not my SO's strong suite and it involved among other things dropping off everything that had been collected to be our Thanksgiving dinner including a huge frozen turkey (a "bonus" from work) off at a homeless shelter. So we went. We flew into Dusseldorf, because there was no chance of getting a low-cost flight to Berlin, and took the train into Berlin. That, in itself, was the beginning of my understanding. The train traveled a barricaded path through East Germany. it was like traveling with blinders on, so extensive were the efforts of the East to make sure those traveling Westerners couldn't see in and the Easterners couldn't make their way out somehow via this train passage.

Once in Berlin, very late in the evening, we were met by his friends. I believe we went straight from the train station to the Wall. The friends wanted to do this, and SO was eager too. I was tired from our journey and really thought it could wait. It was freezing cold. We parked and started walking toward the Wall. It was nearly midnight by then and we had parked some distance away, maybe as much a a mile since the friends said it would take about 15 minutes to get there. I remember asking because I thought we were almost there. There was this sound, coming seemingly from all around us. Clink. Clink, clink, clink. Clink, clink. All kinds of different tones. Some deep. Some almost like wind chimes. The closer we got, the louder it got. Eventually we began to hear people sounds, too. Voices in dozens of languages.

Now remember, this was midnight and it was freezing, and there were dozens and dozens of people out chipping at that Wall, talking to each other, peering through the small places where chipping from one side had met chipping from the other so that the people on the two sides could see each other. And there was a joy like nothing I'd ever seen before, and maybe haven't seen since.

That sound is what sticks in my mind when I think about it. Nobody who wasn't really THERE heard that sound or experienced that community of people from every corner of the world who cared enough to come and take that Wall apart with their own hands. And the people of the two Berlins? Talk about a V-8 moment. They were trying to get their minds around a fact that had just dawned fully on them. The only reason that Wall stood for 20 years was that THEY LET IT! The moment that that Wall became unaccetable to enough people to the point that they were willing to take action on that attitude of unacceptance, the Wall ceased to be effective in dividing them.

The experience of going there, of searching in the stores for a hammer and chisel that would be strong enough to put a dent in that Wall (and that Wall was built tough!), and doing it! And the idea that unacceptable things CAN be eliminated if people just care enough to take action. I brought that back with me. It lives inside me. When I see something like the demonstrations in the Ukraine, I remember it. When I took part in the demonstrations outside the Republican Convention this summer, I remembered it. Who would have thought that so soon after 1989, my own country would be a place in which the people accepted the unacceptable? Who would have thought that the Ukraine would someday have a more valid democracy than my own country? Who would have thought that demonstrations would be walled off from any chance of effectiveness here? And who would have thought that so few of my countrymen would care about it?

That's why I'm leaving.

The fun begins

2004-12-30T09:48:00.000-08:00

It's getting to be very real now. We received the paperwork which commits both sides and the details (never as many details as you could use) of the relocation arrangements. And this morning we got a call to contact the British Consulate and begin the process of obtaining our work permits. The British government's website on all things between the US and Great Britain seems very extensive. I'm adding it to my favorites and will slowly work my way through the pertinent parts that do not apply specifically to the work permits.

it's:

www.britainusa.com

The dislocation is also setting in. I hate the in-between times when you are commited to being somewhere else soon but not so soon that you don't still have to go about the daily business of living and working where you are. My SO says that it gives special intensity to his enjoyment of and appreciation of the things that matter to him about our current life. I wish I could be that way, but instead, for me, I'm already wondering if I'll be able to find a thing there or a substitute that will satisfy. For instance, I never get tired of a regular slice of NY-style pizza and a 20-oz Coke for lunch (so much so that the folks at work tease me every day about it). I like fish and chips, too. But I doubt I'd want to have them every day.

Pret-a-Manger used to have something I think I could eat every day for lunch. They had this wonderful crispy-on-the-outside soft-on-the-inside hot croissant filled with melted cheese and mushrooms. Lord, I loved those things! But then, McDonalds bought a big piece of Pret stock and these wonderful croissants disappeared from the menu. I'm not sure the two things are connected. I don't care why. I want my croissant back!!!

By the way, did you know that Pret-a-Manger, even though it's a London (at least) ubiquitous (you find them everywhere) fast food place, pays its employees pretty well. About half again more than the usual US place. They also provide a lot more benefits. And I mean actually provide. Not like the health insurance option that Walmart makes such a big thing of. Turns out that the average Walmart employee would have to pay two months worth of his wages to take them up on that option. Guess how many do? Not to mention that half of Walmart's employees are elgibel for food stamps. Guess who pays for those and the public healthcare they have to use. Us. What you buy there really isn't so inexpensive after all.

Anyhow, I was talking about Pret. In addition, they give all their left-overs, every single day, to the homeless. And Pret sandwiches are substantial and nutritious.

Notice how much I love the soap box. I'll fit right in at Hyde Park, won't I?

Bye for now.

Some of those useful sites I promised, and more

2004-12-29T09:26:00.000-08:00

Here are some very useful sites and resources for those who might be thinking about emigration:

If it's the UK you're pining for, the very best is:
www.uk-yankee.com
It's where I found discussions on shipping companies and the qualities and prices of their services, discussions about the UK's National Health Service, which turns out to be pretty good. The folks there said that they had heard horror stories and had a few bad experiences, but mostly good ones. And what's more is, they said that given their choice of the US or the UK system, they'd take the UK system. Mind you, these are folks who have experieced both, so they are not talking out of their hats. The services for childbirth and children's care (all prescriptions for children are FREE) were expecially praised.

If you're more intereted in going for a few years, or volunteering, or working for a while, or teaching then:
www.transitionsabroad.com
is a good resource. They publish a magazine you can get at your local B&N or Borders. Their info is also good for emigrating folks; there's just a lot of it that won't be specifically for that purpose.

If you're thinking of stretching your Social Security (assuming it's still there when you retire) or maybe buying a vacation place abroad or investing in property:
www.escapeartist.com
may suit you. Seems to me that a lot of their stuff takes money that I don't have, but maybe you do.

Retiring abroad was my plan before I figured out a way to head out before retirement. During my time in Poland, I noticed that a lot of folks who had emigrated to the US were coming back to retire. Made sense to me since the dollar went about three times as far there as it did at home. Wonder what that ratio is now. What does it say when the dollar loses value versus the Polish zloty? I mean, it was only while I was there that they started producing coins again. Coins are a sign of stability, because when a country's money is rapidly fluxuating and the what the country has to pay for the materials it makes the coins of isn't, printing paper money is more practical. Did I tell you I earned my first million in Poland? That was when 1,000,000 zlotow were about $40. Finally they changed 10,000 to 1 to make things simpler, but I still have a 50 sloty note, actually made more valueable by being folded into a frog.

Got to get me some readers for this blog! bye for now.

Done this before

2004-12-28T09:33:00.000-08:00

I said. And it was true. I lived in Denmark for three months, but I'll save that for when I get around to politics.

In '93, my ex, who was finishing a doctorate in German Studies, decided he didn't have to appear anyplace as a set time so he'd go traveling. He called me up from Krakow, Poland a few weeks later and said "I can teach here! What do you think of the idea of moving to Poland?" I said I liked it, and after a year of straightening out our affairs here, we went.

I shouldn't say it was a grand time. Somewhere in my brain, I know it wasn't, a lot of the time. For one thing, what three separate Polish women had told me to watch out for turned out to be perfectly true. It seemed a lot of young Polish women were on the lookout for a Western guy to hook up with so as to gain rights to live and work in the West, and my ex proved woefully vulnerable to them. At which point my home institution, with which I'd worked out an agreement allowing me to go to Poland while maintaining my ties there, declared I had no further reason for being there and I must come back. I was NOT going to lose out on my international experience, so I told them no and walked out on a significant grant and academia.

So there I was in Poland, knowing no one except my ex, with no income, no career, and that's when things began to get better. For one thing, I had a great place to live, a large loft inside the city walls at a price that would make a New Yorker offer to sell his or her soul. For another, I had a "hobby" that had always been more than a hobby to me, that I'd always hoped to make a living out of eventually. So I turned it into one. I'd work madly in Krakow for two months, then take a 27-hour hell-bus to London, do a show in Britain, buy a cheap round-trip ticket to the US, do a show or two there, fly back to Britain and do another show, and take the hell-bus back to Krakow. By the time I was halway through the second year, I knew a few folks, I had my routine worked out, and I was pretty much breaking even. I was staying.

I'll say it. It was a grand time.

But then a house I owe/own in the US lost its renter and needed more repairs than I could fund on what I was making at that point. My choice was to give up the house or come back, and I came back.

What I learned from all this, and what I'll put to good use this time was to put the majority of my immediate efforts on arrival (aside from finding a roof and food, of course) into getting to know people. It's a people network that will sustain you through the bad times, and the bad times will come. Usually folks hit them around the six-month point, when, to give a Polish example, it's no longer an amusing novelty that they organize what's in particular stores differently. In Poland, they were organized by materials. So, toilet paper? The stationary store, of course! Now how was I supposed to guess that until I figured out the system. A people net will clue you in to things like that.

Whoops, lunch is almost over. Time to stop blogging.

More of the same: NOT

2004-12-26T13:20:00.000-08:00

First let me apologize for not adding the links I mentioned in my first posting, yet. It's a matter of computers. The one I have at home is so old it won't really go to the blogger site. I tried to look in on my first posting and it gave me a word per line. So I'll use my work computer (not available until after the holiday) or my sweetie's until I get a new one.

Planning to emigrate has pushed me into finally making two major (for me) purchases that I''ve been planning for a long time. I tend to be a pack-rat. I have a pretty good eye for throw-aways that might be valuable, like the poster for a 1967 Beatles concert in Poland that turned up in the trash. I also have that aspect of an artist's heart, in particular, a fiber artist's heart, that won't let me leave fine handwork homeless. Then you add my inability to just throw anything away that still has use in it, and it's a good thing I've moved so often in my life because otherwise I would have long since vanished into what my sweetie calls "Isay's black hole". He uses my real name rather than Isay ( as in the British "I say, old man..." and as in "This is what I have to say."). He says this when I have trouble finding something I'm looking for, which is probably because I tried to get "organized". The very best way for me to lose something is for me to put it away in some logical place. Sometime's that's one of the things I'd most like to change about myself, but most times it doesn't bother me in the least.

Anyhow, I have a lot of "stuff" that may or may not be valuable or be useful to someone else., and I'd like to travel more lightly to Britain. My solution is to buy that digital camera I've been yearning for, since their prices finally came down to the point that I can afford one of the proper quality for me to make slides of the jewelry I make. I can also use pictures of all the other extras I'm planning to dispense with and sell or dispense them. Expect E-bay links eventually if you're thinking "Wonder what else she has besides a 1967 Beatles poster in Polish."

However, as I said, at present I am operating with a very old computer. It operates perfectly. It's just not up to the new technology for websites. It's a Mac, by the way, one of the early iMac's. Let me take this opportunity to plug Apple computers, which is paying me nothing. I've always had them at home. I've never had any trouble with them at all, unless you count figuring out how to get all your data off a still-functioning computer you're about to dispose of. Talk about the EverReady Rabbit! The typical Apple computer could beat his socks off!!! They keep right on going when you'd rather they'd not! And you never have a single worry concerning viruses and such.

In order to get rid of those things via the web, I'm going to need that new computer I've been wanting. Since a new computer, bought by before-tax UK wages in such a way that somehow your take-home is not affected, is one of the benfits we will be very grateful for when we get there, the one I buy before we go will be a laptop of some sort. I welcome any comments from folks who use graphics programs professionally about how much laptop I need, because that's how much I need to practice textile design using Photoshop and Illustrator and other textile-specific programs.

With these new things, I can freelance in the UK and I can begin to sell the things I make on the web, thus establishing some source of income even before we leave. (Wonder if you can add pictures to these blogs?)

AND IT WILL BE A LOT EASIER TO BLOG!

Message 1 12 23 04

2004-12-23T09:26:00.000-08:00

Hello,

This is my first posting to my first blog, so bear with me. I decided to begin this blog because I'm doing something that a lot of Americans are considering right now, emigrating, and every time I mention it, I get lots of questions, mostly where, why, and how questions. So...

Where?
Great Britain, Suffolk or vicinity to be more specific.

Why?
The same reason that anybody goes to another country permanently. I think life will be better for me there. I don't like the direction the US is headed. I've done all I can to change things, to no avail, and now I think my best strategy for changing things is to literally (which means actually, as opposed to figuratively, which means not actually) vote with my feet.

How?
MY fiancee and I got lucky. He's in one of the professions that Great Britain is short of. They have this list (I'll provide a link soon) and they make it easier for folks who have certain types of expertise to get visas and working rights. As for me, I'm an artist, and artists are free to roam in the UK, as I understand it. There's actually a book on managing this thing, and I'll be linking it soon, too.

Those are the basics. My simple plan is to add to my answers to each of these questions each time I post. Then maybe I'll find some new questions to answer. You'll help me, right? I'm bound to end up talking politics. I'll talk about some of my history, which is relevant, and some of my plans, too, and I'll report on how it's turning out after we get there. Which brings me to one more question:

When?
Our plan is presently the, as they say, "back end" of March.