"The Only Constant is Change"

Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.

-- George Bernard Shaw 

After much soul searching, Ted decided to leave the bench and the world of academia behind. It wasn't making him happy and was, in fact, affecting his health and by extension, our quality of life. So, with great hope and excitement, Ted embarked on the fun road of job hunting in what he referred to as "the real world". And lo! He is now the Scientific Editor for a Ebiomedicine,  a new journal that reviews and publishes scientific journals that relate to the field of translational medicine. 

Last summer, I had just started a development internship at Community Research Initiative (CRI) as well as a position working most weekdays as a per diem clinical social worker in inpatient psychiatry units at a hospital in town. After my internship wrapped up in the beginning of December, I began working every weekend as a clinical social worker on various medicine floors at Boston Medical Center (in addition to my continued work in psychiatry during the week). Around the same time Ted was doing his soul-searching and answering the question of "what next" for himself, Ted and I had good discussions about how we were well-positioned to be able to carefully look for and choose jobs in fields we really wanted to be in, especially given that we are at a stage in life where a big part of our time and identity is wrapped up in what we do for work. I was doing all these various things to learn more about these different areas as I'm a big believer of testing things out, if I'm able to; Ted had just experienced the negative affects of a bad fit. Thus, we encouraged each other to really think about what we wanted to do, take action, and see where the cards fell. With this sense of renewed purpose, I also applied for another new job and am now the first-ever palliative care social worker at Boston Medical Center. Palliative care is a field I've long been interested in, and is in part what influenced my decision to return to school to become a social worker all those years ago (over a decade ago, now!). As someone who loves finding connections, you can be assured that this greatly pleases my sense of coming full circle, so to speak. And yes, here we go with yet another new beginning for the both of us at the same time (we've become quite accustomed to having change in our lives).

But wait. What did this change in employment mean for our visa status? It meant that it was time to change our visa status from our current J-status to a TN visa status. As Canadians and with jobs that fall under the NAFTA professionals list, we were eligible to apply for this non-immigrant status visa. We each applied for this in different ways: Ted's employer completed a petition for this change in visa status, which was processed without Ted having to meet with anyone in person; for my part, after gathering the necessary documents (in short: your degree [the original], passport, application fee, and one of the key pieces -- a formal letter from your prospective employer, preferably written by their legal team), we took a drive to the Canadian border to process my visa request in person!! As the visa is meant to be processed upon entry into the country, I had to drive across the border into Canada (Quebec) and immediately turn around to cross the border into the US again. Made for some interesting questioning at the border:

Border guard: When were you last in the United States?

Me: Um... 5 minutes ago. I just crossed the border over there. **points across the way** 

So, in the end, Ted and I both now have our own TN visa statuses that are independent of each other. Overall, Ted's visa took a bit longer to process once all the documentation was submitted; mine was much quicker (ie. essentially immediate) once I had everything I needed and presented myself at the border at my appointed time. Thank you, NAFTA agreement! 

Time-saving tip: Call the designated point of entry you have decided to cross that processes TN visas to make an appointment ahead of time and clarify the documents you need!!! We learned this the hard way and ended up driving up to Highgate Springs, Vermont twice. It is, after all U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) that will be processing this visa request.

Welcome (back) to America! The border at Highgate Springs, VT from the Canadian side.

Identity

I'm going to start with this: I am a very fortunate and privileged person. I won't even begin to list the ways which exemplifies the truth of this statement; the list would be crazily, ridiculously long. However, borne of this fortune and privilege is the ability to consciously formulate an identity and think about what that means to me and its impacts on how I see myself and subsequently how I project myself to the world.

Ted and I have now been in Boston for a solid 2 weeks. In that time, we've found an apartment in Cambridge, opened a bank account, applied for credit cards, attempted to apply for social security numbers (we can't right now because the American government has been shutdown for a week and the two parties are at a stalemate), and started to shop for furniture and supplies and all those good household items. So far it's been a lot of fun and a good exercise in budgeting as well as 'dreaming big and whittling down'. :) There were a few moments when Ted and I felt pretty certain we heard our parents' voices coming out of our own mouths. The horror. :)

But, I digress. During the entering of the U.S. and the renting of the apartment and the signing of the lease and the opening of the bank account and the application for the credit card, I was reminded over and over of our situation. Ted was being "sponsored" into the U.S. through his work, and by extension, so was I. Thus, I am currently an extension of Ted. Even my entry visa puts me as "Spouse". Ted is the primary signatory on most things as he has the entry visa that confirms he is employed and will therefore have an income. Before we came to Massachusets, I willingly decided to change my last name and changed my passport accordingly. I was now Alexandra D., no longer Alexandra T. It was sort of strange at the time but not a big deal. Had we remained in Vancouver, I think I would have still had a solid sense of who this Alexandra D. person was: a young, hard-working CP social worker with many interests (chief among them: food and wine), financially independent, a home-owner, and newly a wife. I had a healthy and active social life that allowed me in-person, face-to-face access to a solid network of family and friends who are similar and therefore confirmed my sense of who I was. I might have had an easier time figuring out who Alexandra D. is since many other aspects of my life would have remained recognizable. Now, having moved to a city on the opposite coast with a different surname and where I'm noted as technically being a dependent and where we know only a handful of people, my sense of who Alexandra D. is has started to become something more difficult to grasp, which was inevitable, I suppose. The neat thing is that this is a great opportunity to try something quite different from what I was doing before. The truth is, it's sometimes an unnerving feeling and process and I think it's ok to acknowledge that. I'm young and at a new stage in my life. These shifts in my identity were going to happen regardless, but with so many changes happening all at once, I sometimes get overwhelmed.

This post isn't a complaint and I hope it won't be read as such. I make my choices willingly, happily and with great excitement of the possibilities ahead and am also secure in the knowledge that I am in a position to be able to make these choices. But I share the process I'm going through because I also think it can be a normal part of all this.

How many Canadian references can you spot?

So for now, as I take the time to explore my neighbourhood,
I know that part of what makes up who I am is "Canadian".

Best. Snuggie. Ever!

And maybe on some evenings, Batman --because who wouldn't want a chance to be the greatest superhero ever?

Kigali, Rwanda (Nov. 4-6, 2011)

In short, Kigali was awesome. As the capital city of Rwanda, I assume it showcased the best of Rwanda. It was orderly, clean, and well laid-out. It had a very different feel, vibe, and look than Kampala, the capital city of Uganda (which I also assume, in theory, showcases the best of Uganda).

The weekend trip was marked by a lot of wandering around and confusion (e.g. incorrect bus route, incorrect time zone, incorrect citizenship, incorrect street, incorrect hotel....) which made for some good belly-laughs, afterward. We DID notice that the confusion also extended to the elevators at the Hotel des Milles Collines (I couldn't seem to rotate the picture...sorry).

Updated details:
Bussing from Masaka to Kigali was a pain and took about 9-10 hours. We found out much later that the bus we had hopped onto was taking the very, extremely long route out of Uganda. I suppose this is what happens when one travels without much of a plan. I don't know what it is about sitting on a bus all day that is so exhausting, but it is.

At the border, we all got off the bus and had to walk across (after visiting the outgoing Ugandan immigration office). As a Canadian, I had to pay a $30USD entry visa fee. The visa only came into effect in 2010 and I found out afterward from Heather that it's in response to Canada's idiotic immigration policy for Rwandans that has them indicate whether they are part of the 'Hutu' or 'Tutsi' tribe. Um, hello, Canadian government -- but didn't colonial classification of people result in something called genocide in 1994? The government's justification is that they want to prevent perpetrators of genocide from entering Canada. *cue massive eyeroll*.

Rwanda is known as the "Country of a Thousand hills", and Kigali certainly is hilly - beautifully so. And the organized, regulated system of boda boda taxis was a beautiful sight to behold after having gotten used to playing "dodge the boda bodas" on a daily basis. We spent our time in Kigali by visiting the Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre, which houses a beautiful and moving exhibit regarding the 1994 genocide. I know it sounds like it would be super depressing but it was very well laid-out and obviously had the aim of looking forward in hope and learning from this tragedy.

Aside from the museum, we did a lot of wandering around the streets, stopped in at the Hotel des Milles Collines (aka "Hotel Rwanda"), and hit up a crafts market. Popping in and out of dimly lit little shops, looking at crafts (if not made locally, at least made in East Africa), and participating in the "how much is this/how much will you offer for this" dance is always good fun.

On the food front: We had real hamburgers, which we had been missing. And there was a French influence noted in the food, likely due to the Belgian/French colonists.

The next morning, we caught the 5am bus back to Masaka, since we figured it would take another 9-10 hours to get back. It was while we were waiting for our bus that we figured out that Rwanda is an hour behind Uganda which meant we were at the bus station before 4am and had spent the entire previous day an hour off. How does that even happen?! This explains our confusion about why the museum wasn't open yet, at 8:50am (according to Alex's watch) despite the sign saying it was open at 8am. This also explains the patient yet slightly exasperated way the guard at the museum was trying to explain that the museum wasn't yet open when we asked and pointed at the sign (yes, we were THOSE tourists). This also explains why, when we stopped back into the Hotel des Milles Collines after dinner to check out the advertised live music, there was no band playing despite the poster saying they would start at 7pm and Alex's watch said it was 7:30pm. Needless to say, it was a very silent bus ride back to Uganda. Thankfully, the trip back was much more pleasant - we got on the desired and significantly shorter bus route.