Bear with me on this one. I just wrote a very long and rambling post in my head while washing up, the problem is I can't actually remember any of it.
I'm having a blog crisis. I don't really know what my blog is for. As a result I haven't really blogged anything much lately. My blog is called It's my Life, but it clearly isn't (about my life).
Let me just throw out a little reader poll. If you blog, what do you blog about and why? Don't feel obliged to answer, but if you do it might help me in trying to figure out the function of my blog.
Once I'm in Texas I can see that blogging will be my way to let all the folks back home know that I'm alive and that the crazy blogging woman and her family haven't killed me (All due love and respect to you Blest, I mean crazy in the kindest possible way!). In the meantime I've stopped working at school, a job that I wasn't enjoying a huge amount, but at least it was a job. I'll still be looking after B and J on a Wednesday, at least for the next little while, but that is all that's fixed on my calender.
While I was still at school the thought of having some time off was a great one, it just turns out I'm not very good at motivating myself if I'm on my own. A fact I think I did really know, but had pushed to the back of my mind. If there's something to do, then I will do it, but if there's nothing that's immediate, then I can have a tendency to flick through the channels on TV and see how many episodes of Scrubs it's possible to watch in one day. Actually that wasn't necessarily my intention from the start, it's just the way it turned out. I need to take myself in hand and have a big plan about what needs doing or can be done, and when I'm going to do it.
On our old old (been replaced twice) computer there was a way to create a layout of each month on an A4 sheet. Basically a calender, but because the month took up the whole page the boxes for each day were big. I need to generate myself a couple of those for September and October and then put stuff on them and stick to it. Otherwise all my vague visit people, go on a plane for the very first time (don't get me started on that one), pick plums, tidy my room, lose 10lbs stuff isn't going to happen. And the months will go by and I'll wonder just what I was that I did with my time.
I don't really know where I'm going with this post. Does anyone have a clue? I try to be me, and write me stuff, but is that actually what comes across? To me it seems like all I've written lately is trivial stupid stuff, and not really me at all. Except, of course, the whole telling everyone I'm going to Texas. And that is scary. There are so many things that need to be done before I go (visa, flights, insurance to name a few big ones) and I'm not even sure I've even thought of what they all are, let alone done them. I really really really want to do this, and I'm not really worried about being there, it's just all the stuff to do before I get there.
I'm not scared of going on a plane, I'm scared because I've never been on a plane, and therefore have never been in an airport (apart from picking up or dropping off someone). I don't know how it all works, how you know where you have to be when, what you can and can't take in your hand luggage, and all those kinds of things. The whole being in a plane hanging in the sky is actually pretty cool! Think of the pictures you could take, if you're actually allowed to have a camera on a plane, which I doubt.
Likewise, living in a country I don't really know much about and with people that I have never met before doesn't scare me, or at least not yet. It's all the millions of things I have to do before I can get that far. Like something I thought of today - how does driving in the US work so far as driving licences? Can I use my licence, or will I have to do a test in the US. Come the that, how do you drive if your car is the other way round? Is the gear stick on the other side? Will I have to totally retrain my hands to do things the other way round? Or do they mostly have automatics? How how do you drive one of them?
Ok, too many questions, and no where near enough answers. I think I'd better stop there. If you know any of the answers that would save me a ton of time trying to pick the right phrases to feed into Google, especially since our modem is very temperamental at the moment.
Edited to add: I googled and found a thing to generate calanders with one page a month just like I described, and I'm printed off the next three months, including September, and am about to start filling in the stuff I do know about.
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3 comments:
Oh, Debs!
Actually, your first question (about the point of a blog and what it is for) is a good one. But you are the only one that can answer that. I blog because I live apart from my family and most of my friends, and this way that can "check in" on me and my boys without feeling that they are bugging me, and I can get my thoughts out there without feeling that I am bugging them, because after all, they are the ones that checked in.
As for the Texas thing, yes, that can be scary. Do not worry. Everything will work itself out, and in a worst case scenario (I'm sure Blest isn't crazy! But homesickness does happen.), planes do fly back as well as forth.
As for some other things: I recommend bringing your camera and anything you can't stand to loose on the plane. They will let you. You do not have to use it. Do not bring anything liquid. Do bring reading material, gum, and the phone number of the person picking you up.
As far as cars go, most cars are automatics. If you do get a manual, the gear shift IS on the other side. Sorry about that. If you are here for a limited time, I don't think you need a new license. (Getting one requires a social security number, I think, unless you have a US birth certificate? At least the Japanese exchange student that stayed with us that one time needed one.)
This comment is almost as long as your post, so I'm going to shush now.
Yes, take your camera. (But really, the Atlantic Ocean from 30,000 feet is pretty boring!) When I flew out of Stansted to fly within Britain, I was not allowed knitting needles, but flying out of Heathrow to Toronto, I had a pair of plastic needles and some chopsticks which actually worked wonders with the chunky yarn I had! No scissors, needles, guns, bombs etc. Or shampoo.
I also once lived in Texas and had a drivers license. Hmm, how did I get that? I think if you just take them your old license and a piece of mail that has your address on it, like a phone bill (argh, the phone company *did* require a Social Security Number!) they'll just give you a license. But if you are getting paid, you'll need one anyways, won't you? (Sorry, I mean a SSN!) And an automatic is easy to drive, just remember to keep that clutch foot out of the way, and don't go stomping on the brake thinking it's a clutch. (Don't laugh, it's been done!)
Well, this is longer than necessary, isn't it?
Our vehicles are automatics. I don't know how to drive a stick myself... Someone said something to me about telling you to get an international driver's licence before you leave England. ??? Something to look into...
And yes. I AM crazy. But I'm like the Earth in HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Mostly Harmless!
We're going to take very good care of you! Don't you worry! My only fear is that we'll have so much fun together that we'll forget to do what we're supposed to do! ;-)
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