The comeback kid.
Jun 9th, 2008 by B.
Part 1: Jacobed.
Over the past few weeks I’ve received on average 1.6 emails per day checking on me. This tells me two things: first, it’s time for an update. Second, people can be really great sometimes. That maybe blogs actually are a tiny bit of yourself that you wrap in swaddling cloth & sail down a cyber river. And sometimes, if you’re lucky, the people you encounter along the way really do care, and that’s a great thing to know.
Part 2: Workin’ For The Man.
Part of the reason I’ve held off answering all those emails is because I don’t really have anything new to report. Apparently when a layoff is communicated in April (claiming all cuts will be completed by the end of May) this means at some point in July or August you’ll learn your fate. Efficiency at its best. Jim has it on good authority he won’t go, but we’ll still breathe a lot easier once it’s over & done with.
That said, for a while the prospect of being forced to find a new job was kind of fun and liberating. We started looking at places we’d normally never think of. Questions like ‘What do you think of Israel?’ or ‘How many english-speakers do you suppose there are in Ho Chi Minh City?’ were bandied about. Feeling untethered was both exhilarating and terrifying. But in the end it’s always best to choose your own destiny and not let destiny choose you. Heh, Jim says I’m the only person he can think of that would actually be bummed about not getting laid off. And who knows, there could be some truth to that…
Oh, for those of you wondering: if you’re in Germany on a work visa, you have one month from the time you’re notified of a layoff until you must leave the country (you’ll get a letter from the immigration board asking you to leave). You can go to the office of foreign affairs and request an extension to stay, collect unemployment, search for a new job, blah, blah, blah… but there’s no guarantee they’ll grant it. You’ll also need to obtain a new (temporary) residence visa for this period of time. That’s the way it is in Saxony anyway, not sure if all states are the same or not…
Part 3: The Comeback Kid.
There’s a line from an old Crosby, Sills & Nash song that I completely identify with: And we never failed to fail, it was the easiest thing to do. When I decided to take a short hiatus from blogging, I kind of sailed off the edge of the world. Not only did I not write, I stopped reading blogs too. And the longer it went, the more natural it felt. Put my life out there for god knows who to see & misinterpret & judge & just generally get wrong… I mean, who does that??
Oh wait, I do. I mean, did? Do? That.
Anyway, I quit a lot of things… it’s the easiest thing to do. But blogging’s been good for me. It’s allowed me to keep in touch with friends I care about, enabled me to meet some exceptional people I’d otherwise never have known, and it’s given me a sounding board when that, above all else, was probably what I needed most. For these reasons alone I highly recommend blogging to all you fence-sitters. I spent months thinking I wasn’t interesting enough, that I’d run out of things to say, that I’d make a complete fool out of myself. And, yep, all of those things happened (more than once), but people are generally forgiving.
So if I quit now I know I’d regret it. Maybe not today or next month, but somewhere down the line I’d regret it. There are still quite a few things in a state of flux, not all of which I can discuss here, so my posting might be spotty for the next few months, but I will try to do better.
Part 4: Minutiae.
- I hate the sun. I hate sweating. I hate squinting because of the glare. Above all else though, I hate the damned fruit flies that are everywhere this time of year. This morning in the produce section of my local Konsum, I grabbed a red pepper and set off a dervish of swarming flies. This means fruits & vegetables are pretty much off the menu until October… I refuse to eat larvae-laden salads and ambrosia. Ok, I was totally kidding about that last bit… I don’t even know what ambrosia is (still, I refuse to eat it on principal alone).
- Are the elections seriously not over yet?? I feel like I blew my political wad back when I decided between Hillary & Obama. It’s almost unthinkable to me that the presidential race is just now revving up.
- My in-laws arrive in six short weeks… there’s not enough chocolate in the world to make up for this fact.
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the end.
Good to see you back, and thanks for the update. I’ve been wondering how you were. I do hope you guys will be given the official notification about being able to stay soon.
And here I was just gearing up to impose and ask you how you were doing. Glad to hear that things seem to be not so critical after all. Glad to see that you’re back. I can completely understand the break, I’m all about taking a hiatus myself. Would have been interesting to see Eurotrippen warp to Trippin in Korea, but still I’m glad it looks like you’re sticking around.
If it ever does come to it though, don’t be scared of immigration. As an American you can pretty much depend on preferential treatment. We’re the non-threatening guest workers: we come, earn big incomes, generally behave ourselves, pay taxes and eventually go back to where we came from. For what it’s worth, regardless of my situation, student, employed, not employed, I always managed to stay here. La Migra never once pulled up and raided my sweatshop.
Megan in Munichs last blog post..Taking it easy (or ramblings from an invalid)
Your keyboard must have been burning as you typed, because Katie and I were wondering about you just this afternoon. It’s great to have you back.
Big changes are afoot in my household as well - still trying to figure out what that means for my blog.
Blythes last blog post..Why I Am Uninformed About Current Events
B, good to see you’re back in the blogosphere! I’ve been checking in every day to see if there was any word yet about the layoffs. Yesterday I wrote a comment asking if you had heard anything yet, or made any decisions about leaving the country–and then decided to erase it. I didn’t want to pry or give you a nudge to write if you weren’t ready to write. As it turned out, you wrote when you were ready, and I’m glad to still be reading your blog. Good luck on all fronts!
Absolutely Tokyos last blog post..Excuse me but I think there’s someone living in my closet!
Good to hear that you are hangin in. I’d start stock-piling chocolate and booze NOW! Had a visit with my in laws last weekend and my husband has had two days of migraines. And they’re his friggin’ family! Obviously, I forgot to follow my own advice about the booze and chocolate.
Thanks for the update. I hope all those things still up in the air sort themselves out properly. We may be getting our own news this week, or this month, or at the end of this year… you know how efficient German bureaucracy is.
Christina Gs last blog post..Meet me in Stuttgart
Ack! Don’t quit. You would leave a hole where I slot writers worth reading. Doesn’t matter how often. It’s how well.
I’d jump at the chance to work in Vietnam. What a great posting that would be.
ian in hamburgs last blog post..A few bloggers I’d like to meet, but maybe not in the sauna.
It would be nice to get to try out some new places, sometimes that’s hard with kids in tow though. Glad you are back to writing, you were missed!
kats last blog post..Leaving on a jet plane
What would I do for entertainment if you quit blogging????
disenchanteds last blog post..Not Much
I don’t think that Americans need visas to live in Germany. At least, I’ve been living here almost 4 years without one (and to the best of my knowledge, legally). I came to Germany for academic work, which has a nice loophole — my income was technically a “Stipendium”, and my position didn’t require a work permit.
I did, of course, register (anmelden) my address and obtain a residence permit (Aufenthaltserlaubnis — two pink pages in my passport, and two more each time it’s renewed). I’ve renewed the Aufenthaltserlaubnis twice — and for the most recent renewal, I was *unemployed*.
To get a new residence permit while unemployed, I had to show a recent bank statement, with enough euros in my account to live on during the renewal period (one year), and I also had to show proof of health insurance. It might have helped that I’ve learned pretty fluent German.
There are a couple of lines on my current Aufenthaltserlaubnis that state that if I even *apply* for any sort of social help, then my residence permit is null and void. So I guess that could be a problem if you (or your husband) are eligible for any unemployment benefits.
Still, I doubt that you’re in any eminent danger of being deported. I don’t have a German visa, and never did. And to the best of my knowledge, I’ve been doing everything quite legally here.
I think the terms are getting muddled here. Visas let you INTO (or occasionally OUT OF) a country. They don’t say “yeah, you can stay/work/get on unemployment here.” That’s what the residence/work permits are for.
cliff1976s last blog post..Zwei Tage im Frankfurter Raum
So good to see you back and sorry that things are still up in the are but it sounds like there is still hope.
And stopping blogging is not an option. You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.
I think the residence thing is pretty much the same in all the German states and yeah, as Cliff says, Amerikanerin is confusing visas with residence permits. You most definitely need a residence permit to be allowed to stay in Germany for any length of time and if you have no reason to be here -work, trailing spouse/children, study or married to a German - they most likely won’t extend it.
christinas last blog post..we’ve got gas!
Again: I successfully extended my residence permit (Aufenthaltserlaubnis) for one year while I was unemployed, not a student, and not married.
Hey girl — I’m back, catching up, after falling out of the blogging world myself, so I could really relate to that part. I’ve barely posted at all, hardly read a thing, and when I did start posting, it’s all fluff and crap. I absolutely love your blog and your humor, and would be cyberly devastated if you ever really stopped.
I’m off to catch up on the rest … the layoff thing is making me really nervous.