Dancing Around

Hopefully this post will answer a lot of questions I have been getting recently.

You would think I'd have a lot to report on how I like my new job, but that is not the case. As planned I went to my first day of work to find my supervisor (the woman that hired me) wasn't there after an hour of waiting. After talking to the receptionist I arranged to go to a different Evocca college campus to do some training with another sales woman. I mostly watched and asked questions, but the last few hours I got to call people and set up their appointments. It was fun! I remembered why I liked call centres - you always feel like there is something to do and stuff getting done!

Now to the tricky part, the following day I did not go into work because the HR department had to contact my references and check my visa details first. Naturally, I didn't have too many Australian references so I got a call from HR asking if I had others. I recommended a couple of people I was a research assistant for, but I only had their e-mail addresses. Later they told me they could not get a hold of any of my references (apparently they are unfamiliar with the typical slow response rate for many academics). The next day I went on a hunt to contact these people and any others that would be available immediately. HR also advised maybe I should try some US references and get e-mails so they could send a reference letter form. This went on for a few days till I finally confirmed I only needed one more. I got an e-mail from a reference telling me they completed the form so I waited to get a response from HR but it never came. When I sent an e-mail checking to make sure all my references were sorted I discovered the woman I had been sending communications to was now on leave. When advising this to my supervisor I found out that she was also on leave!

There was not much I could do, but wait and the next week I got a call from someone else at HR asking me questions about my visa (I had already sent all that information via e-mail to the other woman on leave). Later I found out that my supervisor was on leave until March 26th so I will have to wait until April 6th when I return from the US to start training, assuming all of my HR issues are sorted by then.

In the end this has actually been a huge blessing! I used the time to my advantage and investigated a temporary visa that allows me to work. I thought the temporary graduate visa required you to work in the same field you studied, but it turns out I was wrong and basically just had some paperwork to do to get it! This visa allows Matt and I to work in Australia for three years, which gives us plenty of time to wait for our Permanent Residency visa.

Not wasting any time, I got started on all the documents needed for the visa. Conveniently Matt took a day off work to get a vehicle inspection done (for our car registration) so I scheduled us to get our health checks with x-rays completed and our police fingerprinting done. We also got a bit of shopping (and goofing around) done that day.

Since I still didn't work I was able to go to the university and get the transcripts I needed and get all relevant documents certified by a JP. I discovered during this process that I somehow lost my original marriage certificate. Since I am going to the US I have time to get a new marriage certificate. There is a new system called VitalCheck to order these and after multiple failed attempts I found out that the Salt Lake County doesn't have them online yet, which was great because it saves me $55 to pick it up in person! We had to spend a lot of money on the car rego, health checks, and police checks so currently we are just waiting to stock up on money to apply for the visa.

Another major event was a big Relief Society activity that weekend. Each ward was assigned a culture and to prepare a cultural dance. We did Hawaii and because I didn't work I was able to go to many of the Hawaiian dance practices. The activity was fun, but I think the best part was actually just doing the dance with the other women in the ward. To be honest I don't really like stake activities because our stake is mostly polynesian and it is hard for me to adjust to the cultural differences. Nevertheless, I had a good time and it was wonderful to see everyone's hard work come to life.

Also during this time was the Disney-themed Stake Youth Dance last weekend, which the Young Women have been planning for over a month. Because I wasn't working I could spend extra time making masks, printing out Disney pics, going to the store for paints, and other prep work. Unfortunately one of the YW got sick and couldn't finish our painted Rafiki. I ended up spending the entire day of the dance painting a giant Simba for the dance (we needed something to help our sunset backdrop to represent the Lion King). To make it all flow together I also spent days finding high quality pics of iconic Disney movies to do a sort of timeline of Disney Pics around the room. It turned out well and it helped me get rid of my ink so I can get a new printer soon (I hate our printer). I also discovered that since many of the girls were born in the 2000's there are many Disney movies they have never heard of or seen including the Little Mermaid and Snow White! In the end I spent A LOT of time working on that to make the girls ideas come to life, and I think it turned out well in the end. Overall, I think the Lord knew it was better for me not to work during this time.

Frozen Section - Olaf painted by Me & Brittany

Lion King Section: Sunset by Alayna & Brittany, Masks cut out by YW, the rest set up by Matt and I.

Samba took me 6 hrs (including buying paint)

Now for the other major event. I am currently in Utah! I left on Tuesday (and arrived Tuesday) to visit family for about 11 days. Originally I booked the flight so I could be here for my little sister's wedding, but that was cancelled a couple of months ago. She's happy and confident she made the right decision in the end despite the consequences. Sometimes people have to be engaged and start making those future plans to realise its not going to work. Anyway, I couldn't change the flight for Christmas so I decided to not change dates so I can still visit as planned and be in Utah for my mom's birthday. Matt did not come with me because losing two weeks of work wasn't worth it and fitting in an Oregon visit for his family wasn't going to happen.

My flight here was good although I barely got any sleep. Normally I can get a few hours of sleep on planes, but this time I could not find a comfortable position. It didn't help I had a headache that wouldn't dissipate with pain meds and the guy behind me kept pushing ridiculously hard on his screen. I would be trying to rest and feel my sit thump right behind my head. I kept thinking "Why does he have to push so hard?" and "What could he possibly be doing on his screen that would make him push on it so much?"  I think he must have been playing a game or something. I did get a few movies in - some good and some not so good. I watched The Best of Me, The Book of Life (don't watch), and Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. Perhaps it's just me, but when watching The Best of Me and there are kissing scenes I get uncomfortable because I know the person next to me can see it. Although it's PG-13 and nothing shows I still felt weird.

After I arrived I thought I would want to sleep, but was surprisingly quite awake when my dad picked me up. We spent the day together doing a little shopping. I got to see the new City Creek Shopping Mall in downtown SLC for the first time. It's pretty but I don't think I'd ever shop at the expensive stores there. We also got me a SIM card for my phone, which ended up being a big hassle. In Australia it is much easier to get cards and credit. I ended up paying $55 total so I could have talk, text, and data. I spend $45 AUD a month for unlimited talk/text and 5 GB of data in Australia! Oh well, at least I have the peace of mind to use my phone as usual while I am here.

How's driving you ask? It's harder than I thought to adjust. It's been over 1.5 years since I've driven in the states and it's not the right side of the road that's difficult, but driving in the left side of the car. I tend to be too far to the right of the lane, use my windshield wiper for the blinker, look at the door to find the gear shift, and want to walk to the wrong side of the car to drive. The traffic is way easier and the lanes are gigantic here though. I definitely feel that Australia life seems more comfortable to me now. Sydney is definitely more of my home now than Utah.

Although I have done some literal dancing the last couple of weeks, now I am doing some theoretical dancing. I get to be with family and try to spend sufficient time with each person. It's equivalent to trying to remember all the steps in a dance and also not to step on anyone's toes. Not to mention I've learned the Australian "dance" to things and now I have to remember the US "dance." I know the steps, but I am out of practice. Hopefully I'll remember enough to get around Utah ok and be able to have a good time.