Life in America

We're starting to settle down, now, and there are a few things we've noticed/ have been happening.

1) Michigan weather turns on a dime. Says Ned, "The only consistent thing here is overcast." One day it will be freezing, another day it will be balmy, then it will rain, then it will snow. I guess that's what happens when you're wedged between several massive lakes.

2) We still haven't figured out Farenheit. I think we're just waiting on the entire country to switch to Celsius.

No.

3) The biggest appeal of living in America is how cheap everything is. When comparing countries, a lot of people talk about taxes as a reason to stay away from Canada; this is fair, but seriously it's how much things cost before taxes.

1$ single serving bottles of wine. This is perfect, besides making it the equivalent of like a 4$ bottle of wine, because it means I can have a glass and not worry about polishing off the rest of it by myself (though really I probably would). First world problems.

1$ bottles of beer. At a bar. A bar! Yes it's Miller lite, which tastes like ass, but it's a dollar. When I went with Ned to the grocery store (where, btw, you can buy booze), I ran to a box of beer because it was a buck a pop. Ned shook his head in disappointment, and went to a section where it was 50 cents a beer. Good Lord.

4) The umpteenth reason life in Michigan is better than Dominica: Hockey.

USA! USA! USA!

5) The rare reason life in Dominica is better than Michigan: the lack of absurdity. Life is very quiet. When I walked out the door in Picard, my common thought was Well who the fuck knows what will happen today. Maybe I'll get attacked by a snake. There's stability here but it lacks the flavour of how bizarre Dominica is.

6) Very discretely, I announce that Denise passed her Comp test. This is kind of like a practice run for the USMLE, and if you don't pass, you're allowed two more tries at it. Almost everyone eventually passes, but a lot of very intelligent people don't pass the first try, so there's a lot of pressure. For us, it's helpful that Denise passed, because it essentially removes any possibility that schedules might fuck with the wedding. The next step, besides the every day studying she needs to do, is write the USMLE in around three months. It will be the single most important test of her life to date, and the results will largely determine what happens in our life for the next two years. On to the studying for her!

I guess Denise would be the one with a mustache in this one.

7) Far less important: I've finished the first draft of my second novel. Egads.

The Palm

Discovered what is apparently a great Michigan tradition: pointing to where you are in the state, on the back of your hand.

I'll you'll examine the pictures below, you'll notice that the state is, in fact, in the shape of a hand. We're right here.

Ignore the other part of the state. I have learned that it is dismissively called the "U.P.", short for Upper Peninsula, and it's not worth a second thought, other than to debate why it doesn't belong to Wisconsin.

Also related to the Palm: my roommate's last name is Palmer. And he's from Michigan!


Crazy.

How We Accidentally Grew Up.

Denise and I took two giant leaps into adulthood a week ago, after we had a conversation with my parent's financial advisor. Well I suppose it's three leaps, since talking to a financial advisor is, in and of itself, already pretty grown up. The first thing we accidentally did months ago; the second thing we did yesterday.

1. Apparently we accidentally got married...sort of. While we were filing our taxes, we clicked a teeny tiny little box online that said we were common law. Our understanding had been that after a couple lives together for a certain amount of time, they're automatically common law, so we just figured we were being honest. Plus it gave us a bit more money back.

"Would you like to click this little box that has no explanation of the gravity of this decision on your future?" "Sounds AWESOME!"

So we asked the financial advisor about the possibility of a prenuptual agreement. We didn't really want one, but were curious to see what that entailed. He then informed us that we can't get a prenuptual agreement anyways.

"You're already nup'd," he said. He then informed us that for all intents and purposes we're married, and our credit reflects that. If we were to break up now, we would have to notify the government.

Holy balls. This really doesn't change anything, but we were astonished that such a large decision can happen just by clicking a box. But here we are, already nup'd, with a wedding on the way. Really, we're just getting married twice, for good measure.

2. We were also informed that the money we spend insuring our lines of credit with the bank are not really insurance. If I were to die, they could look at my lifestyle and say that they would never have insured me if yadda yadda yadda. Plus we're paying too much. So we got actual life insurance.

I have life insurance. How messed is that? When did I become George Bailey?

Nooooooooooope nope nope nope nope nope.

The process to get the life insurance was a bit of a pain in the ass, but it is strangely comforting to know that my family and nup'd fiance will get oodles of money if something were to happen to me.

Anyways, we grew up and had no intention of doing so. I guess between being betrothed, being an uncle, and having married friends, I'd best get used to it.

Oh, Hello Saginaw.

Denise and I began the second geographical leg of her education yesterday. This time, instead of an epic day of flight hopping to get to a shitty little third world country, we just had to figure out a way to get over Lake Superior. Simple enough.

The first and most daunting task of the trip was to get through the US border. We have evidently done this before, but this time there was a complication: Denise needed a specific type of visa that can only be acquired by asking the random border guard you encounter. It’s called the B-1 Visa. This is the great roll of the dice when it comes to being a Canadian at Ross, and we’ve heard about every kind of experience, from apathetic guards who just hand the things away like candy to pain-in-the-ass guys who will detain couples for five hours until giving it over, usually after the flight is missed. Just in case, we decided to get to the airport four hours early.

The new Winnipeg airport is new and efficient, right? Wrong. It wasn’t terrible, but we ran into a mounting pile of snags. First, the United Airlines desk wasn’t open, because their first flight wasn’t until noon and we were there at eight. Nobody’s fault, and they were kind enough to help check us in early, but it hinted at a looming, frustrating day. After the annoyingly handsome United employee checked us in, we were to drop off our luggage on a movator, but it was, alas, broken. We were told to drop off the bags at the Oversized Baggage section just inside the U.S. flights section, but it was, alas, not open for another hour. So we had arrived early, bothered a United Airlines employee, only to stand outside a clear glass door growing increasingly nervous that the time cushion we had allowed ourselves was wasting away. Would Denise be able to get the Visa and make the flight?

A man comes up to the door and opens it. We get our things ready. He takes out a sign and pastes it on the door: AUTHORIZED PERSONEL ONLY. Then he locks the door again. Damn. A slouching, overweight Canadian security guard walks up to glass door. He has a kind face, but in this moment we hate everyone. He almost moves to unlock the door, then motions to a nonexistent watch and indicates that they were five minutes away.

Finally they let us in, and get immediately confused that Denise and I have a shit-ton of luggage. “That thing broken again?” a woman asks us incredulously. We nod, and she watches me heave four fifty-pound luggage bags onto a surface as tall as my chest, and then sends them down one by one. We watch the first one stall before plummeting into the underbelly of the airport.

“Hmm,” she says.

This is not something we like to hear.

“What?” I ask.

“It didn’t scan.”

“…will we get our bag in the end?”

“Oh yeah, they’ll just have to manually input the information later. It’ll get there.”

There’s no way this small event will ever come back and bite me in the ass, I think.

We move on. The scanner has difficulty with Denise’s glasses case. They remove it from her bag and look at the contents with suspicion. Inside is: Denise’s glasses. They decide it’s fine. We move onto the U.S. border guards.

Now, the entire time we had prepared for the border, we thought Denise’s entrance would be the most difficult. Turns out we were wrong. We each go to separate guards.

“Hello,” I say, handing over my documents.

“Hello,” he says, taking them and scanning them. “Where are you headed?”

“Michigan.”

“Alright.” He thinks for a second. “For how long?”

“Three months.”

His eyebrows rise. That’s not good. “For what?”

“I’m accompanying my spouse, who is a foreign medical student traveling to the states for her clerkship,” I say the rehearsed line I never thought I would have to rehearse.

“Do you have a job?”

“I did, I am now unemployed.”

“Where did you?”

“In the Caribbean.”

“So where’s home?”

I had to think for a minute. “Winnipeg.”

“You have a home here?”

“No, my parents live here.”

The man sits back in his chair, and looks at his screen. One image shows my black bag, and another shows a big fat question mark. He points to it. “Why isn’t there an image?”

My heart sinks. “She said it didn’t scan. It’s big, and green.” I hold my hands out wide, hoping to demonstrate just how large and impressive my luggage is. He looks back at me. This is when I realize the problem getting into the states will be me, not Denise: I am unemployed, have no ties whatsoever to Canada, no clear reason to want to come back to Canada, and now I have a mysterious bag that he can’t see.

“Sir, please come with me.”

Fuck.

So I get taken into a side room, with Denise not too far behind. Hers seems to be a simple matter of logistics that needed to be smoothed out. For me, they go through both of my bags, and find nothing suspicious. I’m all smiles. I am completely aware that I have very few rights entering the States, and that this is their duty to protect their country, but a part of me felt angry they were looking through my things. Such is life.

Turns out nothing is wrong with my bag, and I get pawned off on a woman who was having a bad day. While I was waiting for her to finish paperwork, she talks to the cleaning lady about how much she hates Winnipeg. She doesn’t like me much, either. I had originally told the security guard that I would be in Michigan for three months, as a general statement. Really it was closer to four months that I would need. So when I get my passport back, there’s an ominous, thick piece of paper stapled within it, with B-2 written on it, that says I cannot stay in the country past April 12, 2012. I counted it as a victory and moved on. More importantly, Denise got her B-1 for six months, which she will have to periodically renew over the next two years. She is not happy at the strict limit of my ability to stay in the U.S., but it strangely kind of works out anyhow, so long as I can get back in after that date.

Onwards and upwards. We fly to Chicago in the second smallest plane I’ve ever been in, and land in O’Hare in time. During the flight, I finished reading Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card on my Kindle. I’m officially hooked on that device. Also: great book.

We decidedly don’t like O’Hare Airport. It might as well be a city. It’s humongous, and very crowded. We passed three Starbucks going from one gate to another, and with our bags it was like a workout. Eventually, we get on the plane, and I pass out. I woke to a pleasant thought, and laughed. Denise, who has been stressed out most of the day because of the border, asks what is funny.

“We’re not going to Dominica,” I whisper.

“That is pretty awesome,” she agrees.

Finally, we’re in Michigan, in Saginaw’s cute little airport. Strangely, everyone around us was wearing long black leather coats, and we wondered if we were in The Matrix.

From what we could see, the area is a lot like Winnipeg: flat and covered in snow, bunches of trees off in the distance from the road, and a little eerie. This morning we got a better look, and at first glance, we think the town to be a little quaint (I’m looking forward to Mike and Ashley telling me otherwise). We got the keys to our apartment, and here we are.

Denise and I were concerned about the quality of the couch. As I had said in an earlier post, I hated our old couch. Denise said that she was guessing that our new one would be somewhere between the quality of our Dominica couch, and her parents' couch; the greatest couch ever created by man. So we could safely assume the couch would fall in that spectrum, as we were comparing the actual extremes of couch quality.

Denise’s nap (above) followed my lead; once we were set up, I felt suddenly exhausted, and tried out the nappability of the couch. It didn’t let me down. I slept phenomenally. I was trying to figure out why I was so tired, since I’d slept pretty well in our hotel the night before. It occurred to me that the ground has been shifting beneath our feet for the last couple of months, traveling and waiting on documents, and that finally we’re on solid ground, even if its only until April 12^th. It’s a nice respite.

Welcome to the blawg!

Hello, and thank you for coming to our new blog. This website is meant to replace our old blog, Sixteen Months in Dominica, to better reflect this new stage in Denise's epic quest to become a doctor. If I may offer a poor analogy:

-The last sixteen months were like high school. There were four semesters: the first you feel like a noob and make lots of mistakes; the second you wisen up a bit and still have some motivation; the third you get the confidence of being in one of the senior classes, but lose the drive that you had before; the fourth and final semester is exhausting and you do everything you can to just get out and move on.

-The next four months are like a summer between high school and university, if you needed to take that time and study for the SATs. That's the time we'll be in Michigan, as she prepares for the most important exam of her life, the USMLE.

-The twenty or so months after that are comparable to university, where you get greater freedom to direct your education, and it's theoretically much more fun. Denise will be getting hands-on experience here, learning what kind of medicine she actually enjoys.

This next stage in Denise's education is far less clear-cut than the year and four months we spent in Dominica. There is a wide variety of places and timelines she can follow. I hope to put as detailed a schedule up in the coming days, to provide some clarity about where we might be, when.