Pip pip! Moving to England and have questions

[cariad]

Visa-ed! As of today (though it's backdated to March 21). Consultant says it's the fastest she's ever seen.

I am all of a sudden feeling weird about it, melancholy. The American part of my kids' life has ended.

[cassandra]

Aw Cariad, congrats, and its only a visa, meaning no end  . Just a new beginning. Success with whatever else needs sorting (cos to me it all sounds never ending 
              )

Here it's sunny, freezing, a lovely Easter Day. I hope you all have a nice one too.

Lots of love Cas

[jbeany]

It might be the fastest the consultant has ever seen, but it seems like it's taken forever!

[cariad]

It might be the fastest the consultant has ever seen, but it seems like it's taken forever!

True, that!

As usual, Cas, you are there with just the right words. A new beginning, indeed, full of promise.

 

[cariad]

Right! So anyone who's been following the ridiculousness of trying to relocate to another country on short notice may find this interesting.

When I was on a visitor's visa, I was forced to return to the US in order to apply for my visa allowing me to live and work in the UK. It had to be the US as I was not allowed to apply from any other country in the world.

Well, I just realised that my boys' US passports expired yesterday. They have valid British passports, but now the only country in the world where they are *not* allowed to travel is the US.

Oh the irony!

[willowtreewren]

Then I don't guess you will be popping over for a bear viewing expedition to the Smoky Mountains any weekend soon. 

Aleta

[cariad]

Then I don't guess you will be popping over for a bear viewing expedition to the Smoky Mountains any weekend soon. 

Aleta

Whoa, hang on there! I said *the boys* weren't allowed back in the US, my passport, however, is valid for another 5 years!

[cariad]

We've had our leaver's assembly, it was yesterday. Blistering hot outside, full house, the year 6ers all sat up on stage performing, reading short speeches, singing and dancing. If I ever hear that emotionally manipulative song "When I Grow Up" from Matilda again, I will not be responsible for my actions. What on earth did they sing in these assemblies before that show came out? To give you an idea of how many times we've heard it, Dyl knows all the words and he hasn't been in any performance of it. Aidan shocked us by saying that he plans to get his Ph.D in chemistry. Well, you kept that secret, Aidan!

I spent the day trying to get all the gifts for teachers together, secretly pulling the kids aside to write thank you notes that should have been completed the night before, making sure that I knew who was leaving early so that we got to give something to everyone on our list. They have a brilliant wine shop here that lets you freely taste their samples, but they have a 6-bottle minimum to purchase. We spent about £90 quid on bottles of rose for the women and cases of craft beer for the gents, with a £10 cinema gift card to the IT teacher who always rides his bike to work.

The instructors did not seem aware that Dylan is also not coming back, so I spared myself the grief that I would have received had I told the head. I did tell the PE teacher, Dyl's current teacher, and the teacher Dyl would have had next year. I barely survived that last one. Dyl adores this man, and he was finishing up his master's education by assistant teaching in Dyl's class at the start of the year, and then he left Dyl's class and Dyl was devastated. I handed this man his case of beer with a big bow on it, then we stood there in the sweltering sun and when I told him that Dyl was not returning to the school he said "Oh, no. I won't even get one term with him?" I explained that Dyl did not realise that he would have got to have him as a teacher if we were keeping him there, and as I was talking to the teacher and telling him what he meant to my son, all I could think was that I knew that card tucked under the bow closed with "I wish you were still my teacher." Then as we were walking away this man called out to him "Dylan, good luck at [next school]. You'll make friends quickly." It felt like living through the end of a beautiful but tragic novel. Everything that seemed so clear a few months ago isn't any longer.

The school year is just too long here. We slept until almost 9AM this morning, the four of us feel quite wrecked. Circus training starts Monday.

[Poppylicious]

The school year is just too long here.

I second that!  And now they want to make the summer holidays even shorter.  Ridiculous. (Is it really longer [190 days/38 teaching weeks] or do we have more days off throughout the year - a minimum seven weeks off between September and July, including half-term hols?)

Hope the boys enjoy their summer holiday!

[cariad]

(Is it really longer [190 days/38 teaching weeks] or do we have more days off throughout the year - a minimum seven weeks off between September and July, including half-term hols?)

I don't know, to be honest. The number 186 is in my head for minimum number of school days in America, but I think with all the different types of schools it can vary a fair bit. One thing they do in America that they don't do here is make up snow days at the end of the school year. We had a blizzard in Milwaukee a few years back and the school year was extended by the two days that the kids stayed home. Of course we had the British equivalent of a blizzard here six months ago and those were just free days for the boys.

I suppose it's nice always having that week-long break on the horizon but it still feels so much longer. Sending my kids to school in July felt really wrong, it's the one month that I've never known kids to be in school for back in the US. Speaking of, my poor kids asked me what we were going to do on July 4 and I had to respond "Erm, yeah, you'll be in school...." I then briefed them on what exactly July 4 was meant to commemorate, and good job because sure enough the head teacher asked if any of the Americans (and there were 4 including my kids) wanted to stand up and tell the school about the day. The other American in Dyl's class called out "It's my country's birthday" and then Dyl and Aidan stood up and gave the detailed account of historical events, including addressing the elephant in the room - which country the Declaration of Independence declared independence from.

[willowtreewren]

I so enjoy reading your posts. We had parents crying at the end of school this year. I understand the feeling of regret.    But then, turn your face toward the sun and look forward to a new adventure for the boys in a new school. 

I loved the bit about July 4th! 

[cariad]

I've moved this discussion from here http://ihatedialysis.com/forum/index.php?topic=2532.1150 because it has gone so far off topic, but I feel I need to respond to this.

"Linguistic competence" can certainly be shaped by perception, and I perceive Jo Brand as seeing herself as valiant and special precisely BECAUSE she is a rebel in a man's world, which I sometimes view as being smug.  But that's OK.  Sometimes I find it brave, but sometimes I find it, well, smug.  She can be unkind, and I don't believe that raging against a stereotype should give her special permission to be so.  But as I think about this a bit more, there is something about the quality of her voice, perhaps its timbre, that aurally conveys smugness.  Yes, I think that's what it is.  It's not so much what she says but, rather, HOW she says it.  She is monotonal, and that is not a criticism.  It's merely my own personal observation.  In some people, monotonality conveys dullness, but that is certainly not the case with Jo Brand.  To my ear, she SOUNDS smug.  On some days, I find this amusing.  On other days, I don't.  But she never fails to entertain me on some level!

I can understand why you may hear smugness where I don't. That's just differences in individual perception. Comedy is so often cruel, while I've not heard anything 'unkind' from Jo Brand, I would only point to any male comedian (Any. Single. One.) who is undoubtedly frequently unkind and no one calls them on it. Frankie Boyle, while incredibly funny and quick in settings such as Mock The Week, is an unmitigated a-hole when free to do his own thing. These are people living much of their lives in front of an audience. Their image is their stock and trade, so they must be quite considered in which persona they choose. "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be very careful about what we pretend to be." (vonnegut) Jo Brand, Stephen Fry, it's an act, even when they pretend it's not, because frankly it's an act for most of us in our jobs and our lives, we just play to a smaller audience. We "prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet" (Eliot) and only a miniscule number of people will ever know us well enough to really be able to do anything more than wildly speculate about us.

Linguistic competence, as far as I've ever been taught, is the shared understanding that native speakers have about word usage that you cannot get from a dictionary, which is why I brought it up. For example, the Italian gondalier all those years ago who was trying to sell us a ride on his gondola, as we walked away he called to my sister and me "Lady, lady...." and my sister giggled to me "I don't think he realises how bad that sounds". No, of course he didn't, he had obviously learnt that 'lady' is the polite English word for female, and was not proficient enough to know that that's how people address you when they're being insulting. The dictionary lists smug and arrogance as synonyms and didn't address what I consider the difference between the two words. If it is just me and my perception, then it wouldn't be linguistic competence.

I don't need you to understand why this bothers me so much.  All I can say is get back to me after you've lived there for 20 years.  You already have an established family.  I did not.  I was pretty much on my own.

I really don't appreciate how angry this sounds, nor the dismissive tone. I never implied that you 'needed' me to understand anything and really don't get how yet another innocuous discussion has turned so defensive. It was just something I was curious about that you know perfectly well you could have just ignored or said "I don't really want to get into this." I thought you were difficult to offend, yet I seem to have a magic touch with that. I seem to be misinterpreted by many members here, and of course the accusations of 'attack' have lost all meaning to me ever since someone told me that he was reporting every post I made regardless of content.

When I first came over here to shack up with Gwyn for the start of our crazy, sexy, romantic years together, no, I didn't have an "established family", I wasn't even officially 'the girlfriend'. In the first months there was all sorts of focus on the speech differences, but that, thankfully, quickly got boring for all. The primary difference I saw between here and America was that his British friends were happy to meet me and include me in whatever, his American friends got their backs up and were ridiculously competitive with me over who knows Gwyn best and who is closer friends with him. I don't understand why I get this reaction every time I date someone, but I do (did) and it was just so refreshing to be accepted so quickly, and such a disappointment when we moved back to America and I met the American friends and hopelessly Americanized Brits. There is a reason I prefer the UK to America. Actually, reasons, a laundry list, some of which I've mentioned on here and don't feel the need to repeat.

And the things I heard were most assuredly NOT "taking the piss" nor as silly as jokes about who shags the most sheep.  Has anyone yet approached you out of the blue to ask you to justify American foreign policy in some country or another?   Have you yet heard that conversation on the bus about, say, how of course Americans are going to side with Amanda Knox?  Or how about the talk with your GP when he says that Americans think they can throw money at a health issue and think it will go away when all you've done is ask if you could have a second opinion about a dire diagnosis?   As you know, I'm a big sports fan and listened to sports talk radio while living in the UK, so it was always such fun when, every damn year, some radio host would rage about how it was illustrative of Americans' arrogance when they called their baseball championship "The World Series"!!!  (And of course he never thought to research WHY it's called that.)  Oh, and my God...the Ryder Cup!  Yes, the wives of the American players were always the personifications of Barbie.  As you see, I can go on and on and on and on.  Stephen Fry's comments in and of themselves were just one small piece of a much bigger picture of arrogance/smugness/inferiority/superiority (whichever term you'd like to use) that I got to experience during my years as a resident of the UK.  Suffice it to say, it really got on my wick.  (Off topic rant, I know.)

I have had all sorts of experiences here centred around the fact that I am American, and yes, I have heard the assumptions and had the conversations and read the emails that are endlessly circulated, just as Gwyn has had a similar list of experiences in America (and usually it starts with his country being made completely invisible by the initial question 'what part of England are you from?' Often made worse by the follow-up question 'Oh, like the Prince of Wales?'). I simply don't have it in me to take these random encounters personally, and again, since you identify as being difficult to offend, I was just surprised by your reaction, with no judgement of you meant one way or the other. I don't get the sense that you want to hear any of my experiences, so I won't bother. They apparently wouldn't mean anything to you as I haven't been here an arbitrary number of years that will somehow validate them. I feel bad for you that you have these unpleasant memories surrounding this country. Socially, I have felt more welcome and at home here than almost anywhere in America.

I DO feel sorry for Stephen Fry and for his struggles.  It must be hard to be him.

Mental illness is horrible. Statistically, his suicide risk is sky-high.

[cariad]

I think I can officially say we're settled here. I am the happiest I think I have ever been since marrying Gwyn, and though it took 18 months or so to sort everything out, I wouldn't change it for the world. The struggle makes one appreciate it all the more I think. (OK, I'd change a thing or two if I could, but you get my meaning....)

It's been like a treasure hunt as I've tried to collect everything since we moved. I have a bank account and mobile phone (this was a much bigger deal than you'd think!), a full British driving license, my own car, a national insurance number, NHS number, a house and a part-time job that I surprisingly enjoy. My kids are in what we consider to be the two best schools in town and we don't pay any tuition for these.

Aidan is on a football team that  gets positively crushed every week, but he has said he never wants to go back to the team he was on before that was undefeated (several of the kids would only pass to their friends and Aidan was ignored by about half the team, we assume because they are threatened by new talent). It doesn't seem to bother Aidan all that much that this current team loses every game - he gets on so well with every last teammate, and Gwyn and I just sit on the sidelines laughing nonstop with the other parents.

I have fallen in with a great group of friends (not that most of us have time to see each other these days, but that's OK!) as have both of my boys, Gwyn has made new friends and reconnected with previous ones. We see one friend every month or so to compete in a pub quiz, which I adore. There's no expectation that I will know much of anything, unless there's a question about America, so that takes much of the pressure off. (As is obvious from my actions on here, I do enjoy a trivia game now and again.)

Aidan has been getting involved with all that secondary school has to offer, so he joined drama club, and next thing I heard he had the lead in their play. This is pretty intense work - a preview, and then multiple performances. He's only 11, and he started out being given the lead to split with another boy - Aidan would play the character when he was younger, a year 8 boy would play him older, but the director moved the year 8 boy to another part and now Aidan has to play the part all through. He and Dyl are part of a choir singing with a famous opera singer in April.

Dyl learnt to swim! I never thought it would happen but his new school taught him and then gave him a certificate of achievement for it. I ran in to his Spanish teacher the other day and she said he is doing so well and that much of the language is coming back to him. He also had a speaking part in his school play about Africa, and I swear he did a perfect South African, it was spooky as he really has no reason to know what the accent sounds like. He also has memorized the witches' spell from MacBeth and not only recites it in a witchy voice, but with an English accent. It's amazing. Both of my kids say they are 'famous' at school for being 'the American' and have kids asking to hear them speak frequently.

So, it's coming together, getting better every day. Still plenty of stresses surrounding issues both here and in America, but I think with the feeling that our luck has finally turned, we can face it all more easily.

[willowtreewren]

What a delight to read! I'm so glad that things are coming together and life is treating you well. 

 

Aleta

[amanda100wilson]

Cariad, I am a Brit living in America (been here for nearly 14 years).  I get had very similar comments/questions throughout that time, an this is my perspective of from the other way around.  At least one of these crops up nearly every time I go out, so I try to answer nicely because a I know that the comments are well-intentioned and it is a way of making conversation.  Variations on a theme:

1.  "Are you from England?"  Or, "are you from England or Australia?" Or are you from "England, Australia or South Africa?"  Followed by:
2. "I love your accent", or If their guess is correct, "oh, I am so good at accents", or "I knew that it was one of them", or "I can't tell the difference".

When my In-laws visit from Wales they get  the same questions, and in their innocence tell the person asking the question how they are not from England, but from Wales, and then continue to tell that person, in great detail, all about the place, whilst completely failing to see the blank look on peoples' faces.  I am from England, but even if I wasn't for simplicity's sake, would say that I did. 

3.  "Where are you from?"

When I reply, I get the same blank expression.  May just make up some strange name and see if I get a response.  Then there are some pretty strange place names in the UK anyway, so I could just try one of them.  Usually I just say London, because most people have a) been there, b) want to go there, c) have a friend or relative who lives there or at least know it's relative location, and so we have an instant connection.  Mind you, when I tell people in the UK that I live in The US, I get comments such as "I know someone who lives in New York" as I have should know them (I live in Georgia, have lived in California and have never been to New York).

Often it gets onto the Royal Family, who, like many Brits, I am not a huge supporter of.  In fact, I am certain that I have met more Ametican supporters than I have British ones. The assumption seems to be that I love to talk about them.

4. As Conversation opener about Royal Family, "I was so sad when Diana died".  My reply, "I didn't like her".  Talk about Diana continues, moves onto Kate and baby.  Meanwhile, my brain is glazing over, while I still to keep a look of interest on my face.

On a slightly less pleasant level, I had heard so much misinformation about the NHS, and how crap Brirish people's' teeth are.  Funnily enough, I don't know many people my age in the UK who have a full set of dentures, but I have seen plenty of Americans (always poor ones) who clearlly do.

Despite my brain numbing up slightly when I get the same questions, we are happily settled here, have a lovely home in a beautiful neighborhood, my son was born here, and goes to a great school.  We don't have any plans to live in the UK in the near future, although we still have a house there that is currently rented out.

[cariad]

1.  "Are you from England?"  Or, "are you from England or Australia?" Or are you from "England, Australia or South Africa?"  Followed by:
2. "I love your accent", or If their guess is correct, "oh, I am so good at accents", or "I knew that it was one of them", or "I can't tell the difference".

Every once in a while I confuse the Aussie accent for English, don't think I've made the mistake the other way, but possibly. I don't claim to be that good with accents, though. When I first heard Gwyn's accent I asked if it was Scottish, but to my credit, had certainly heard of Wales and proceeded to prove it by babbling to him about how much I love Richard Burton and Anthony Hopkins. (Especially Richard Burton - dreamy!) Anyhow, I've learnt to keep my mouth shut. I thought I had the accent of the woman who owns the tea shop next to work sussed - she sounded like Sarah Millican to me, so I thought, 'Ah, clever me, she's from Newcastle!' Then my colleague told me she's actually from Alberta, Canada. D'oh!

I was told today that I must be losing my American accent because a family from Portland were not sure that I was American. I've only been to Portland once but I did say "I've seen Portlandia, though, and I assume that's some sort of documentary!" To which the father said "Sadly, it pretty much is!"

When my In-laws visit from Wales they get  the same questions, and in their innocence tell the person asking the question how they are not from England, but from Wales, and then continue to tell that person, in great detail, all about the place, whilst completely failing to see the blank look on peoples' faces.  I am from England, but even if I wasn't for simplicity's sake, would say that I did. 

Whoa, hold the phone! You're in-laws, and I assume your husband, are Welsh?! Why is this the first I'm hearing of this?! Trust me, if you were Celtic you would never, never, never take the easy way out if it meant saying you were English. Unless you happened to be a very different Celt from the ones I've known. They unanimously find being mistaken for English as a huge insult.

3.  "Where are you from?"

When I reply, I get the same blank expression.  May just make up some strange name and see if I get a response.  Then there are some pretty strange place names in the UK anyway, so I could just try one of them.  Usually I just say London, because most people have a) been there, b) want to go there, c) have a friend or relative who lives there or at least know it's relative location, and so we have an instant connection.  Mind you, when I tell people in the UK that I live in The US, I get comments such as "I know someone who lives in New York" as I have should know them (I live in Georgia, have lived in California and have never been to New York).

I have it easy with this one. If I sense they've never heard of my hometown I can always say LA as it is still considered 'the greater Los Angeles area'. Milwaukee I always describe as 80 miles north of Chicago, I don't wait for them to ask. In South Africa this never worked, I think they've heard of New York and LA and that was pretty much it. I would tell them we were right in the middle of the country in Milwaukee. Who knows what they were picturing at that point.

Often it gets onto the Royal Family, who, like many Brits, I am not a huge supporter of.  In fact, I am certain that I have met more Ametican supporters than I have British ones. The assumption seems to be that I love to talk about them.

4. As Conversation opener about Royal Family, "I was so sad when Diana died".  My reply, "I didn't like her".  Talk about Diana continues, moves onto Kate and baby.  Meanwhile, my brain is glazing over, while I still to keep a look of interest on my face.

Gwyn detests the royal family, and I am indifferent. I go out of my way to not learn anything about them but it's inescapable at times. Did you hear when William said that being a dad was harder than being a pilot. I gave out a bitter laugh at that one. Are you trying to convince us that you don't have a teeming hoard of people helping you at every moment? And by the way, his son was THREE WEEKS OLD at that point. Sheesh, don't try to relate to us commoners, it only makes you sound condescending and more out of touch than I thought possible!

On a slightly less pleasant level, I had heard so much misinformation about the NHS, and how crap Brirish people's' teeth are.  Funnily enough, I don't know many people my age in the UK who have a full set of dentures, but I have seen plenty of Americans (always poor ones) who clearlly do.

This doesn't surprise me at all.

Despite my brain numbing up slightly when I get the same questions, we are happily settled here, have a lovely home in a beautiful neighborhood, my son was born here, and goes to a great school.  We don't have any plans to live in the UK in the near future, although we still have a house there that is currently rented out.

It's all about finding the spot where you feel at home! I am very happy you found it in my country and I found it in yours.

[amanda100wilson]

My father in law is actually English but has lived in Wales most of his life.  To the Welsh, he is still English.  My mother in law and my husband are from South Wales, so to those in a North Wales would barely consider them Welsh anyway! .

Britain is so small when compared to some of the States in the US, so giving a standard reply that I am from near London, when adked Where I am from, is not to far from the truth anyway.

[cariad]

My father in law is actually English but has lived in Wales most of his life.  To the Welsh, he is still English.

This is so true. I really think as a country they could stand to work on this. I know Gwyn dislikes the English as a concept, but on an individual level he has more English friends than Welsh. I am resisting the urge to write 'some of his best friends are English' (though this is true) because of course this is what people say when they've just said or done something racially idiotic and are now trying to prove that they are not hateful bigots.

My mother in law and my husband are from South Wales, so to those in a North Wales would barely consider them Welsh anyway! .

Also true, at least in some circles. They do have every bit as much of a North/South divide as the English, although I think the status is flipped in Wales, at least the northerners would like to think so. It's mostly down to whether or not you speak the language - in answering the question of what makes a person Welsh, language is a big one. There is that long-standing example of how the North/South dialects are literally backwards in relation to one another. If you speak and know the word for 'now' in both dialects, the Southies say 'nawr' and the northerners (like my husband) say 'rwan'. I don't know how bothered Gwyn would be if the boys learnt southern dialect Welsh as they would still be able to understand northern speech. It is a very personal thing, one's language. I have used southern dialect and he will usually say "what sort of Southie bullsh!t is that?" but it's better than me using no Welsh at all I suppose.

Britain is so small when compared to some of the States in the US, so giving a standard reply that I am from near London, when adked Where I am from, is not to far from the truth anyway.

Agreed!

What a delight to read! I'm so glad that things are coming together and life is treating you well. 

 

Aleta

Thanks so much for reading, Aleta! Hope you are feeling well these days! I know that like me, the sunnier, warmer weather will at least help your mood.

Boys had a street dance exam yesterday, parents are not allowed to watch so we have to rely on the kids to assess how they did. Dyl was told by the examiner that he did 'great'. Aidan, of course, got the comment "I could watch you all day!" I think they both passed but not sure when it will be official. They were practicing in our back garden and it was so cool, I think Gwyn will be putting a video up on FaceBook.

Off to work....

[cariad]

I was hired to work very part-time, 3 days a week, but so far I have been working five days a week, still part time, but with the pick-ups and drop-offs and generally shuttling of children every day, it doesn't leave me much free time. I'm not complaining, though, I've had far too much free time being ill! The exhausting thing about this job is it requires me to be ON at all times. Smiley, bubbly, witty. I get asked at least five times a day "Are you from America?" "Where is your accent from?" "You're a long way from home, aren't you?" We had a quick dinner with our Aussie/English couple friends, and I asked the Aussie (who had this job before me) if she got that a lot, and she said no. I said it must be the English obsession with America, then, because I could not understand why countless English people seem to want my attention.

Put my foot in it a bit with a regular who has some mysterious ties to the local boys' private school, and I was telling a co-worker about how little I thought of that school.  This regular comes from a wealthy family and doesn't seem to do much all day but go from one tea room to the next (It's actually quite sad in my opinion. I don't think he has kids so I'm not sure why he feels such a need to defend that school. Perhaps he's an alum.) We left on a friendly note, I think, but he hasn't been back all week. We actually ended with a discussion of Stephen Fry's criminal record (when he was a teen) and mental illness, so I guess there was some use in me skimming a few biographical pages on the man.

Went to parents' evening for Aidan's school. About a dozen teachers to see, each for only five minutes. It was embarrassing after awhile, but in a good way. The drama teacher gushed over him. I have told people that it is a rare 11-year-old who has that certain something that makes them a wonderful dramatist at such a young age, and I have said that I don't feel that Aidan is one of them. Well, she told us that he has "it" and she sees "a spark" in him that not all kids have. She said they don't self-congratulate as a rule in her class, but that all the kids up to sixth-form applauded Aidan at their last rehearsal as he was leaving to rush off to choral practice. Wow. She then noticed Gwyn's shirt (Welsh Rugby Union) and put on a wonderful Welsh accent. I told her that Aidan chose drama club over rugby (true) and that was probably the highest compliment he could pay someone, choosing them over a sport.

We got a similar reaction from the head of year who teaches him maths. He's two years above his expected age group. We crashed the music teacher's room since we could not pre-book an appointment with him, and he said Aidan is so charming that on the one hand he doesn't want to suppress his humour, but on the other hand, it can get disruptive. We told him that the moment Aidan is comfortable at a school, he has a hard time turning off the socializing. His English teacher, to my complete surprise, says he reads at a 14-year-old level, and I told her I was fed-up with all the Percy Jackson and no classics. She said (quite jovially) that she was going to start bullying Aidan to read those types of books, but did urge me to beware of some of the content as it could be too advanced for him. (I've read Animal Farm 3 times, so don't think there is anything too graphic or horrible in there.)

The RE teacher was also lovely, very shy man, it seemed. Dyl bizarrely sat down across from him and started talking to him, something he never does, so quite odd. We discussed how Aidan comes from an atheist household but that we were delighted he would be learning about these religions. I knew this man had a very sad story, which he brought up (I'm so glad I have training/experience in dealing with such episodes, because Gwyn proves to be useless in these situations.) The teacher's eldest son died, and I think it's all the more tragic that his son would be Aidan's age were he still alive. This must be one of the harder years for him to endure, but he has his faith, so whatever works.

History, DT, Spanish and geography were fine, art teacher went home without seeing us due to miscommunication, PE teacher was fully booked and couldn't see us, and the most hilarious was the IT teacher. I had to see her alone as Gwyn took Aidan to judo for his regular class, and I realised very early in our conversation that she had no idea whom I was talking about when I gave his name. She said he was very quiet which had me blurting out "Aidan [SURNAME]??" She then tried to cover with "Well, let me look him up. I teach a lot of Aidans." (No you don't....) She looked him up, saw his picture, and obviously that didn't help her much so she filled the five minutes with some of the most general rambling I've ever heard. I compared it to having your horoscope read: "He usually puts a good effort forward, but he could do more."

All in all, a lovely, tiring evening.

[cariad]

Received a knock on the door yesterday. It was FedEx with tubes and paperwork from Chicago. I did say I would have chimerism testing done here is they desired, but they were supposed to email me and let me know that it was on its way. I feel strangely overwhelmed by this - we have lots going on here right now and I have no idea if I can trust the local hospital to not muck this up. Past experience says no. I also don't know if the chemicals in the tubes are time sensitive so if I don't get round to this for a month, will it render the results invalid?

Sigh. I know I need to just go through all the paperwork and suss out how to proceed. It appears that they don't need Gwyn's blood so at least we don't have to schedule that (it has to be drawn at the same time). I just hope they'll hand the blood over to me so I can ship it back, otherwise there is no way I can trust that it will be done. The local hospital reminds me of USC in the way they seem to have some sort of black hole that all of my results get sucked into for all eternity.

[MooseMom]

Well, this sounds like a pain in the hat, especially during the Easter break.    Hope you can get it sorted! 

[willowtreewren]

Well, this sounds like a pain in the hat, especially during the Easter break.    Hope you can get it sorted! 

ditto to that! 

[cassandra]

Well, I doubt the hospital would want to ship it themselves, but good luck with it anyhow

Love, Cas

[natnnnat]

Great to read your posts from England, sounds like generally, things are suiting you nicely. 
EXCELLENT NEWS

[okarol]

Received a knock on the door yesterday. It was FedEx with tubes and paperwork from Chicago. I did say I would have chimerism testing done here is they desired, but they were supposed to email me and let me know that it was on its way. I feel strangely overwhelmed by this - we have lots going on here right now and I have no idea if I can trust the local hospital to not muck this up. Past experience says no. I also don't know if the chemicals in the tubes are time sensitive so if I don't get round to this for a month, will it render the results invalid?

Sigh. I know I need to just go through all the paperwork and suss out how to proceed. It appears that they don't need Gwyn's blood so at least we don't have to schedule that (it has to be drawn at the same time). I just hope they'll hand the blood over to me so I can ship it back, otherwise there is no way I can trust that it will be done. The local hospital reminds me of USC in the way they seem to have some sort of black hole that all of my results get sucked into for all eternity.

Ugh! I rarely trust anyone anymore. I am with you, I'd prefer to send it off myself.
Sounds like all else is going well. Love reading your updates!