A Change in the Air

I

don't really want to jinx myself, but I must say I feel a change in my fortunes. Since last May--and I don't know why it would start in May--I have been subjected to one disaster after another. For those of you who have been reading for about a year, you'll remember that it all started with the news that my stepson was having difficulty living independently in Japan.

I won't go into detail, but M had to go to Japan and bring him here for some R&R to clear his mind. But when they returned to the US, she found out here green card had expired and was on the brink of sending her back to Japan. Fortunately, they didn't, but now she is no longer a "permanent resident" which nullified my other stepsons application for residency. While I struggled to figure out what to do, my father passed away in July. As if that wasn't bad enough, in August I went with M to court to clear up her green card issue, only to meet with a judge who is pretty much a hardcase and all but threatened to deport M, and told us we needed to find "adequate" legal representation for a court date scheduled in January. Then in September, I learned that my stepson's passport expired. Since he is--legally speaking--illegal, he can't even renew his Japanese passport. I'm going through all this while I teach four courses at school with students who are--how can I put this--strong-willed? Oh well. In November, the younger stepson returns to Japan to apply for a student visa, which I had helped him put together and fill out on weekends, only to find out that he was rejected out of hand by the US embassy in Tokyo. As December comes, I feel relief at the end of the semester when I pass out from a high fever on Christmas Eve thanks to acute bronchitis. Still, I figure that our luck has got to change in the New Year, and I look forward to clearing up M's residency issue at court, but on that day, it snows in the afternoon--the only day is snows in January--and we are rescheduled for August. Of course, her residency is left in limbo, leaving my stepson without a leg to stand on when he receives a letter from Immigration for an "interview". Fortunately, things turn out that he doesn't have to be deported, but we need to apply "ASAP" which, of course, means after August.

Yeah, it's been one of those years...

Throughout all this, I keep telling myself that at least everyone is healthy--my Dad's death and my two bouts with bronchitis notwithstanding. I refuse to be beat down by all this and continue to move forward. Two weeks ago, I found a leak in the basment and thought it was from the outside--A leak in the foundation? I panicked. But fortunately, it was only a leak in the wax seal in the plumbing. And the paper I was to turn in at the end of May? I got a phone call from the editor yesterday, and she told me the deadline was pushed back to the end of June. Whew! And with a small class of enthusiastic and well-behaved students this summer, things are definitely looking up. Of course, the icing on top is the fact that I now have some time to spend on Xanga with you guys.