The view from our front porch taken by my mum My mum came to visit us for ten days recently. Mark was working most of the time and the girls were at school, so there were no big day trips to see the sights. Her experience was very much one of everyday living in the Goodacre household. Nevertheless, she didn't give the impression of being bored.
Perhaps next time we can show her a bit more of NC. Day 1 Lauren, Emily and I picked my mum up from the airport, then took her to Bojangles on the way home, so from the outset she was introduced to NC life. If you're American and reading this, you may wonder why, when she's dragged herself nearly 4, miles, I'm dragging her to places like Target instead of showing her the sights. The answer is that: My mum is very easy going, so she doesn't mind what we do.
Visiting quintessentially American places like Target and Walmart is part of the overall experience, so people who visit from the UK quite like doing this we particularly like to point out the sale of guns in Walmart and things like "no concealed firearms" signs on doors -- this really freaks the average Brit out.
Whatever we did had to fit into the school day. Emily's Birthday was drawing nigh and I had to buy her a present. In the end, we bought her a pair of rollerblades from Dick's.
Day 3 We had lunch at school with Lauren. This is a must for visitors because this too is a very American experience because: One cannot, in most if not all schools in the UK, waltz into the school to have lunch with one's child on any day of the week and without notice. The school dining hall is full of American children including Lauren's friends talking in their little American accents.
One also gets to hear Lauren talking to her friends in her American accent. We rounded off the day with a lovely curry made by my mum. Day 4: Emily's Birthday While the girls were at school and Mark was at work, my mum and I went shopping. Emily celebrated her birthday by going horse riding.
We rounded the day off with a calorie-intensive trip to the local Marble Slab Creamery Mmmmm Day 5 Today, it was sushi for lunch. In the evening, Emily had some friends over for pizza, cake and a Birthday sleepover.
Day 6 The plan for this day was for Lauren to attend a "cheer clinic" -- a one day cheerleading event held by the local high school to introduce children to cheerleading. Emily and her friends went bowling as part of her Birthday celebration. The idea was to drop them off at the bowling alley, then pick them up later.
What actually happened was that Mark dropped them off, then sat in the car reading, in the bowling alley car park, until it was time to pick them up. My mum and I stayed at home to look after Lauren. Day 7: Mum's Birthday She started the day with the opening of her card and present. We then went to church, then out to Golden Corral for lunch. I know what you're thinking -- "Couldn't you have taken her somewhere nicer than Golden Corral? She asked if we could go to Golden Corral and after much persuading we relented.
Day 8 Occasionally, I help in Lauren's class at school. This morning was one such occasion, so I had to leave my mum to fend for herself. We spent the afternoon postcard and smoothie shopping. Day 9 As I mentioned before , we've decided to apply for our greencards. Part of the application process involves a medical examination. This morning, we left my mum to fend for herself again while the four of us went for our medical examinations. In the afternoon we went for a walk by the lake. In the evening, Mark's friend Stephen , who happened to be in Raleigh came to see us.
We had a lovely chicken carbonara and garlic bread dinner, cooked by Mark and all the requisite wine and liqueurs. Stephen stayed the night, then went home the following morning. Day 10 One cannot come and see us without the obligatory trip to Duke.
The trip included a walk through the chapel and smoothies in the Bryan Center while Mark was teaching, followed by lunch in the Divinity School Refectory and a walk through the beautiful Sarah P. Duke Gardens.
Day 11 The last day. Mum didn't get to say goodbye to Lauren before she set off for school because this is the day that Lauren has her Choral Ensemble practice before school. Instead, we had lunch with Lauren so that my mum could have a chance to say goodbye to her. In the afternoon I took my mum to the local Lifeway Christian Store, where she didn't find anything worth buying.
Then Mark drove Emily to her horse riding lesson and my mum to the airport before going on to work. On the bright side, it's not long until Christmas. Labels: Birthdays , Visitors. Here's a fun video about whether or not Tony Blair should step down that was brought to my attention by a friend of Mark's : Joe Strummer Spins in His Grave. Labels: Politics.
Ren asked how my job search was going. I realised that back in November last year I mentioned the plan to get a job: Before leaving the UK, the plan was to come over to the US on a non-working visa. I would then apply for jobs where the employer could sponsor my upgrade to a working visa. A year begins in October and they start accepting applications for a given year at the beginning of the preceding April.
As we only moved to the US at the end of September last year, I'd pretty much missed the boat. I decided to aim for October With this in mind, I sent out my CV and covering letter to various companies, explaining my situation.
I managed to get a company to sponsor me to upgrade my H4 non-working visa to an H1B allows me to work. Unfortunately, the company were badly advised by the attorney that they had hired to guide us through the process. As soon as we realised that something was amiss, we wasted no time in finding another attorney who informed us that applications start being accepted in April, but that all 65, H1B visas were fully allocated by the 26th of May.
Now, we are aiming for October starting the application process in March, so that the application can be submitted at the beginning of April.
I've added another string to my bow in that we've decided to try applying for greencards. It turns out that I may be able to submit an application for a temporary work permit while my greencard application is being processed. We would have to apply for a greencard eventually anyway, so we may as well do it sooner rather than later.
Posted by Viola at am 3 comments. Labels: Practical Concerns , Visa. Nosferatu probably wouldn't be so fussy When I was younger, I used to give blood. I lapsed when I got pregnant for Emily because they don't take blood from pregnant women. Several years later, I tried to start giving blood again but they had tightened up the regulations and they no longer wanted my blood because I did not meet all the regulations.
One of the new rules was that if one had ever stayed outside the UK for a continuous period of six months or more, one could no longer give blood. Source The other week, our local church had a blood drive. My hopes were not high, but I thought that I'd pop along on the rather slim offchance that I might be able to give blood. The regulations here said that if one has visited the UK for longer than three months between and one cannot give blood because of a risk of vCJD.
Ah well, at least I tried. I can now not bother to give blood and not have to feel bad about it either. Let's just hope that my brain is not turning spongiform even as I am writing this. Labels: Everyday Living. How many have your name? It also turns out that neither of my daughters exist either.
At least it was a nice way to waste a few minutes. If I hadn't got married, though, I would exist. Statistically, there are nine Viola's in the US with my maiden name. OK, I've decided to take the plunge and ditch my old template in favour of moving over completely to Beta Blogger. As it is a beta, it has a number of issues that need sorting out and a few things that do my head in, but hopefully you won't be too bothered by them. If there are things about the new site that do your head in, let me know.
If I can do something about it I will. Otherwise, our fate is in the hands of the Beta Blogger team. Here's my previous post on the topic: Beta Blogger.
This blog post is built on my earlier post on Medical and Dental Insurance in the USA and on the comments that followed. I was interested in the question of how much the UK and US spend on health care so I thought that a fresh post on the topic was called for. As you probably know by now, I am a bit of a google addict a bit like the "Area Man" in this Onion article , so I decided to try and find out a bit more about health care expenditure in the UK and in the US.
I'm not an economist or a statistician, so if I've mis-interpreted anything that I've read, please feel free to enlighten me. This is pretty much stating the blindingly obvious because the US's health care is mostly privately owned, whereas the UK's is publicly owned. The US's overall expenditure on health is greater than the UK's, even after taking into account their high expenditure on pharmaceuticals. One might say that one can see the fruits of the greater expenditure on health care in the US.
For those who can afford it, private health care in the US offers better quality of service, access to more up-to-date drugs and treatments, greater empowerment of patients and a lack of waiting lists. In Britain, some who can afford it prefer to "go private" to circumvent the queues, so I suppose that although all are equal, some are always going to be more equal than others.
However, the NHS was founded on the principle that medical provision should be a human right for all, not a privilege for a few. Even if the average healthy UK tax payer is ploughing more into the health service than they are getting a return for, to those who are on low incomes or are non-tax payers the service is indeed free. I think that this is worth paying a bit more tax for if we need to.
Another thing is that if I, as a healthy individual, am to pay for health care that I haven't needed, I would prefer to give the money to a scheme that provides free health care to those who do need it, rather than lining the pockets of an insurance company. Posted by Viola at am 7 comments. Labels: Health Care. However, I would just like to express my loss of patience with the England football team. First it was to Macedonia, then to Croatia. Perhaps if Paul Robinson opened his eyes while standing in goal he'd be able to see if a ball happens to be coming in his direction!
These people get paid huge amounts of money. Perhaps they can put me on the England squad. I'd happily be paid a few million pounds to not be able to play football.
I'm sure that I would be quite good at providing a lacklustre performance and hoofing the ball into the wrong net. Year after year, tournament after tournament, good or bad, we get behind our team after all, they're all we've got. Come Euro if we qualify , I'll be singing the songs and flying the flags from my car window, but sometimes I lose patience and have to vent. Labels: Football , Sport. One aspect of US life that is a stark contrast to UK life is the reliance on insurance policies for medical and dental treatment.
We knew that in the US we would have to pay medical and dental insurance, but thought that the cost would be mostly offset by no longer having to pay National Insurance. This turned out to be a false assumption because one has to pay for one's own medical and dental insurance policies as well as paying for Medicare , Medicaid and Social Security.
People pay an amount each month out of their wages I suppose, a bit like people in the UK pay National Insurance. Medicare is an insurance policy to provide medical care for those over 65 years old and some disabled people. Medicaid is a policy that provides treatment for those who are below the federally-defined poverty level. As far as treatment is concerned, the UK media has countless nightmare stories about how people are treated on the NHS and I myself have had a few bad experiences.
If I moved house, I could just sign up at the nearest doctor's surgery. In short, the NHS provides treatment to anyone regardless of socioeconomic status for free or near-free. Medical and dental provision including prescribed medicines for children is always free and most provisions for most adults is also free. The option is available, for those who have the means, to pay for private medical provision, and private medicine does have its advantages.
However, this is voluntary. One does not have to subscribe to private medicine just because one is well-off.
This year we are celebrating it with absolutely zilch. Despite having recently had Halloween, it doesn't really make up for missing Guy Fawkes. I have to admit that Mark and I are feeling a bit bereft and homesick. We've had to watch the latest episode of Robin Hood to try and cheer ourselves up.
Posted by Viola at pm 0 comments. NOTE: The music file is. If you need to, just download the codec and extract it to a temporary folder. Install the codec by right-clicking on the file voxacm.
This week's highlight on was, without question, Monday's Daily Mayo featuring an interview with Dame Julie Andrews , whose starring role in The Americanization of Emily gives Viola's blog its name. Here is the FiveLive blurb: Dame Julie Andrews has reinvented herself as a writer, co-authoring 15 books with her daughter. The interview focused mainly on this new book, "A Great American Mousical". Apparently she has written lots of children's books in "The Julie Andrews Collection" and she authors with her daughter.
She also talked briefly, of course, about Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music but the parts of the interview that I enjoyed most were those where she reflected on living life as a British citizen in America. Although she only occasionally returns to the UK for public engagements, she said that she often comes back secretly to see family and friends. When Simon Mayo pointed out how well she had kept her British accent, she added that she had adapted to certain Americanisms for convenience, and one can hear them now in her voice, e.
I picked up one or two "t"s as "d"s which are very common in the US. I was delighted to hear that she still drinks a lot of tea, and has PG Tips and Marks and Sparks stuff sent over specially. We do something similar, though our British tea of choice is Yorkshire Tea. She brings marmite and marmalade back with her too, also like us, and she said that her husband Blake Edwards could not understand what she saw in the marmite, a common American reaction in our experience too. She said that she loved and missed England, and especially the Spring, but that she found Americans very friendly -- and they love the British.
One of the nicest elements in the interview was her explaining that although she lived in America, she did not see it as turning her back on Britain. On the contrary, she saw herself as a representative of Britain. You should be able to download and listen to the interview again for a several more days. Posted by Mark Goodacre at am 3 comments.
Subscribe via Feedburner. Subscribe to email updates: Delivered by FeedBurner. Friday, November 24, Electrics and Electronics. Posted by Viola at pm 6 comments Labels: Announcements. Mark writes: As Viola has mentioned before , one of my favourite bands is The Fall , a band you can't begin to explain or introduce to newcomers except to say that they are unique, bizarre, unpredictable and have been going for almost thirty years.
Vauxhall Corsa: Touch Sensitive. Mitsubishi Outlander: Blindness. Heralding the Return of the Everyday Eavesdropper. Posted by Viola at pm 1 comments Labels: Announcements. Saturday, November 11, Preying on a Mantis. Posted by Viola at pm 3 comments Labels: Wildlife. Wednesday, November 08, What Katydid. Posted by Viola at am 1 comments Labels: Wildlife. Halloween II. Posted by Viola at am 1 comments Labels: Public Holidays.
Posted by Viola at pm 0 comments Labels: Public Holidays. Software Images icon An illustration of two photographs. Images Donate icon An illustration of a heart shape Donate Ellipses icon An illustration of text ellipses. EMBED for wordpress. Want more? Advanced embedding details, examples, and help! A reliable audio codec that can help you get high-quality sounds even when dealing with very low bit-rates, provided your tracks contain only voice Whenever you encounter issues with sound playback on your computer, chances are that you need to download and install a dedicated codec.
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