I Need a Vacation!
The past 2 weeks have been a blur, which is unusual for me. Yes, I have busy and stressful moments, but the variety of issues taking place recently took me to uncharted waters.
For those of you that follow our blog, I discussed our family taking in a foreign exchange student for a month. Midway through her time with us, the agency that brought her and about 2 dozen other students to our city had a major personnel upheaval. The situation brought a lot of confusion and mistrust between host families, students, and the agency itself.
Now that the transition month is over, there still are several students without permanent placements for the school year and our student is one of them. I’ve been busy with phone calls and emails to various agencies and bureaucrats trying to straighten things out, but no one wants to take the lead and say, “OK, enough. Now, here’s what we’re going to do to fix this.” Why is it always the ones that have no clue on how to fix something the ones that call the shots. How did that happen?
Last week, it was my 5-year old starting Kindergarten. Thank God, and I do mean “THANK GOD“, that there were no issues surrounding that transition. My daughter was eager to move up and we were happy to share in her excitement. Ahhhh, to return to Kindergarten for a week and escape adult life.
Our church is going through a big transition that I’m not totally sold on yet, but nevertheless it’s going forward and it’s producing more of a demand on my wife’s time since she is active in its Music Department. So during these times that she is away at rehearsal, I’m trying to come up with things that my 5-year old, 18-year old student, and I can do together. One can only sleep in so late on Saturday to avoid making a decision, and watching Playhouse Disney gets old for me and our student real quick. Of course, my 5-year old is in a hypnotic state in front of the tube and getting all excited when her “favorite” show is coming on next.
The hot weather here in the Southeast has made outdoor activities out of the question, but the silver lining is that my grass is nearly all burned up so I don’t have to get out the mower. The only thing green was the water in my 20-gallon fountain in my garden, which I did drain, clean, and refill.
The Labor Day weekend could not have come at a better time, but I feel certain that the 3-day weekend is going to fall short of the break I need. This weekend I’m hoping for a non-stop rain event, so I can get a stack of movies from Blockbuster and just kick back in my recliner and become unresponsive until Tuesday morning when the game of Life starts all over again.
on August 30th, 2007 at 6:24 am
It’s been a long wonderful summer and the weather has been fairly mild up here in the Northeast. I understand, however, how high temps can ruin some of the best outdoor activities.
Hopefully the upcoming extended weekend will give you the break you so desperately need. I’ll cross my fingers and keep a close eye on the weather.
on August 30th, 2007 at 8:47 am
I enjoy and look forward to the summer fruits and veggies from local farm. The one large I dread about summer is the heat and humidity which limits outdoor activities along with the ticks & mosquitoes. Guess that’s summer!
Trust your exchange student’s parents took your advice and also contacted the agency involved. ALL the families of these students need to have a concentrated and combined effort in their local country to put a ‘right’ to this ‘wrong’. They have invested not only money but a priceless treasure - their child!
on August 30th, 2007 at 8:50 am
addition/correction to previous comment posted:
“The one MAJOR THING
I dread about summer—-”
on September 20th, 2007 at 4:20 pm
Barry,
I went through the same thing with a foreign exchange agency and found the needed help through the Committee for Safety of Foreign Exchange Students. http://www.csfes.org and toll free number 866-471-9203. Your situation repeats itself over and over again, year after year, and the state department allows these agencies to go on and continue these unsafe practices. Right now, across this country, exchange students could be found living in basements, garages, and even campers of agency representatives. They will put these kids anywhere because they make big bucks on each “body” they bring to the U.S. State Department regulations clearly state that a student is not to leave his/her home country without a permanent host family in place. This regulation is repeatedly broken, we report it, yet the agencies continue on without incident. There is so much more to this. Please call us so we can help you. The agencies will threaten, talk about visa regulations, international law, etc., but the fact is, they are breaking the law. They also retaliate by sending these kids home, using a fabricated excuse that they broke some agency policy, then keep the $10,000 + their parents spent to send them here. These are children and need our protection. Thank you.
on September 20th, 2007 at 11:07 pm
Yes, I’ve been keeping in constant contact with Danielle Grijalva at CSFES and she’s been a wonderful resource. We need to get her organization into the media spotlight and help wake everyone up to what these agencies are getting away with. Even worse is our Department of State which lacks both the knowledge and willingness to enforce the laws already on the books governing their requirements. It’s disgraceful.
on September 30th, 2008 at 4:12 am
Vacation ! Man the magic word… I wanted it so badly too… Need to get some fresh air and let myself go….
on October 2nd, 2008 at 2:55 am
Vacations are hard to come by for me and this is mainly because of the mounting work pressure, I have the option of working at home but I still don’t know how to go about it.
on October 8th, 2008 at 10:26 am
I love a long weekend of movies. I know what you mean how hard it is to make time. we need more 3 day weekends!
on October 11th, 2008 at 3:50 am
Lol i dont think we will ever get three day week ends, I just hope we get a month off every year!