Waffle

This is sort of a cross between a memo to self and a public announcement of my priorities for the next few months. If all you're interested in is the schedule of the Rogues of Clwyd-Rhan comic, scroll to the bottom.

Like I mentioned the other day, I'm getting married in May. Since my fiancée and I currently live on different continents, that means one of us is going to have to pack up and leave, and that's going to be me. Aggie has the public-facing job, the house and land that she owns and the two teenagers; I've got no dependents, no mortgage and a job that I can do over the internet. The planned emigration is a much bigger change than the marriage itself, and a much scarier one for me. There's a number of ways I need to get my house in order before May 29. These are some of them.

The emigration itself. We have talked about it between us in the past year and at some point I was downloading and saving documents from the US INS to study the matter. But it's been a maze of documents to read, I lost track, then the hard drive the docs were on went kablooie. All that I took away from it is that it's a very long process, that as a spouse or prospective spouse I should have it relatively easy but will still have to fill in a bunch of applications and probably have to prove that I actually know this woman and have spent time with her, and that it's a good thing that Aggie's income is well over the poverty line. I will need to start making phone calls and writing to the embassy for more information and incorporate those things into my schedule, soon. In the next few weeks.

Work: I have already experimented with working long-distance from Tennessee at my current job and have the go-ahead from my boss to go back and do it again. There are still some teething problems to sort out and some unanswered questions about the value of it all to the company; all we know is that it doesn't hurt my job performance. I consider this issue 80% covered, but just in case, the next issue will be:

Money: Over the past year, I have slowly built an emergency fund in high-interest savings account. That will have to be turned into a Flexibility fund that should be enough to keep me going for a year in case I do somehow lose my job and am not yet able to look for a new one in the US (or in case I lose my job, am eligible to look for one in the US, but can't find one. It's Middle Tennessee; the demand for white-collar work isn't high there). By my estimate I will need € 20,000 in savings and have no idea how to get there from here (I have € 5000 as my Simplified Net Worth, i.e. whatever is in that account - anything in my other bank accounts may be needed to cover taxes and stuff like that).

Stuff: In the next few weeks, I will start selling or giving away a large part of my books, CDs, DVDs, etcetera. I will also start looking for a transport company that will ship whatever I won't get rid of to th US without costing an arm and a leg. But I'm aiming to keep that part to a minimum: the Stokke chairs, the A3 scanner, my unsold original art and some irreplaceble books should cover it.

Driving: Amazingly, it's a year ago that I started my driving lessons. I had to drop out of them due to being too tired after work to learn anything or indeed be safe. In Tennessee, an adult has to be able to drive, so I'm going to have to go back to driving class and hope I don't run into the same problem again.

Health/exercise: I put on weight while staying in Tennessee. That by itself isn't so bad; it's not like I am being immobilized by carrying a ton of flesh around. But I do feel flabby and spent much of this weekend and the previous one not having much energy at all (see "Driving" above for an example of how that hurts me). Time to pick up running again. Running every other day should reverse the weight gain and help me fit in my pants again so I won't have to buy new ones, and it should help me feel better and get my energy and drive back.

Comics: To be honest, my biggest problem relating to my own comics is that I'm not as motivated as I used to be. If I really wanted to, I could keep the comic going on a weekly schedule between now and May 29 or the day the storyline is over, whichever is earliest. But I'm kind of burned out for now. Having said that, I have no idea what effects the work related to moving out will have on the comic. I do know that I will want to take it easy over the next few months and not bust myself out to make deadline. It's entirely possible that I might find a way to squeeze some extra money for my goals out of the comic, in which case the readers benefit from my plans. Or I might take a long break so I have time to read emigration documentation. It's all up in the air right now.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 16th, 2009 at 5:30 pm and is filed under Life, Work: ROCR discussion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.