Early morning meeting, yaay! Good thing that in Europe, people have already adjusted their clocks 1 hour backward, so there is only an 8-hour difference between West coast USA and Europe, CET at the moment. My meeting was not in the early morning after all. In the US, the official switch time is 6 November, so as for now, we are good. In the East coast, we'll only have a 5 hours' difference. Almost like home, right?
After the fruitful meeting, where it turns out, Adriana, my Spanish colleague had spent three months in Boston during her PhD (I really consider her a role model), I checked in to my flight (relatively easy) and packed the remainder of my stuff into my luggage. I decided to take only one checked baggage and a backpack with me. If my luggage gets lost, United pays me 1500 dollars, so I was relieved, no additional travel insurance needed.
As I was having lunch, I realized I WON! What do you think I won? What else? An SJSU Swag Pack for filling in one of their surveys... so typical of me to fill in surveys. But how cool to win! I needed to collect my items today, as they were only to be picked up by 15 November, so I had a deadline to work with. I decided to go to the uni as soon as the rain was over. Yes, it had been raining for more than 3 hours, a good thing for California and local peeps. For me it only meant delayed collection of my newly won swag.
While I was having lunch, another thing happened and realized there was smoke in the attic. I reached out to John to make sure everything is okay downstairs, and nothing was on fire. Well, there was a fire in their fireplace indeed, which resulted in me cutting through thick smoke in the attic. Opening the windows and doors made the air temperature cool down alarmingly, so I started every heating appliance I had handy. Thankfully, John figured he used different type of wood (?) in the fireplace, so that must have set off the smoke and eventually, their smoke alarm. After the scare (and my headache from the smoke) was gone, I went to the uni (now in bright sunshine) to collect my things.
I wanted to have this exact type of water bottle. Blue one with the yellow Spartan Sammy head. Typical SJSU swag. Guess what! This is exactly what I got (I believe it was leftover swag from weeks of welcome, an event happening early September), along with a lunch pack, an SJSU pin and sticker. Happy with my swag, I went I checked out an event celebrating the dead in Mexican culture (Dia de los Muertos). Besides seeing their amazing dances and face painting, I also learned about their culture I so desperately related to – in terms of not mourning the dead but celebrating them and remembering their amazing lives. I wrote it down many times already, but here it goes once again. If and once I die, please cry just a little, but have a celebration for me. Look at those travel pictures I posted on Instagram and celebrate how happy I always was.
Arriving home, I tried to eat all the leftover food (mainly blueberries), so that they won't go to waste and then started clearing off space from my computer, Google Drive and Gmail storage, so that I would not run low on space and will have a bit more order in my life = my laptop = my clouds. This is a painful thing you need to do once in every second year. It was high time for me. I have not finished, though. I still needed to free up space on my laptop to update to the latest iOS. I love my Mac, but the update itself consumes so much space on your laptop (compared to its relatively small hard drive) that it is crazy! I'll finish this up in Boston.
Tomorrow: Travel to Denver, then to Boston! Sooo looking forward to it. Yet it seemed so far away back in September and here we are, travel day tomorrow. Some SUSI fellow scholars have already embarked on their journeys tonight, as they are travelling from much further away places than I am. Hoping for safe travels and an amazing team building for us! Fingers crossed!
Hubby update: Today, he wrote, and I quote: 'I'm looking forward to going.' – to the US, to me. We are nearing his visit, which would also mark the end of my Fulbright. I do not even want to think about that. Only now I must.
1 November
YOU ARE READING
Memories I am afraid I'll forget
Non-FictionWelcome to my American Days' Journals! I do not particularly have any talent in writing things up from scratch, especially not my own experience as a Fulbright scholar, but you have got to start somewhere, especially if you are too afraid that you'l...
