Long time no see Widewing! How you been ?
I work in the travel industry. Wholesale Travel consultant.. in short I do all the background reservation/confirmation for the travel agent's agency after he's done lying and sucking money out of the customer.
I'll be fine financially .. I had originally planned to move overseas this month and had saved and had all my stuff ready but then found out how expensive the holiday season would be in NZ so decided to travel after it .. no need to burn money plus one more xmas with the family is always nice. Will be getting whatever job I can get to last me until march & then i'll do the hop.
In fact, already got an interview tomorrow
Its funny to think at all this.. my major (International Studies) was turned from a major to a minor in all the Uni's in this city so I got screwed out of it.. nothing else interested me..then landed a job in that travel agency and loved it.. looked for degrees in that but found only hotel-management related ones.. looked out of state and found one in Wisconsin where I had a family member living there so I prepared to move there.. had everything ready & resigned from my job and was heading out to job hunt...
... and to make things short I started having chest pains and as my doc checked me I decided not to leave, they found my triglyceride levels to be suicidally high.. so while I was getting treated for it I stayed in florida and got a job at the company I was just laid off from (which I had contacts with from my previous job..we were their suppliers)... got my US citizenship... and the past 11 months have been the doc checking me up and making sure the medication was working (it is.. normal levels = 150 .. mine were at 980.. now down to 210 and going down with diet change)...
... all the while I looked around and found that in NZ they have a degree thats 100% what I wanted to do.. the Wisconsin degree wasn't this detailed or complete (and was more of a certificate than a degree).. and no other US degree was this complete..
so began to check other options... couldn't afford to go to NZ with a student visa (can only work part-time) .. and I did not have enough pre-reqs to go there and qualify for residency.. so a working holiday visa allows me to live and work there 1 year .. and that 1 year experience + a job offer in NZ (which..if I have a job 1 year I can get the employer to give me visa support) = work-to-residence visa after that 1 year. With that I could become a resident in just 2 years which is perfectly timed to when I would be almost done with the degree.
Got the work visa approved already and I was searching where to live and get best work opportunity in NZ with plans to leave late Nov .. then finding out how expensive it was in NZ in the holidays plus the hiring slump at end of year.. so decided to wait until March '09 .. and now the layoff.
I had heard the 30th year of one's life was a pain in the arse but man... its been exciting
