A whole year?

An Other

Because Chloe will be living so close to her school next year, she’ll be walking to school so she was thinking that it will be nice to not be identified as part of a larger, slightly foreign group, as “one of the commuters.” Then it occurred to her that being an American in a Spanish school puts her in a decidedly more foreign group than a ten-minute ferry ride to school does.

The goodbyes begin

Things are winding up here. There’s a party tonight at one of the AFS exchange-student’s homes, a picnic on Sunday at Andy’s home, Anna Rae’s having a party in a couple of weeks, and our picnic is at the end of August.

The AFS kids leave on Tuesday and Anna Rae leaves on August 23. Then Chloe on September 2 and Andy on September 3. I’m dreading August 2 because it’s the one-month mark. I’m working on moving the “Oh god, she’s leaving for a year!” to the back and moving the “Oh my god, you get to go to Spain for a year!” to the front. I’ll deal with the former after she arrives in Pamplona.

Comfort in numbers

Today I was talking to the mother of another student from Vashon who leaves for Argentina (through AFS) in four days. Out of Chloe’s class of around 130 there are six students studying abroad next year. The visa for Argentina is a nightmare. They had to pay for a licensed translator to translate all of the forms, everything had to be notarized plus they had to get some sort of internationally recognized notary, and lots of medical tests. With four days to go he doesn’t have his host family yet. Another student from Vashon is going to Argentina at the same time and he doesn’t have his visa yet.

We also talked about how so many people make the comment, “I don’t know how you can let your kid go away for a year.” That’s frustrating because how can we not? We don’t want our kids to be away from home next year, but what kind of parents would deny this opportunity for their children for such selfish reasons? Especially when they’ve worked so long and hard for it. It’s going to be hard as hell, but it will take us only a few months to get over that. What they’ll gain will last them for the rest of their lives. Meanwhile, I can’t look at a calendar without choking up.

Is this it?

This just might work after all. A’s father cc’d me on a message to the Seattle district. The US embassy in Madrid said they would give A the visa if Rotary will send a letter to the embassy stating that they will get her DS2019 completed when she turns 15 in October. That means she can leave in August as originally scheduled and go to the original sponsoring club and school. I can’t imagine any possible reason why that would not work but am still waiting to hear from Seattle – I’m a Rotary outsider so I’m trying to get information through the proper bureaucratic channels. This is very good news and I probably won't have to use my flimsy connection to a Washington state representative to congress.

Yesterday I e-mailed A’s family telling them when Chloe’s plane arrives in Pamplona and asking if they’ve heard anything to the contrary. Her father e-mailed today with the subject: Welcome Chloe. He said they’re looking forward to picking her up at the airport and he’s certain that she will enjoy Pamplona. What a relief. I looks like we’re almost done with the uncertainty.

Contrary to what the guarantee form says, A’s father said school starts September 9 and ends June 24. More good news, because the form says September 6 and they don’t arrive in Pamplona until September 5 at 6:00 pm. They’ll need that time to shop for uniforms, blue shoes, and a red skirt of squares, of course.

Getting closer to getting A here

The embassy in Madrid has no problem with A’s age of 14. We know this because A was there on Friday and they told her so. They won’t, however, issue a J-1 exchange visa unless she has a DS2019 form completed by the sponsoring agency, which is Rotary. That application has to be completed through the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS), which is under US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The application must be completed online, and Rotary cannot complete it because that’s where the birthdate field is limited to dates indicating that the applicant is over 15 years old. If the entry doesn’t fit the predefined parameters, you can’t go any farther on the form.

If the US embassy in Madrid will issue the visa, the age limit must not be a deal breaker. She is not a 17-year-old son of a Baath Party loyalist, she’s a 14-year-old Spanish girl from a nice Catholic family. It seems logical that the next step is finding a way to manually override that field, perhaps with the assistance from someone at Immigration? From a local representative in Congress? I have a tenuous connection there and will see about using it because unless the people making this decision find a Web site that says, “Here’s how to get around the age limit on the DS2019 through SEVIS,” I don’t think we’re going to get a favorable answer.

San Fermin

This is a photo I found on the Web. I don't know who took it or when, but next year I hope to post my own photos of this event. This site tallies the destruction: 56 hospitalized, 16 gored, but 0 dead.

There are more 2004 photos here at San Fermin.com.

Your parents can wait in the car

Chloe went to a RYE meeting that parents were encouraged to not attend, which was fine with me (Chloe got a ride there with Andy) because I’m conserving my energy to fight the visa battle, but another parent who showed up was invited to find something else to do during the meeting.

They got a CD with Chamber-of-Commerce-type photos of the Seattle area, lapel pins to hand out, Rotary banners to give to the host clubs, and business cards with their name, address, picture, and a space to fill in their address abroad. They’re supposed to hand those out to everyone they meet. I told Chloe to make a point of asking people for their business cards, but that probably won’t happen. I hope they pass them around whenever they have RYE functions, beginning when they all meet at the airport in Chicago.

Anna Rae picked up Chloe’s blazer a while ago so Chloe should have that soon. Chloe cleaned up her bedroom yesterday and has an urge to pack things up so it’s nice and tidy when she gets home. It looks like A may not stay with us when she gets here, so Chloe probably won’t need to clear her stuff out to make room, anyway. I think she’s getting whatever the equivalent to the nesting instinct would be in this case.

No driving for you

Just did some quadruple checking and Chloe won’t be able to take her drive test before she leaves. We were planning on her getting her license on her birthday (the day before she leaves) but that won’t be happening. There are time limits on everything, so she won’t have had her permit long enough to get the license (six months, although you can take the drive test after four months), and the drive test is good for only 90 days, so she’d have to take it again when she gets home. In the grand scheme of studying abroad for a year it’s a minor disappointment, but she’s been working really hard at driver’s ed and was hoping to have the license out of the way before she leaves. At least she’ll have the five weeks of driver’s ed out of the way.

Another lesson on how one opportunity may close other doors, so it’s important to not lose sight of the big picture: driver's license that can't be used for a year vs. a year in Spain. But sometimes we’d like nothing more than to shove those mixed metaphors right back down the throat of the person who utters them.

It figures

Today we opened a checking account for Chloe so she’ll have a debit card to use abroad. That way she won’t need to open a bank account in Spain because her funds will be as close as the nearest ATM and she can use the card anywhere that accepts Visa. She was told that you have to be 18 to open a checking account, which I knew. I said, "Even if I'm on the account?" The bank employee seemed a little surprised, "You're willing to be on her account?" Of course, how else do the thousands of under-18-year-olds get checking accounts?

Our bank has a high-school intern program that Chloe’s been interested in since the first time she saw it on a student’s name tag, about four years ago. The interns work as tellers a couple of afternoons a week and every Saturday for two years, after which they can usually continue on as a regular employee while they are going to college. Halfway through the checking-account-opening procedure, the woman asked Chloe if she knows anyone who’s going to be a junior this coming year who is not going away for the year. They’re looking for a student intern.

Still no more news on getting A here on time. I'll wait until Wednesday to inquire because their appointment with the embassy in Madrid is on Friday, but A's parents won't be home from the beach until the 21st.

It’s creeping up on us

Chloe was thinking that we might be taking the same ferry to the airport that she usually takes to school, which means that she’d get to see her two best friends and other commuter friends one last time. I think we’ll be taking a later ferry, but told her that she might not want to see them on her way to the airport. What I really meant is that I don’t want to see her see her friends that close to departure. The closer we get, the more choked up I get thinking about saying goodbye. The airport is going to be bad enough – I don’t want the goodbyes to start any earlier than necessary.

She’s assumed that her two friends will come with us to the airport but we haven’t really talked about it. Because of security they can’t go to the gate with her, so they’d have to wait around for a couple of hours until after her plane leaves (because I plan to go to the gate with her, but only one of us can go). I just don’t know if I could survive all our tears.