After a little serious posting on nationalism, this is time for a posting from an empty-headed Mer.

My first week in Tempe almost ends. It’s great to be home again. A house where I live is lovable. During my last big trip, for the first time in such a long time, I missed my house so dearly.

Here are some stories from first (less-than-a) week in Tempe.

First, on Friday, I went to campus for the first time. I lost my (ugly cheap hated) bike more than two months ago, so I drove to work that day. I was forced to go by tons of meetings! As I rarely drive to campus I don’t have any parking pass (it’s expensive to purchase one). It was so hard to find a parking spot. All visitors’ parking spots were full. After checking three parking buildings and got nothing, I finally found a spot at the parking area of the campus church for $7.00/day. I was all glad until I realized that I had no wallet with me!

As the parking guy approached me, I was rolling down a driver’s window. I put on a confused and sad face, and then said: “Oh, I have a big problem here. I got no money because I forgot to bring my wallet.” The guy was nice. He smiled and said, “No worries, it’s OK, I have a spot for you near the wall there.”

Oooooh, how sweet! Not only I got a spot, but I got it for free….. Hurray! A good sign to start my fall semester!

Second, it was about yesterday. On Saturday, I went to one shop at the Tempe Marketplace to buy some stuff. I finished quickly and it was time to pay at the cashier. The monitor showed “$16.23″. I wanted to get rid from too many small money, so I paid (I thought) with three 5-dollar bills, one 1-dollar-bill, and ouch…. couldn’t find 23 cents… so.. one quarter coin. I was confused when the cashier lady came back to me with four one-dollar bills. I meant to get rid from that one dollar bill and now I got four? When asked, the cashier lady told me that apparently I gave her four 5-dollar bills instead of three 5 and one 1 bills. She laughed when I told her what I actually meant to do.

Then after finished the payment business, I just walked quickly to the exit door. Not too long, I was stopped. The cashier lady stopped me. Apparently I just left stuff I bought. She said, “Oh, don’t pay and just leave…it’s too good for us if all customers are like you.” Ha!

Third is about my immigration status in the US. Just on last Wednesday, I got an email from the International Office of ASU that my petition for permanent residence has been approved. I am classified under EB-1 line and thus listed as priority number one (haha, snobbish person!) so it took me only 5 months to get it approved. How nice. People around me usually needed to work 6 years and then 2 years to proceed such thing. The irony is, while it’s approved, I cannot get my permanent residency in the US until I fulfill the 2 years home-residency-requirement (or getting a J1 waiver under the US Interested Government agency (IGA)). So my green card is there for me, but it’s pending forever… until I finish my two years stay in Indonesia (now only 14 weeks out of 104 weeks) or getting a ’sakti’ (magic) letter from IGA . The latter option is very difficult. In the history of waiver applications under IGA at ASU, there’s no record of success story. After all, which US government agency would be interested in a jazz-dangdut singer like me? Would NASA be interested in holding the first historical dangdut-jazz performance in Mars? I’d be up and ready for that!!!

Fourth. One of the greatest things about being home is to be able to have my own coffee! I can come back to my 10 minutes morning ritual of grinding (coffee-beans), brewing, and ‘making’ coffee. Oh, heaven!

All in all, my first week ‘home’ has been great. I am convinced again that what I wrote sometimes ago is true. Everybody in the world is in conspiracy to make me happy! Yayyyyyy!!!