Karin's Adventures

It took them four months to check my background (again?) and send me my learner permit. Maybe the address change inbetween, when we moved from the rented apartment to our own house, made it especially difficult to track me down.

I had to hold the learner permit for 60 days, before I could schedule a driving exam - so I scheduled that for today, 60 days long over.

I must admit I was slightly nervous,  but not as bad as for my first exam 30 years ago. The examiner was a very friendly, older guy. He told me to take a deep breath and relax.

He wanted to see my German license, even though that still isn't considered a valid document in Indiana. Then he made me drive around the block for about ten minutes, asking questions about Germany, and why I moved to Fort Wayne.

I made only two mistakes: turning left onto the right lane (must be instinct, from years of driving in Germany) instead of the left. And then, when turning left from the middle lane (which doesn't exist in Germany), I slowed down before switching lanes. Should have switched lanes at normal speed, and then slowed down after I was on the middle lane.

So, now I am legally licensed to drive cars and boats in Indiana.

Now, not having to get up in the mornings, having lots of time to get yourself organized and keep the house clean, can be fun for a while. But being able to support yourself and your family definitely is more fun than that.

So I frankly admit I'm proud to be making *real* money now. My very first paycheck from Office Team was in the mail today. I'm going to the bank tomorrow after work to deposit it. And the best thing about it? Only 15% taxes were deducted. Another 15% I will invest in health insurance for my family. Makes it 30% of deductions, not 47% like in Germany.

I had been looking around for a while. Ads on job-offer-websites, ads in the paper, job postings on several big companies' websites...... Finally I was hired by a staffing company: Office Team. And they sent me out on my first assignment with one of their customers: Lincoln Foodservice Products.

Today was my first day at work. Full time, with a one month commitment to start with. My title is *Administrative Assistant* and I report to the General Manager of Merco Savory.

Something completely different from what I've been doing before, back in Germany. I think it will be fun, once I get a computer, a telephone, and some real work to do.

Today was that big day: closing on our house at the title company. Boy was that exciting! This is the nicest house I've ever lived in in my life. And it's officially our's now. Even Tom dared to get excited about it after a while.

We went over there right away, invited Penny and Nancy over for some chili. Well, they brought the chili. And Tom carried me over the threshold (after I reminded him that this was supposed to be done).

It'll take a while until we get used to the idea of this huge place actually being all our's to live in.  

I don't know if it's going to be like *dishwasher to millionaire* for me, but at least I got to do the dishes a little today.

I had been approved for the sub list of NWACS's food department, and today I was called in for the first time for two and a half hours.

Very exciting! Hand out 12 little fish nuggets, or *pb & j* sandwiches, or just yoghurt to about 250 kids. In between I had to help out at the dishwasher taking stuff out, flipping the trays over so they would dry, then get them out of the way fast to make room for more stuff coming out of the machine.

One of the things you don't get very often in Germany is a power outage. Here in Indiana we get that quite frequently. Probably because all power lines are just hanging around outside, up on some posts. Not like in Germany, where most of them are burried under ground. It was around 5:00 p.m. when it happened. I thought I had just blown a fuse, like so many times before - but this time it wasn't my fault.

So we sat there with lots of candles on, having a romantic supper in the dark, just waiting for the power to come back on.

And when it finally did, I actually thought somehow it had been nicer without. No noisy TV on, nothing to do except sit there and talk. I hope we get some more of this soon.

OK !! Today we received the paperwork for our mortgage loan. Tom signed it and mailed it, now we're just waiting for an appointment with the title company. And then we'll own our new house, the one we fell in love with only three weeks ago.

We haven't heard a decision from our lender yet, but it looks as if we'll get our mortgage loan OK. Why else would they send the appraiser to that house? We were there at that time, going thru the house inspection. Nothing mayor seems to be wrong. Just some minor electrical problems - like not being properly grounded, a few switches not working, a few cables not thick enough. And we'd need a different water softening unit.

I really hope we'll be approved for that loan, the house has everything we hoped for.

Even though I have been driving cars, including taxis, and motorcycles for over 30 years, I start on square one in Indiana. I need to hold a learner permit for 60 days before I can take the road test for an operator license. And since I am an alien, I won't even get the learner permit handed to me right away - it will be mailed to me after some office in Indianapolis does a background check on me.

Today at the license branch they told me it might be more than 60 days before I receive the *real* learner permit. If that happens, I can't do the road test yet. I would then have to go to the license branch again and get another *temporary* learner permit. Which is just a piece of paper, saying that I passed the written test and the eye test.

The written test was a piece of cake - 50 very simple questions, most of them just common sense things, and you could mess up on a maximum of 2 *signs* questions plus 5 of the other questions. I passed that, of course, failing one sign and two of the other questions.  

I never imagined being happy about a number some government office would assign to me.

But once I found out, that you are non-existant in the USA without that number, I really wanted to have mine. Now, I don't have the SSN card yet, but today I went to the office and they printed an official paper saying that SSN xxx-xx-xxxx had been assigned to me. No, I won't tell you what the number is! That one number is your entire life here. If it falls into the wrong hands, you're done for.

Alejandra's SSN hasn't been issued yet - I was told her's would take another two weeks.