I just got back from dinner with my sister. It was a social visit (that was the first time I saw the house that I helped her to buy) as well as a practical one. I gave her one of the 4 storage keys to my storage facility. However, once the other members of my family heard that I went to visit Roxanne, I had to visit them all, but could only make it to see Aunt Lulu and my mother. At this point in my move, I have to decide not to do things or pass them up until some time in the future. I am so stressed and no one understands that. There is a lot to do and this is a life change. Excited and apprehensive at the same time. In a way, I am looking forward to arriving to the Nordics, if for no other reason than I need the weekend to recover. OK, I have to get some sleep.

Ciao, Rodney

Reached an important milestone tonight. Most things of consequence are moved out. And the only thing left to move out with the rental van is my desk (which I boxed up) and my leather chair. Everything else can be moved out with the car on Friday. The only things left are small things that I either have to store, give away, or throw away.

I was supposed to have dinner with my sister tonight, but she is sick and so am I. In terms of time, I really can’t afford to go, but I need to go, so I will make the time to go tomorrow. I brought a few more books today as well. Some on learning Swedish because I have so much to learn. It is entirely possible to exist in the Nordics and speak only English. However, I will get more out of the experience if I learn Swedish, and everyone from Swedish nationals to expatriates are telling me to learn Swedish. So I will use the books I brought as a base. And once I get to Sweden, I’ll get some personal language instruction.

I have also managed to finalize my travel date as being Friday, 23 August because there were no seats on the Saturday flight to Amsterdam (which I had to connect through to get to Norway). This makes it tougher. Oh yeah, and my passport came back today. Unfortunately it won’t have the residence and work permit for Sweden included because they are still processing the application. However, they had anticipated as response by September 15th, so I will anticipate that I’ll be in Norway until that time and then move to Sweden. Oh well, the work continues.

Ciao, Rodney

Today was a good day. I’ve accomplished so much in the past couple of days. Not only have I finally settled on a place to store things, but I also managed to rent a van to move everything. All of this will take place tomorrow.

On Monday, I had dinner with Tina Caterino, a very good friend from school. And Monday was the first day when I realized that all I had been used to would be changing in a big way in the next few days. During the second-semester of my senior year at university, Tina and I would often go to Ruby Tuedays for mega-ritas, which are super-huge margaritas that had swedish fish in them. As a goodbye gift, Tina got me margarita mix and Swedish fish so that I could make mega-ritas in Sweden. And then she gave me a photobook with pictures of her and I throughout the years. I almost cried at the table and then at the car, but instead, like a good male, I got teary-eyed privately at home. Of all the gifts that I got, that one was the most personal (that can be shared in public — right Cara and Lynn?!? =-). On Tuesday, I had dinner with Tim McAnany and it was a lot of fun. It’s only took 3 years to have dinner with him at a time that worked for both us — we’ll have to do it again in 3 more years!

I am supposed to have dinner with one of my sister’s today, but I have come down with something. Shit! This is not the time to get sick. I have so much to do tomorrow and I will just have to work through it. I can buy drugs and medicine later, but for now, back to packing and loading things up. The plan to is to move all long-term storage stuff first, and then evenually move the stuff I want to take to Sweden (at a later date) with me.

Ciao, Rodney

This weekend was very interesting. At the goodbye party my family threw for me, I yelled at one of my nieces. I mean I screamed. And I have never in all of their years ever screamed in front of them. I don’t think that they have ever heard me yell. But the oldest neice was being obnoxious. And then my mom went to defend her behaviour and I left. However, I just needed some away time, so I drove back after going home to change clothes and take a cold shower. My mom made my neice apologize and my sister downplayed the incident, but they missed the entire point that my neice is spoiled and needs to listen to all of her older relatives, not just the ones that she feels like listening to. Until that happens, my neice and I will have a bad relationship. Then there was this whole thing with gifts, but I won’t get into it. Let’s just say that my buying gifts for the family is on hold for the foreseeable future. But overall, it was a good time and it was good to see my family one last time all together. I can’t let one argument spoil all of the good stuff that happened.

Sunday was a lot different, I had to focus most of the day on all of the packing, sorting, and storing that I had to do to. I still haven’t settled on a storage place, but I wanted to select a storage place that had a bit more security and better lighting than the place I originally looked at. I will have to find something in the next few days, and I have to reserve a rental van in order to move all of my things. It seems like I have put things off until the last minute, but since these things cost money, I don’t want to spend more than I need to. For the time being, all of this costs is coming out of pocket, but I am confident that IBM will reimbursement me for some of it sooner or later. I just need to keep all of the receipts.

Another cool thing on Sunday is that my roommate, Jason, and watched Sex and the City together for the last time, and he brought an ice cream cake. That was cool. A lot of people don’t have friends like Jason anymore, so I am one of the lucky ones. Since he was leaving the next morning to go to his consulting engagement in New Jersey, Monday was the last time I saw him.

Anyway, there’s just so much going on at the moment, from trying to make payment arrangements for companies I deal with that don’t have websites or electronic billing, to a bunch of things, there’s just no more time to waste. U-Haul continues to be my best friend so that I can buy packing and moving supplies. OK, time to get going…I’ve got work to do.

Ciao, Rodney

What a busy week this has been. I don’t go outside much because I have so much work to do, but I can’t say that I haven’t been busy. I walked into the U-Haul near my apartment for the first time today. I have a lot to do. I bought some boxes in order to pack stuff that would eventually be moving to Sweden (if at all…the administrative issues are still being worked on within IBM). However, I also realized that long term, rather than continuing to buy tons of boxes, I would buy some plastic containers for my long term storage needs. They just feel more secure than boxes and creepy crawlies are less likely to be able to get into them.

In terms of IBM Sweden, I managed to talk to that other American expatriate in Sweden this week. She was a wealth of good information and good hints and tips for dealing with the Swedish culturally, professionally, and socially. She and I will be meeting for lunch just as soon as I get my resident/work permit approved, which is a story in and of itself.

For the past few days I have been asking the IBM Sweden Resource Development Manager (RDM) to contact the Swedish Migration Board to speed up the review of my application — which is what the Swedish Consulate in New York recommended. However, to make a long story short, he basically refused to call them, probably because it was not in his job description. Ultimately, I had one of my friends who speaks Swedish call and they told her that they would do everything possible to speed up the review. What pisses me off is that I went to the RDM for help and he said no. Basically, I feel like I would not be able to rely on his if I needed is his in a critical situation. But I will work out an arrangement where hopefully I can work with his United States or others instead of going to him. In effect, he has probably helped cost IBM money because if he had acted sooner on my request (I contacted him earlier in the week), I have every confidence that the Swedish Migration Board would have placed my application further up in the queue. I think they did anyway because of my friend making a case, but the sooner the better. I think that time will bear me out on this one as being correct.

Anyway, this weekend I have a goodbye party to go to being thrown by my family, and on Sunday, I have to make a lot of forward movement on the packing and storage and stuff. I’ll probably write some more on Monday.

Ciao, Rodney

Today was a very busy day. It seems that there are some administrative issues to be resolved with my international assignment. Basically, to make a complicated story short. I can’t really be on “travel” status in Sweden since I am staying there for such a long period of time. What the proper solution is to basically to make this a formalized expatriate assignment. In the meantime, I am still going to go ahead and go to the Nordics as planned. It should all work out. What is not working out is getting Sweden to expedite the review of my Swedish work and residence permit. The Swedish Consulate in New York has recommended that someone from IBM Sweden call the Migration Board and ask them to speed up the review of the application. I have send him an e-mail asking him to do just that.

I also went to visit a storage facility. I explained my needs to them and while I liked the people, I really didn’t like the location. It was hard to find, which means that in the event of an emergency, if I need family to get to my things, they would barely know where to go. But I won’t count them out yet.

I brought several guidebooks on Sweden. I purchased one on Sweden in general, one of Stockholm in particular, one on Scandanavia, and one on Swedish culture. They will be good reads to provide me with some important preparation.

Finally, I set up a phone call to speak to another American expatriate in IBM Sweden because I think that they’ll be able to provide me a lot of assistance regarding what things I need to take into account.

Well, I have to go now…the work continues in terms of throwing out things, organising and deciding what will stay and what will go, and making a ton of other arrangements.

Ciao, Rodney

Well, I figured I’d write now. I have just finally finished my workpapers. Woo hoo! No more workpapers ever! Yay! Workpapers were the worst part of the IA&BC audit assignment. They are important, but I still didn’t like them. But I do owe completing workpapers to a new appreciation I have for documentation and clarity of thought.

Yesterday I had asked Mary Ann Laudano for her advice on packing for an international assignment. And a lot of what she said was very very true. No one ever thinks that they have a lot of stuff until they have to pack it. What I have come to learn is that packing for an international assignment is unlike packing for any other move because since I can’t bring everything, I had to make a judgement on what was essential to have with me in Sweden and the rest was destined for long-term storage. ANd even within long-term storage, the packing experience was my opportunity to evaluate everything that I was saving. I actually haven’t packed anything yet, but I have removed bags and bags of trash from the apartment of things that I just don’t need or were nice to have, but not necessary in my life. I often wonder if I’ll miss the things that I threw away, but my rationale was that as I was digging through my boxes, it there was something that I was seeing for the first time in months or years, then I probably didn’t have a need for it. Because of this experience, I have also resolved that I am going to buy a house when I get back to the United States. I think that having a house by the time that I am 30 is a good goal, and this assignment will give me the opportunity to contain some costs and build up savings…if I don’t squander it all via jaunts around Europe and vacations. I have resolved that I will only take 4 trips around Europe a year (once a quarter) and that I would reduce that if necessary.

This is the last “relaxing weekend,” meaning that I won’t have anything to do other than to just relax and prepare for the a very busy 2 weeks. But this weekend it is also Jason’s birthday on Saturday. Also Cara and Lynn are taking me to dinner and I need to do some family-related stuff. So it won’t be that busy and care free after all.

Well, all the same, it has been good having this time off to get prepared.

Ciao, Rodney

Today was a interesting day. David (my former direct manager and now my career development manager) announced to the Internal Audit & Business Controls (IA&BC) organization that I was leaving. So it is now official. In some ways, I had been looking forward to that announcement for quite some time. But in other ways, it was sad to see because that it the end of what has been a very significant part of my life. For all of the challenges it brought, it also brought some very good memories and experiences. However, there are still some small details that have to be worked out, including returnig IA&BC equipment and assets, and since some of the audit team will be in Boston for an engagement, I will be able to visit with them.

I also decided today that my schedule a bit too aggressive so I relaxed it a bit. Since it looks like I am going to moving things myself, I didn’t want to stress out and overdo anything. And I wanted to be very deliberate about everything because I didn’t feel like any mistakes could be made. SO I will start the packing and moving process on the 9th.

Today was also a good day, and yesterday was as well. My roommate had tickets to Lenny Kravitz on Monday (the show rocked!) and tonight he had tickets to Santana. Both shows were excellent and I loved them. I like to leave concerts early after the singer’s initial walk-off. Not because they are not good, but because of traffic. Anyway, it was sure nice of Jason to treat me to both concerts.

I have to keep this short. Steve just came back with the audit report and wanted it reviewed by midnight. Luckily I was just checking mail to check on some correspondance with the Nordics (they are 6 hours ahead) and happen to see the audit report. I could very easily have decided to type this journal entry on my desktop and would have missed the audit report entirely. This reminds me, I really do need to finish the workpapers. Maybe I’ll get motivated to have them completed by this Friday. In fact, I will have them completed by then.

Well, after a great night out, I finally got back to the apartment! I had so much fun and it was soooo good to see everyone one last time. And a lot of people turned out for the event too. Dinner in the North End was really nice and the Hong Kong and Sissy K’s were good too. I was so drunk I don’t even remember most of what was going on. All I know is that I didn’t have to go to the hospital this time (hee hee…ah, memories of Canada). Steph has been so good to make this all happen. I will definately get something Swedish for her and give it to her when I come back to the states…if I ever come back to the states (I’m sure I’ll have some trips home, so I am not too worried about that).

Well, now that I am looking around the apartment, I realize that I have so much to do, but that I am just too lazy to do anything about it. So instead I will be a fat oafish pig and sleep on the couch since it is too much of a burden to walk a few feet to my room. I will write some more later, I promise.

Ciao, Rodney

Today is the big day…my goodbye party. In some ways it’s cool to be going to a new experience. In some other ways, it’s gonna be sad because this will likely be the last time that I’ll be seeing people in a large group like this again. Today I spent a lot of time looking at my apartment and coming up with an action plan to get everything moved out in time for my trip. Having sought advice from many people, I can say that this is not going to be like any packing that I have ever done previously, but I am still looking forward to it.

Besides the workpapers, which I didn’t complete, I have nothing really left to do other than to begin the process of moving out. But first…party party party! I have spent this day relaxing because after more than 3 years of extensive and exhaustive travel, I need the time off! I will write more tomorrow when I get back after my party.

Ciao, Rodney