frustrated

1- september begins…   our life in Qingdao, China

2- august begins…   HIS life in Qingdao, China (I’ll get there eventually)

3- august begins...   a seemingly never ending process of waiting and frustration and ridiculousness and stress and boredom and crying and most definitely driving my family nuts.

I think the last one has a nice ring to it.

I have a new found respect for those in the military. For months, or even years, at a time they’ll be away from their families. I’m sure there are some who will be voting for Obama since that means they’ll be coming home sooner. I never really had to think about how they must feel until now. I have my good days and my bad days…but my good days are still never nearly as good as if Rebecca were here with me. It’s now been 74 days since I’ve seen her.

This morning, I woke up empty and frustrated. Yesterday, the Chinese Embassy asked for more information, which meant that Rebecca’s visa approval is still pending and might even be delayed. I used to think that it was going to be great that I was going to be here during the Olympics, but I would much rather have been here either last year or next year if it meant me having my wife with me by now. I have a strong feeling that they’re just biding their time until after the Olympics to approve her. I’m just praying hard that it’ll be this month that they give her the green light. If we knew what we know now about how long we’d be away, who knows what decision we would have made at first. But I guarantee you, whatever decision we would have made would not have included being away from each other for over three months!

(originally posted on August 6, 2008)

I’m stuck.

For 62 days, I have been not-so-patiently waiting to board a plane and spend 31 fun-filled hours traveling so that I can finally reunite with my husband (if you know what I mean). Yet, here I am with no Chinese Visa and no clue as to when I will actually be boarding aforementioned plane.

The Visa troubles have everything to do with the upcoming Olympics and all of the tightened security, so worst case scenario keeps me here for about 3 more weeks. Someone recently told me that “in China, patience isn’t a virtue, it’s a necessity.” Too bad this life-lesson couldn’t wait until I actually arrived in China.

I hadn’t really planned on starting this blog until I arrived in Qingdao, but since so many people are wondering why I’m still hangin’ around, I thought it would be a good idea to go ahead and start it. Every day there are crazy new developments in our “plan” and this just seems to be the easiest way to keep you all updated on the insanity that is (as it turns out) China.

Please keep your fingers crossed that my Visa will come through quickly. I promise, I’ll work on the whole patience thing later.