We are in New York still. Let me explain the situation we're in. It's going to sound really negative and such, but my disclaimer is this: we are having an amazing time in New York. I love it and in no way regret the decision to move out here. On the contrary, this is the best summer I've ever had. It's magical.
Here we go.
Josh was offered a job/internship with the New York Health Department on April 22nd. His contact, V, wanted him to start on June 1st, then she changed her mind and said May 15th. That was a bit soon for us, so we set about scrambling to get us out there sooner and negotiated a May 23rd start date. Assuming the May 23rd start date was set, we sublet our apartment and packed up things and moved a 2 week vacation to Seattle to a 9 day, 2 weeks later trip, and quit/took leave from our Utah jobs on May 12 for vacation. Came home May 16th and finished packing our place and packed our car to get out of town. All the while, Josh was emailing back and forth with V, the lady who offered him the internship with her department, trying to figure out details for the project so he could get it to count for his Masters' program internship. She didn't have many details because the project was still "getting approved" but he was in the budget so please still come.
May 17th Josh emailed to get details about starting in 5 days. V responded that it didn't look like he was going to be able to start then, because HR was still working on approving a project. Then that project didn't get approved, so she submitted a second "mystery" project.
Meanwhile, we packed up and moved to our Brooklyn apartment. It's tiny, but oh so fun. We have 1 bedroom with a teensy closet, a kitchen, and a bathroom.
Back to V and the internship. 2 weeks and multiple emails of "hurry and fill this out, it's the last thing before you start" later Josh got a "processing" interview where they made him fill out tons of paper work and all kinds of documentation that he moved to New York (did they think we were commuting from Utah?) and he was a student and what was his position (no idea?) blah blah blah and he left with, "now we'll just get this processed and your department will contact you to negotiate a start date. WHAT?!
Now, 14 days later, still waiting for a start date. It is extremely frustrating. We really want the experience to work out, because it's a wonderful experience for Josh to have on his med school application, and Josh really likes homeless research, and it'd be fantastic to do here in the big apple. It's just getting ridiculous that we're waiting around for this, and we're approaching a month until our leave date because our housing contract here ends August 10th. Last Friday was supposed to be our "if Josh doesn't have a start date for July 1st by this day then we're leaving" day, but we want it to work out so badly that we're extending it to this Friday. So, folks, we can give you an answer on whether we're returning early to Utah or not by next Tuesday. Yikes.
So, after this disastrously long blog, let me state again that this has been a fantastic summer. We've done 80% of the list of things we really wanted to do in NYC, and we're planning on doing the remaining 20% when my friend, Amanda, comes to visit next week. I started couponing. We've eaten authentic NY Cheesecake and had delicious Caribbean chicken and waffles and ridden the subways everywhere and had an amazing time. We are so blessed that we have the savings to get out here and do everything we want to, so that even if the internship doesn't work out, the epic summer vacation in New York City did.
For the record, I fully support your East Coast Summer.
ReplyDeleteI second that!
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