It is almost inevitable that during your time abroad, occasions will arise, that will make you really feel the distance from home. This may be something wonderful that you miss such as a wedding, special birthday celebration, or birth or something much worse, such as illness or death…in the less good times, when we cannot be there, it is more likely that we become overwhelmed with emotion and guilt.
friends and family don’t always understand what I am talking about. All they see is a wonderful opportunity for new experiences; I should be happy all the time, right? Not quite. So, I turn to the I Am A Triangle (IAAT) group to find my support.
“Elevator pitch”, “LinkedIn profile”, “Skills development”, “Building contacts”, “Career events”… If you get the shivers just reading those phrases, don’t worry. You are not the only one who feels confused, nervous or downright scared about using networking during your job search. Networking has become a more trusted and common method of job searching, and it’s easy to see why. You spend some time improving your LinkedIn profile, you attend events in your particular field, you reach out to friends, former coworkers, even family, and boom, you get a job! Wait. It can’t be that easy, can it? Honestly, networking is […]
We spent our last three nights in an empty flat, sleeping on deflated airbeds. It was miserable. Consider booking a hotel or staying with friends or family for your last few nights in your home country. Those last days before your move are an emotional, hectic time.
Finally, our child’s school – in my experience, the least common place to find friendships, but the most widely touted as a good place to form connections. Now if you aren’t a parent, this isn’t an option but if you are, most people will think that this is a good place to start. I find the school gates the least friendly place but it’s not impossible to find friends there.
‘My doctor in Singapore was a perfectionist and very focused on her patients. She was also very busy, as many OB-GYN are, and because of that, I think sometimes she forgot to smile. ‘
We agreed that with hundreds of languages spoken in the Bay Area, that many things are lost in translation, what would help is a cultural dictionary. Can you imagine?
When I moved to the Bay Area, I had never given much thought to Seattle. I had always seen it as a far-away, freezing-cold, provincial town near Canada: nothing that could compare with our incredible Silicon Valley, where education, technology and wealth found their perfect habitat. This was, until a couple of years ago, when a friend from Italy described it to me as a beautiful city, full of music and life. A few months later, my husband received an interesting job offer from a Seattle-based company. We discussed the opportunity with the family and realized that we were all […]
