Seattle, Baby!

So, the family that I had been skyping offered me the position and I was absolutely elated! They seem like a great family and I immediately accepted. I have since received a flurry of emails from the agency about booking a time to go to the American consult to have my visa sorted, it's something that is a little difficult to do because I work full time and my work is very far away from town where the office is, so there will be a little bit of schedule shuffling to fit that in but its no real big deal, I'm sure will work out fine - everything else has!

I also got an email from the agency coordinator in Seattle, she sounded so friendly and lovely and just told me a bit about herself and her role in my placing - she will call me and visit me in the first couple of weeks that I am over there and just ensure everything is going well.

It feels like it is all really starting to happen now, I can finally tell my friends and family where I am going exactly and it feels a lot more 'real' rather than being a 'maybe'. I started working through the visa form and got fairly well through it, then got quite confused on a couple of questions so I emailed the agency to see how to answer them, and they told me that I hadn't needed to go off and do it on my own in such a hurry, and that there were forms being sent from America which would fill in those gaps! Haha here I was trying to get things out of the way quickly in between my busy work schedule when actually I didn't have to do it on my own. If you are in the same position, just relax and don't worry or freak out when all these formal looking immigration forms come through!

I must admit, there is something a little intimidating about applying for a visa, the whole formality of it. Luckily I am an expert chameleon and just adapt to whatever situation I'm put in.

For some reason., every time I get any form and I initially look at it I always think "I will never be able to finish this!" but then bit by bit everything always gets done and there's nothing to worry about. Right now, my priority is my work and my family (whanau) and friends.

I will blog more when I get to the next step with my visa.
Enjoy the journey!

Gina :)

Post-Skype talk

Kia ora koutou!

Well, I have now had two skype interviews with one family. The skype interviews were fantastic, it was just like talking to them in person. I wasn't nervous or anything, I felt really good and comfortable, I had prepared a little list of questions prior to talking to them, but over the course of the conversation I just added and subtracted questions as necessary.

It is so good to actually think about going over there and working as a part of a family! I was also able to email the family's last au pair and ask her some questions, which I found so helpful, it gave me a different perspective to what the family gave me - and was more relevant to the nitty gritty information that I was looking for.

I also found a very useful website:
http://www.bestaupairguide.com/

This article on that same site was very interesting too...
http://www.bestaupairguide.com/2011/01/questions-to-ask-your-host-family-before-starting-your-au-pair-job/

We will just see what happens, and I will keep you all posted. :)

Ciao!