I am studying communications at the University of Phoenix Online and the course I am currently in is dealing with interpersonal communications. This week, we will be dealing specifically with cultural barriers to interpersonal communication. One of the week’s resources is to watch a series of interviews with people from different cultures talking about their integration into the community the now live in and how it differs from what they call “home” originally. One of those videos is the inspiration for my post today.

I posted this photo on my Google+ profile today. My post said that I’d forgotten what awesome photos I used to take and I said where this photo was taken. Years and what seems like a lifetime ago, I took this photograph on the coast of Jamaica, on the Palisadoes strip, just outside of the Norman Manley International Airport. The photo is from a different time in my life. I was my own woman then and no one else’s. I had already met hubby I think, but the relationship at that point was not yet formalized into anything other than a fascination. Neither of us had any clue we would end up where we are today.

The day I took the photo, I was out with friends on a fishing expedition. If I remember correctly, this was the day I caught my first fish. A tiny little thing that I threw back in almost immediately so that it would be able to breathe and continue to live. I was a hardcase. People called me “bitch”. But I could not catch a fish and let it die.

I worked in the corporate world and I earned enough to be comfortable on my own. Internet was a staple. I had ditched my TV cable service a couple of years before because I rarely watched TV and anything I wanted to watch I could get on disc and watch from my player. Or just watch on my computer.

There was no such thing as worrying about credit ratings. You paid your bills so that you would not have a disruption of service. You tried not to get into too much debt because banks charged exorbitant interest rates on credit cards. Debit cards had recently (within the previous 10 years, that is) become the latest convenience yet quite a few merchants still did not accept your debit card for purchases.

Cell phones plans could be had on a prepaid basis and all cell phones available were sold at a subsidized rate. Phones were “locked” to a network because that network had possibly invested money in importing your phone and wanted to ensure they got your money from calls as well as. “Unlocking” of phones was possible, but only if you wanted to travel abroad and slip a foreign carrier’s SIM card into your phone whilst you were abroad.

The beach was taken for granted. It would always be there, so I didn’t feel the need to visit it that often. Every chance I got, however, I drove north out of the city just for the hell of it. There was nothing I loved more than a road trip to the countryside – especially if it took me into the cool interior of the country.

Coconut water was most certainly not taken for granted. I would order a gallon a week and it would be finished in a matter of days.

Life was good. I wasn’t happy, but I was satisfied.

Fast forward 6 years. I am sitting in my “office” – the middle bedroom of a 3 bedroom house – in Olympia, Washington. It’s freezing outside. We had some snow today – the kind that is really just frozen rain but it looks white. Hubby lit the wood stove twice today but the house is still cold. I am wrapped in a blanket, doing schoolwork at 4am and writing – something I would never have dared to do in Jamaica since Monday morning meant work at 8am. Now, to go to work, I simply have to open a browser window.

We are bound by the military. Well hubby is. I can leave for Jamaica anytime I want; hubby can’t. Even if he could, it just isn’t in the budget. Contrary to popular belief, money does not grow on trees here – much to my consternation.

There is no coconut water. Well, none like I have ever tasted anyway. The ones I have sampled are bland and tasteless and no matter how good it is for my now soaring blood pressure, I refuse to drink them.

There is no beach of the likes we have in Jamaica. No such thing as gentle surf, white sands, coconut water and blue waters. Here, the beaches are grey and rough and freezing cold.

Here you pay your bills or you’ll never get another credit card, loan, or checking account ever again.

Cell phones are subsidized so long as you commit to 2 year agreements to continue service with the carrier … otherwise you pay an exorbitant amount of money to go somewhere else.

I am ecstatically happy but life is much different from it was in Jamaica; more restrictive.

Americans don’t know how to make you feel at home in their country. There are constant reminders that I am not from here and while I could care less about those who choose to hold that against me, it is still something you will never have to encounter as a Jamaican in Jamaica. I tell everyone the reason why I love Washington so much, and in particular the Seattle/Tacoma area, is that I feel less out-of-place here than I have felt in any other place in the United States – and I have been to many places in New York, D.C., Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and Maryland. Here, I feel less like a black girl married to a white man and more like Camille than I have since I left my home in Jamaica.

‘Farin’ not so wonderful unless you can find that one thing (or person) who makes you happy. If it weren’t for hubby, I think I’d be on the first plane back home to Jamaica. I hate the heat, but I hate feeling out-of-place more.

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When we heard we were going to be moving here to Washington state, my friend who has lived here for years warned me about S.A.D. I was never sure I would be affected because I have always been a fan of the rain and the darkness it brings.

As it turns out, the rain and the overcast days are actually the least of the problems. The real problem has started to emerge within the last few weeks as fall settles in for the long haul. Now underlined and bold-faced as we switch over to standard time from daylight savings.

The number of daylight hours is restricted even more when it is overcast and rainy. We have lived here for just about 3 months now, and I can tell you that on an average week, we get maybe 2 days of full sunshine – if we are lucky. Now that the days are shorter, it’s dark by 4pm or thereabouts. And I see it getting worse as we near the silly season.

And while I don’t know that I will suffer from S.A.D., I can see how the light (or lack, thereof) is going to play havoc with my internal clock. It already does. I find myself panicking at 4:30 because it looks and feels like much later. And I am finding that I am not a fan of the dark at all. I might like the rain and the overcast and the opportunity to build a fire and wrap up blankets … but I do not like the dark.

Yep – I am still adjusting to life out here. I never dreamed it would be this different, but nevertheless, I am liking it – a lot! I don’t know that I can live anywhere else after this. Dreary, rainy days or not!

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I’ve thought long and hard about writing this post-mortem – for my own edification and maybe for those around me who are curious as to my experiences and how I see them after all is said and done.

To clarify – events of the last 3 years include:

• getting married
• migrating to the United States
• immediately transforming into a stay-at-home/work-at-home military spouse from a hardcore support tech at a major telecommunications company in Jamaica
• 2 household moves
• 1 military deployment

Yes – that’s a lot to pack into 3 years; I know – believe me, I know. I looked at the summary I just typed and had to take a breath myself.

The Timeline

Getting married was tricky. It required an almost year-long wait for the American authorities to decide it was ok to grant me permission to marry and move in with the man of my dreams. You all know the angst I went through with that whole process and the subsequent fallouts. When the day finally arrived, I was a bit drippy-eyed because for some reason I thought having gotten this far – Dad on my arm in Kentucky, prospective in-laws also visiting Kentucky and gearing up for a happy HAPPY occasion – that somehow it was a nightmare and I would find myself waking up in my own bed back in Kingston with no wedding, no hubby, no family and no “joy”. My father said his usual “don’t be silly” and my maid of honour (bless her heart!) told me to not worry and I tried REALLY hard to stop stressing.

Less than a year later, we prepared to move from Kentucky to Texas. Not only was this move guaranteed to introduce a deployment (you don’t get summoned to Fort Hood, Texas and NOT get deployed), but it was also to a state that we both despised. There remained a far greater capacity for our loathing than we were aware. There was very little about the Fort Hood/Texas experience that I even want to remember, much less reminisce about.

The year deployment was bad – I was alone in an alien place, with no one I knew (and, as it turned out, very few that I WANTED to know) and no one nearby whom I could call on in a pinch. For the first time in my life, I faced abject lonesomeness and felt crippled. I wasn’t lonely, but I was alone. I always want to know there’s someone I can call on in a pinch – if it’s even the local taxi service.

I survived the year – handsomely, if I do say so myself.

Nay – WE survived the year.

We’re still together, the Texas/Fort Hood experience helped to bring us closer together rather than drive us apart. And we survived the move from Texas to Washington – together – and this is where we are now.. It’s a new beginning in many ways for us and so far, nothing but positive vibes. I look forward to the next 3 years and beyond.

Difficulties?

Upon marrying, I was told many times and in many ways that the transition to military spouse was going to be difficult in lots of ways – not the least of which was that my civilian friends would no longer be able to relate to me – or me to them. This is true in a sense. I lost a couple of friends, distanced a few others and gained a few too.

Frankly, not being able to relate to my civilian friends -or them to me- is not something I can say has really happened. It has taken an extra few words and seconds for me to explain certain aspects of my life when military subjects come up, but it’s not a real big deal. They still get me – and that’s what is most important in friendships.

I think the biggest thing I’ve had to deal with in this transition, is that most people now think that watching the news and relating to me all that’s happening military-wise (according to the news) is something they need to do. I can’t count the number of times I’ve had to tell my friends and family that it doesn’t matter what they read, hear or see on the news – reality is far different.

I’ve had to tell Mom that I’m not really interested in hearing what she heard CNN is saying about what Pres. Obama said about the war and the military – I am more interesting in what she heard on TVJ or CVM about what Prime Minister Bruce is doing and saying in Jamaica. I want to hear about Caribbean things. All things US and military is within easy reach for me – if I want it.

That, I think, has been the most difficult part of this transition.

Explaining what a ‘PCS’ is or a ‘PTDY’ or a ‘DITY’ or an ‘NCOIC’ is not the difficult part at all, and maybe having worked in the corporate world for a long time has helped me draw parallels that most of my friends and family can relate to – which pretty much makes explaining why my husband’s platoon sergeant can tell him what to do, when and how.

Conclusions?

Frankly – considering how much of a creature of habit I actually am, how I have never taken change on very well and how I usually end up stressing over the changes – I think I have weathered all these changes in my life very well. I gained a few grey hairs during the deployment – but those don’t bother me as much as the weight I’ve gained in the last 2 years just eating normally. (I swear American food has something in it that makes you grow outwards!)

Thankfully, having a caring husband and a very supportive set of in-laws has helped immensely.

But I think the constancy of my very VERY close friends has possibly been THE single-most significant factor in me still being here – sane and healthy. You all know who you are – all THREE of you – and I hope you know how much I appreciate you – ALL of you.

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I have been bitten by the cloud bug.

And no, it has absolutely nothing to do with Apple’s announcement of the upcoming iCloud.

Starting out in the cloud

Working in the cloud started fairly innocuously with ‘trying’ out the new toys on the shelf – apps such as Dropbox and Evernote and Google docs – and at the time, my need for them was minimal. Gradually, I learned that each of these tools presented the perfect opportunity to store (and share) information that I could access elsewhere.

It started with small things like eBooks and photos that I’d either want to share with friends or that I thought I might like to access from elsewhere.

I remember being extremely thankful to myself for putting my resume in the cloud via Dropbox because once when I was offered an on-the-spot job opportunity, I could get into my Dropbox account on a public computer and print it off in a mad minute.

The day the cloud saved my ass

Last year June (2010), the hard drive in my iMac crashed – most unceremoniously. I was in the middle of working at the time and I was devastated because I lost almost all of my email and quite a few documents.

Lost is relative, because I knew I could get it from the Time Capsule backup once I had my hard drive reinstated. The issue was more immediate than recovering data long term. The issue was that I was working and all I had been working on was lost – the rest of my day (and maybe week) was lost because all my stuff was sitting on that bad hard drive.

Luckily, I had a laptop with which I had planned ahead to using as my mobile working platform and with the help of Dropbox and a very supportive boss, I was able to be up and working again in a matter of minutes.

Possibilities in the cloud

It hit me there and then that being able to jump onto any machine and start working was a benefit greatly to be desired. And that Dropbox seemed to be the perfect way to get that benefit.

And so I started investigating being able to sync certain things into my Dropbox folder – mail, application preferences, data files, data stores, etc. There are quite a few applications that natively support the sync’ing to Dropbox – applications such as 1Password – and then there are those that you find forum posts about it being possible to sync them via Dropbox but not supported by the developers.

Let’s just say that I’ve been sync’ing Adium and a few other unsupported apps and their preferences to Dropbox ever since. I just have to remember to logout of them on one machine before I log in on another machine.

The Cloud’s infinitesimal applications

Much, much earlier than the epic hard drive failure of 2010, my husband and I shared calendars via Google Calendar. At work, he would input his schedule into his calendar, and at home I’d see the new schedule popup on my screen.

At the time, I was also working a crazy schedule and I could then put in my hours and schedule and he’d be able to pull that up on his phone or computer and see when I’d be coming home at midnight and when it’d be more like 4pm.

I suggested this idea to one of the organizations I worked with when I managed Site-Reference.com – and they now manage their calendars and schedules in much the same way.

In 2011, I started writing articles for a colleague and found that the best way to share my pieces was through Google Docs. I’d see when she went through them and the changes she made and she could share stuff she wanted me to take a look at or work on.

Now Apple has talked about this iCloud thing … as usual giving the impression that they were the first EVER to introduce this heady concept. While I acknowledge that .Mac (aka iTools and MobileMe) was quite possibly one of the first individual consumer based cloud computing service, I can’t say that Apple can lay claim to inventing the concept. ^[1]

The future of me in the cloud

I’ve always been a fan of Google Mail – from the day it came out, I benched all my other mail solutions in favor of Google Mail and I haven’t looked back. Most of you know me as using fyrfli at gmail dot com for years.

Well, I’ve made the leap to Google Apps having discovered that it is free to small organizations of less than 10 persons. And since my little domain name and budding company is still only me, it is very worth it. And so, I shifted my ‘business’ into the cloud.

As for what business fyrfli.net will be getting into …. you’ll just have stay tuned to find out.

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