Three toed sloth stirs a superstition and tests my sanity

FACT:  The three toed sloth is the slowest animal ever.  It moves at a maximum of ten feet per minute.

FACT:  The FBI Records Requests Department works at an equivalent speed of the three toed sloth.

cute and slow

 =

not cute and slow

Sometimes I am superstitious.  Only about a few things, and it's totally irrational, but God bless the person who tries to tell me otherwise.  For instance, I seriously believe that if I dream of something specific happening, the opposite will come true.  I know.  Crazy flag.  But really.  I cannot think of a single time I've been wrong about this.  So naturally, I am waiting for the dream about teaching in Korea at my new school in Ulsan.  It hasn't happened yet, thankfully.  Though I'm sure I just jinxed myself by putting it out into the universe and now I won't go to sleep tonight for fear of "the dream that would ruin it all."  <---see the craziness?  Someone please stop me.

All this to say I'm convinced something is going to go wrong.  I'm getting concerned about having signed for a job before my visa paperwork is in place.  I know the time frame and that I should be patient, but the FBI charged my card 2 weeks ago for my background check, so it's got to be coming soon, riiiiight?  I check the Fed Ex tracking number for my return envelope approximately 89714597 times a day.  You read that number right.  Kate = stalker.  I'm kind of losing my mind.  I can sit with my computer in my lap for hours at a time unproductively staring at all of my plans, obsessively tracking what steps are left, and generally stalking every detail about what to expect while living in Korea (read: you-tubing K-pop videos).  There just aren't enough distractions to keep me sane and patient while I wait.  I need an intervention.  Or a life.  I mean, the other day I sat and made up a song and dance dedicated to the FBI to the tune of a song from Grease to perform for Mikey.  I've never even watched that movie in full.  Mikey just stared at me with his ears back and tail tucked, probably wondering why I'm not on medicine.  I'm hoping that with FBI paperwork in hand comes regained mental stability.

Conversely, aside from my fixations and musical number, I have been somewhat productive.  I hauled my tooter to Austin this past week to get the Apostille for my certified diploma copy.  I also learned how to correctly pronounce Apostille.  It would have been a totally disastrous trip if not for my Friend of the Year who tagged along for the Day o' Fun (shoutout again, Homegrown).  Without his company and zen, the trip would have sent me over the edge for the following reasons:

1) I hit the road and noticed my oil was 900 miles overdue.  Yeegs.  Not wanting to put the trip off another few hours getting it changed, we dumped some "quality" $5 pint bottled oil into the...oil thingie.  M'bro is buying my car next month, so I'll let him deal with any ramifications from that decision (hi,bro,iloveyou).

2) I then learned the hard way that my credit card had expired three days earlier.  I still don't know where the new one is.  The Pony Express gets a failing grade for their mail forwarding.  Very luckily, Ol' Benji Franklin was nice enough to get my attention from deep inside my wallet and save the day.  But only after a kind of scary "WHAT DO YOU MEAN?" crazy person moment to/in front of/at the gas cashier person.  Apologies to the gas cashier person.

3) Thirty minutes outside of Dallas:  speeding ticket.  With an additional violation for not wearing my glasses.  I didn't know you could get a ticket for that.

4) Finally in Austin at the Secretary of State, the woman tells me my notarized copy of my diploma was done wrong.  So we wandered around downtown Austin to get it done all over again.  At a UPS store.  Because obviously they don't notarize documents at the Secretary Of State.

What I know:  hustlin' ain't easy.  Korea makes it difficult.  Just one. last. step.  Will my sanity hold up?  Three toed sloth, don't fail me now.

-Kdog