I am coming close to my dream of living in the US!?

I finally started applying for permanent residency in the US, this is called a green card. I have stayed in the US more than six years and I have come to like here, so I want to stay here indefinitely. To fulfill this dream, I have to get a green card. But it is not so easy. I have to claim that I am a valuable person to live in the US as a prominent researcher. To prove this, I have to prepare a lot of documents and letters, and write two essays. That is hard and time consuming. I hired an attorney. It is costly. Even so, I am not sure if my application will be approved. It is not fun. It is stressful... Sigh,I am still far from my dream...

Volunteer at a Bird Center

I think volunteer work is more common in the US than Japan. There are many opportunities and people are willing to work as volunteers here, in the US. That is great! 


So I also started volunteer. Since I like wildlife, I work at a bird center as a volunteer. At the center, we take care of wild birds that are injured or orphaned. I go to the center every week and I feed baby birds and clean cages. We have to feed them every 30 minutes! They are noisy but so cute. They are waiting for food with their mouths open. There are many kinds of birds including sparrows, finches, doves, blue jays, robins and geese. All those birds are brought by kind people who found a bird that cannot survive in the wild. There are about 100 birds at the center at a time, and a few hundreds birds during a entire summer season. After we take care of the birds and they become big and healthy, they are released into the wild again. That is happy and sad moment.

I like this work.

Hello my friends!

This is my first post.

I am Japanese. I came to the US for my research about 6 years ago. At that time, I was thinking it was just experience to study abroad, and I was planing to go back home in a few year.  Actuary, it was not fun. I could not communicate with other people because of my terrible English skill (even though I still found it difficult! lol), I faced many culture differences, and those things made me feel depressed. But I could learn many things by my experiences. And finally, even though I am still struggle with language and culture, I enjoy my life with those problems. I love the US!

I decided to start my blog because I would be grad if I can share my experiences and opinion about culture differences with other people. But I am not the specialist, so do not take them seriously! just enjoy my funny/dramatic/happy/sad stories.

Thanks for reading. I hope to talk with you soon :)