vineri, 19 martie 2010

work and travel

After a talk with a friend tonight, I feel like there is an important thing to add.
The program in which I enrolled a lot of time is called:
"summer work and travel USA".
That's the name of the program, and not a company.
In Romania, there are several companies who deal with this kind of thing:
-Student Travel
-American Experience
-Gts

Anything else... Sucks.
Convince yourselves and ask before you enroll in a program.

duminică, 14 martie 2010

Right of way

I want to address this topic. We, as Romanians, are used to be in a hurry. And by considering ourselves the most important and smart beings on the planet, we don't pay attention to the other people around us. Of course, others have the same feeling of themselves of "inner greatness".
And if I am in a hurry and you are in a hurry, we're going to:
  • cut the line.
  • don't stay in line, skip the rows, and laugh of the others of how stupid they are to obey silly social rules.
  • Cut in front of the other, when we're driving
  • When we go to a public institution, we call friends of friends, just to be the first served.
Of course, the blame lies in poor education and maybe lack of private space.
We have this feeling of being rushed mostly in bigger cities (Bucharest ..... eaaaah), where a lot of people started to wear the ugly rigid mask of impoliteness.

In the places I've been throughout the world, people were busy also. In USA, time is money. But as long as I lived there, honking was to avoid dangers: changing lanes, signaling danger and so on.
How many times did this scenario occur to you?
You are in traffic, and wait at the stop lights. You are the first to go. You forget about keeping an eye on the stop lights. The lights go green, and in 0.5 s, somebody is already honking in your rear. You realize you made a mistake, you start off, and the guy behind you tries to go pass you.
As he overpasses, he curses you and reminds of : relatives, graveyard, hospitals etc.

Once I tried several times this scenario in the US. I "forgot" to start at the stop lights. It took them about 7 seconds to start honking. But nobody cursed me. No swearing.
Even in rush our, people smile, blink and give right of way.
If you are a pedestrian, and you want to cross the roads, cars stop.
This rarely happens in Romania. Where are our manners? Should us somebody tell us how to act and be polite? It's easy and very rewarding and comes from common sense. Wake up, Romania!

marți, 23 februarie 2010

What's new for work and travel 2010

New requirements from the US Embassy for the Romanian students to get the J1 Visa:
  1. They won't ask for a minimum school mark average. Each case will be discussed separately.
  2. Romanian students can stay up to 31st October in the US, provided that they will stop work on 1st October. Now that really turns into a AND TRAVEL programme, unlike the years before. Because of the financial issues, some people will work even more, disregarding the rules. But hopefully, students will enjoy even more the travel section, which is great.
  3. Most probably, people won't have to fill in those annoying DS 156, 157, 158. There will be only one to do, the new DS 160.
  4. Most probably there will be an increase in the US Visa fee. (more than 131 USD, as it used to be)