My job search has been at a complete dead end. I've applied and applied to all the jobs I am legally allowed to have in the United States, and I haven't heard anything back. My professors, who were all seemingly eager to help me out with this, haven't returned my messages either, so now I am getting anxious as time goes on and I still don't have a job... I only have a set number of days that I am "allowed" to be unemployed before I am out of status and they'll kick me out.

It's petty, but this situation with my job has also made it difficult to be all alone here while the boy is out of town doing work. Right now he is on an archaeological dig, which is his passion and something he is really good at. I know how much he wanted the job, supported him through the whole interview process, looked over his resume with him, celebrated with him when he got the job... he unexpectedly got the day off for July 4th (they were supposed to work through it, but half the crew complained about it, and the people in charge said that it was all or nothing, either everyone works or everyone gets time off... so they got time off) and he came to visit me, the job site is only about 3h away. He is so happy with his job, he's a brilliant archaeologist and he is really making connections with people who are prominent in the field. That's all he could talk about. And I feel terrible for feeling left behind on this, I feel terrible that part of me is incredibly jealous that everything is falling into place for him while I'm still stuck in a limbo that's part bad economy and part bureaucratic nightmare.

It doesn't help that I know he's had a lot of female attention on digs in the past. And I know that it was when he was single and he's never cheated on anyone, but in my current state of mind it's hard not to start thinking about the worse. There is no phone reception where he is. He tries calling me every evening after work but it doesn't always work. I try to call him too, but even though it sounds like it's ringing, he says he never got any of my calls. He says he texts me every morning (we had agreed to this too - a good morning text, an afterwork phonecall, and a goodnight text every day) but I never receive any of them. I'm lucky if I get five minutes of good quality calls with him, and that's it for a day. When he came to visit yesterday I asked him how he would feel if the situation was reversed. He told me he probably would feel like driving up every day to check up on me, and seemed to understand how hard it is on me. Especially since there are times where I hear "I'm going to Helen's campground" and then the call drops, and I try calling five times and it rings and there's no answer. Of course it turned out that Helen cooks for the entire crew and that my calls didn't actually go through, but with nothing to do at home my mind plays bad tricks on me. But there's nothing he can do to change it. So right now I just have to suck it up.

My mother is coming to visit me here in the states, she's landing in about two weeks. We're currently planning to go to NYC for a week, and thankfully she's paying for all of it. I'm wary of my mother and I spending a full month in pretty much the same space, we do things very differently, especially since I've moved out to the states almost four years ago. She'll be living in my apartment and I am already bracing myself for her criticizing pretty much everything I do (from the way I do the dishes to how often I clean my towels) but at the same time I look forward to her seeing where I live and the places I love. Lawrence is a beautiful place, and Kansas has such a stereotypical reputation of having nothing but cattle and backward hicks that I look forward to dispelling that for her.