A lot of changes have taken place in our lives in the time it's been since we saw one another, which was back in August of 2012. We both finished college and graduated with our respective degrees in August of 2013. Originally we had planned for me to visit after I finished my degree, but after talking a lot about it and factoring in the cost of the trip, we decided to postpone it until we were both in a better place.
I worked part-time for 3 months while I finished my Masters degree and then 4 months afterwards while searching for a full-time job. I finally landed a temporary (1000 hr contract) position in January working as a lab tech at Unilever. The pay is pretty good for an entry-level position and the experience will look fantastic on my resume. The biggest perk, though, aside from discounted products, is that once my contract ends, I will have several thousand dollars in savings and absolutely no work obligations, so I am happy to say that I will be in Peru in August for like 99% certain. I haven't booked my tickets yet, though, and I'll get to why in a bit.
Juan got a full-time job straight out of school through connections with a friend doing video games for a small South American game company. The pay is pretty crap, though, in my eyes-- converting to USD, I calculated that he makes the equivalent of about $5000 a year. That's insane! Even with the lower living costs, he barely takes home anything. He enjoys what he does, though, and they absolutely love him, so the experience will be good and will give him a leg up if/when he changes position or location. Still, it's not helping anything when it comes to money. :/
We spent October-December 2013 applying to grad school for him. It was incredibly frustrating. I had to basically guide him through the whole thing because they have approximately zero support for applying to grad school there and he had no idea what to do. We spent SO much time preparing him for the GRE and TOEFL. He ended up doing okay with reading/writing (although his essays were pretty bad), but fantastic on the math. Thank goodness he excelled there, because he desperately needs every bit of help to get into a grad program.
It also really pisses me off that it costs so much money to apply to graduate school. Each of the tests he had to take (fee waivers not available because he's not a US citizen
) cost $180. Each application fee for the five schools he applied to ranged from $60-$100 (which I ended up paying for). Each additional score report he had to order (6?) was $18-$25. This is all maybe "okay" for someone in the US, but to someone in Peru, it's a fucking fortune. And then, the icing on the cake: to get an official transcript from his school, each copy costs $80 fucking US dollars and takes like 2 months to process. We ended up saying fuck it and had notarized copies made and sent emails to the schools asking them to accept the copy because it's absolutely, 1000000% RIDICULOUS to expect him to pay so much for something he can just copy and email to you only to be rejected from your stupid school. In total, we spent $1000+ to apply. This just boggles my mind. How is anyone from a less-than-privileged background supposed to go to graduate school? This doesn't even touch on the question of funding.We finally finished applications towards the end of December after many, many hurdles, and we're just waiting to hear back from them now. He's been rejected by 2 of the 5 he applied to so far. It has been a very trying time on our relationship and emotions. He has told me a few times that he's worried about our relationship if he doesn't get in. I'm not worried about that, but I am worried that it will change him. He has taken each rejection very harshly and each time I see a little bit of him crumble away. Only recently has he been opening up to me about his plans for what happens if he doesn't get in.
I haven't booked my plane tickets yet because I need to know whether he gets into grad school or not. If he does, then I have to book a ticket for both myself and him on the return trip, and it will need to be at least a week before he's expected to be on campus. If he doesn't... I will probably stay in Peru for a month or two before coming back, and we will figure it out from there. I should have plenty of savings either way so that I don't have to worry about supporting myself while in transition.
We've talked about maybe having him try one more time to get a tourist visa to visit if he doesn't get in (after my August visit). We've also talked about just diving in and doing the K1 visa (not my favorite choice but better than the alternatives) or just getting married there (my least favorite choice-- we already said we want to do it in the US) and doing the CR1 visa. All the options suck because none of them are what we really want and they cost an arm and a leg and our first born child.
I read something in the comments section of a site the other day that basically said, "Sometimes we joke that it's almost more reasonable to try to sneak him into the country illegally on the chance that he gets amnesty than it is to do everything the 'right' way through visas."
I'm so happy you'll finally get to see each other again (relatively) soon.
I had no idea applying for grad school was so expensive in the US
I hope you two have the best time when you see each other. Try to focus on that when things seem overwhelming--you remind me a lot of myself in that you think a lot about how things will pan out in the far future/want to be ready for every outcome, and I know it can really make you insane. If you need to talk, my PM box is always open.
Good luck with everything. <3