Does any dv winner have second thoughts...

[NickandAngi 8]

ah SusieQQQ, I had no idea about Hicksville, New York... that cracked me up. Thanks for the chuckle

[Avery Cates 1,141]

I'd like to know if I am alone in this.

I spent 2 years of emotional stress wether I would get selected for further processing and wether I would eventually get a visa after the interview.

During that time, I met a wonderful person and we had the time of our lives. When I told her initially that there is a chance that I win a green card somewhere along the year she didn't pay much attention saying that now that I found her I wouldn't have a reason to move to another country and I was somewhat dissapointed to hear from her that she would never leave her home country.

As the months were passing by and my interview day was coming closer, I was starting to feel torn inside and stressed because we loved each other very much and it would hurt us both if I was issued successfuly a visa.

And so it was done, after my visa was issued and I told her that I would have to travel to the US in the following months and maybe stay there forever, she was devastated.

She was so emotionally hurt from the news that she was hospitalised for some weeks and did all kinds of medical exams but the doctors didn't found anything wrong with her, it was all a result of the emotional stress she went through.

I really don't sleep well the last 3 months and I am feeling that I am making the greatest mistake that I will regret when I grow older.

Sadly, my family doesn't support me in this and they urge me to move to the US without looking back.

They only care about my financial success, not my emotional happines.

It also gets worse when I read many articles that say "Top reasons NOT to move to NY" like the expensive rents, the fact that everyone is for themselves and nobody notices you, everyone working frantically their assess off etc. Those might seem trivial, but I am a very emotional person and I don't like the feeling of loliness and isolation, nor I glorify money and financial success.

I'd like to hear your thoughts.

Sounds to me like you really know what you want to do, so do it.

[Boiler 43,683]

Lots of nice train stations in Colorado.

[RobertM54 36]

This is an old thread but I will add my 0.02.

I was recently in Istanbul. The subways were much better than DC or Boston (sorry NYC - have not been there for 30 years).

As a westerner stranded in the east - if you want quiet - go to Phoenix Arizona. Salt Lake City Utah or Denver Colorado.

I also like Texas but i do not speak the language properly.

Omaha Nebraska is fantastic but the winters are horrible beyond belief.

There was a comment on the "poverty" level in USA. You probably have already figured this out.

In most place, a $50K a year a family income is OK. Not great but OK.

The thing to keep in mind is the poverty statistics are warped way low by immigrants who are just passing through the lower income levels.

You are going to do fine.

Good luck.

[Alex Ve 5]

After 2 months or so in NY, I returned back to my home country for a couple of weeks to recover from all this mental stress I went through all those months.

I quit my temporary job ($10 per hour ) and announced to my family that I would leave two days before my flight.

I disappointed a lot of my family and friends with my decision. I just couldn't stand it anymore.

I didn't like anything thing there really. Didn't like the cold climate, the dirty and outdated transportation and housing infrastructure, the materialistic frenetic lifestyle, the food and the long distances that you have to go through in your daily work.

Full-time job is 8 hours a day? Add to that almost one more hour to reach work in the morning being sleepy in a crowded train full of weirdos and another hour to return and you got there two wasted hours of your life = 10hours full-time job.

Plus I missed terribly my partner, my friends and the places I grew up.

Now, I passed by my old job and my ex employer told me that he needs me to help him out in some graphic projects until I return again to NY cause the guys that he hired didn't live up to his expectations.

As we talked a bit more personally, he asked me if I wanted to work again for him and offered me a salary rise to 850 euros per month for 8 hour (the average salary now in greece is around 650 euros per month for employees like me that are over 25 years old).

In the meantime, during my stay in NY I received my GC and SSN, but didn't apply for driver's licence and tax id.

But I was about to open an LLC business for web services and my programmer friend would do most of the work.

What I was thinking is to go back, get a drivers licence and do all the paperwork to open my business and return to work for my employer in Greece.

I am aware that I will lose my GC if I stay over six months outside the US, but I am wondering if maintaining a business in NYC can help me maintain my GC permanently.

Maybe also my employer in Greece can write a letter that he is offering me a job so that I can apply for a re-entry permit or something?

Thank you.

[Boiler 43,683]

Suggest you read up on Maintaining Permanent Residency, were you not sent the blurb?

[SusieQQQ 11,585]

You do know you still have to file tax returns with the IRS while you are in Greece right? Probably won't have to pay anything but you have to file. (Also you don't "apply" for tax ID, your SSN is your tax ID and you will need to file a tax return as a green card holder.) Unless you formally give up your green card then you don't have to file.

So many people tried to give you advice but you have judged the entire country on 2 months in Astoria in winter, if you had listened/tried somewhere else/stuck it out a bit longer you might have a different attitude. However...all that said, quite honestly, with one of your complaints being expected to work an 8 hour day, it might be better for you to just move back to Greece permanently.

Edited January 30, 2016 by SusieQQQ

[Alex Ve 5]

The U.S. has enough people trying to survive in a tough economy - and they don't whine. This community does not have a solution for your problem. Personally, I think you should stay in Greece.

Well, maybe thats exactly the problem...

Maybe if the people had higher expectations for their lives and didn't settle just to earn a living, then maybe the world would be a better place.

Maybe this disgracing event wouldn't happen in America in 2016 if things were different...

'It's all just poison now': Flint reels as families struggle through water crisis

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jan/24/flint-michigan-water-crisis-lead-poisoning-families-children

A couple of spot on comments in the above link

"Only the bits you see in the movies. There's plenty of third world infrastructure and poverty to be found in the US of A.

"This is a country that spends as much on its military as the next 26 nations do combined. And yet it has, tucked away quietly, substantial pockets of extreme poverty and civil neglect.

Priorities."

"Like others, I'm stunned reading this. Initially by the litany of mistakes and oversights that allowed it to happen, and later by the shameful lack of a meaningful response. How on earth can a country as well-resourced as the USA find itself in a position whereby citizens are consuming poisoned water? There should be national uproar about this, it bears all the hallmarks of state incompetence and more-worryingly a cavalier attitude to matters of public health. My respects to those affected who in the interviews displayed a remarkable degree of resilience and fortitude in continuing to live through this hell."

Or, depressing wealth inequality charts like this wouldn't even exist.

Edited January 30, 2016 by Alex Ve

[SusieQQQ 11,585]

Alex, you keep trying to justify to yourself why you want to go back to Greece. Seriously, if working 8 hours a day is a problem for you, the US is not the place for you. (Although I find it difficult to reconcile your saying people don't have high enough expectations but you seem to think they shouldn't have to work to realize those...). The way the US works is that people work hard and then they get rewarded for that (hopefully). No one gets government handouts to sit on the beach or to subsidize working 5 hours a day or whatever. Give up your green card, go home and enjoy life in Greece.

[Alex Ve 5]

Alex, you keep trying to justify to yourself why you want to go back to Greece. Seriously, if working 8 hours a day is a problem for you, the US is not the place for you. (Although I find it difficult to reconcile your saying people don't have high enough expectations but you seem to think they shouldn't have to work to realize those...). The way the US works is that people work hard and then they get rewarded for that (hopefully). No one gets government handouts to sit on the beach or to subsidize working 5 hours a day or whatever. Give up your green card, go home and enjoy life in Greece.

I don't have a problem working 8 hours. I have a problem adding two more hours on my daily struggle in commute to get to work and return home. That's what I wrote.

Well, I don't think that many hard working people in the US get rewarded at the end of the day.

Especially if you take into account the above chart I posted.

Anyway, I just try to see things objectively and don't fall for the american hype when clearly the US is a country with serious issues.

Work for everyone? Sure, there's plenty of that in the US. But from what I saw from my visit, you have to be in a constant struggle and stress to pay the mortgage and bills for life with not much savings aside.

I'll probably return to the US and I hope I have a better experience and take back all the negative things I said, I'm sure about that.

Edited January 30, 2016 by Alex Ve

[SusieQQQ 11,585]

I don't have a problem working 8 hours. I have a problem adding two more hours on my daily struggle in commute to get to work and return home. That's what I wrote.

Well, I don't think that many hard working people in the US get rewarded at the end of the day.

Especially if you take into account the above chart I posted.

Anyway, I just try to see things objectively and don't fall for the american hype when clearly the US is a country with serious issues.

Work for everyone? Sure, there's plenty of that in the US. But from what I saw from my visit, you have to be in a constant struggle and stress to pay the mortgage and bills for life with not much savings aside.

I'll probably return to the US and I hope I have a better experience and take back all the negative things I said, I'm sure about that.

What you saw from your visit in Astoria? From your map? Good lord. There are plenty of people who are living very nice lives as a result of working hard. Maybe you didn't see them in Astoria. Did you visit other parts of Queens or NYC? Did you go out to Long Island? Did you see anyone in Florida or north Carolina or Texas or California? Or... etc. Other people have already posted about places which have better climates and more space and lower cost of living. Yes - all of those together. You chose to ignore those places. Other places still are amazing and busy with higher cost of living, but people work harder there. These kind of people often enjoy their jobs and don't mind working harder, especially when they get very well compensated for them. Not everyone lives somewhere where they have to commute an hour to work each way, especially for minimum wage - you chose (or accepted) that. Many people wouldn't.

Honestly, unless you plan on returning to a different part of the US and more importantly, with a different attitude, I doubt you'll have a better experience. You never wanted to come, you came under pressure, so you found what you were looking for ...an excuse to go home.

[SusieQQQ 11,585]

Add to that almost one more hour to reach work in the morning being sleepy in a crowded train full of weirdos

I actually wanted to ask you more about this "crowded train full of weirdos". I mean, yeah it's the NYC subway and there are weirdos around. But I've caught a lot of subways in Queens - mainly E, F, M and R but also others - and I've caught them in rush hour. My family has been in Queens a long long time and I've often stayed with them, including at one stage when I spent a month in the NYC office of the company I was working for at the time. Sleepy, yes. Crowded, undoubtedly. But weirdos? Full of them, in rush hour? No, definitely not. Full of people going to work - and you can see that it is a range of blue collar and white collar jobs and some people dressed in very expensive clothes and others not - and students going to school. But weirdos? Nope. Can you explain what you mean by that? Can you give examples of what all these people look like and act like that the train is full of weirdos? Of course, I trust you mean something else than "not white".

[Alex Ve 5]

What you saw from your visit in Astoria? From your map? Good lord. There are plenty of people who are living very nice lives as a result of working hard. Maybe you didn't see them in Astoria. Did you visit other parts of Queens or NYC? Did you go out to Long Island? Did you see anyone in Florida or north Carolina or Texas or California? Or... etc. Other people have already posted about places which have better climates and more space and lower cost of living. Yes - all of those together. You chose to ignore those places. Other places still are amazing and busy with higher cost of living, but people work harder there. These kind of people often enjoy their jobs and don't mind working harder, especially when they get very well compensated for them. Not everyone lives somewhere where they have to commute an hour to work each way, especially for minimum wage - you chose (or accepted) that. Many people wouldn't.

Honestly, unless you plan on returning to a different part of the US and more importantly, with a different attitude, I doubt you'll have a better experience. You never wanted to come, you came under pressure, so you found what you were looking for ...an excuse to go home.

The only places I went besides Astoria is Long Island, Forest Hills, Harlem and Manhattan. The only ones I liked are LI and FH.

But still there was something I didn't like about the way of life that seems so foreign to me.

I actually wanted to ask you more about this "crowded train full of weirdos". I mean, yeah it's the NYC subway and there are weirdos around. But I've caught a lot of subways in Queens - mainly E, F, M and R but also others - and I've caught them in rush hour. My family has been in Queens a long long time and I've often stayed with them, including at one stage when I spent a month in the NYC office of the company I was working for at the time. Sleepy, yes. Crowded, undoubtedly. But weirdos? Full of them, in rush hour? No, definitely not. Full of people going to work - and you can see that it is a range of blue collar and white collar jobs and some people dressed in very expensive clothes and others not - and students going to school. But weirdos? Nope. Can you explain what you mean by that? Can you give examples of what all these people look like and act like that the train is full of weirdos? Of course, I trust you mean something else than "not white".

Of course I mean something else.

Well, there are some people that dress in some crazy fashion, or doing something particularly out of the ordinary.

I may have overacted by saying the train is full, but there are still some of them there.

Maybe I am not used to such a foreign culture, maybe it's my fault who knows or I am too emotionally attached to my home country that everything seems so negative to me.

Actually I absolutely hated going to the subway and waiting so long to go to work or go out for a walk.

Too much wasted time.

Edited January 30, 2016 by Alex Ve

[Boiler 43,683]

An hour commute, I did that as a kid going to school.

[Alex Ve 5]

An hour commute, I did that as a kid going to school.

Maybe that's why it's so easier for you since you were a kid and you got used to.

It's not easy at all for me.