Notice of Departure

I completely forgot about it, but my OPT expired at the end of August.  So.. my student visa in the US officially expired, and I no longer be able to work in the US.

Completely forgetting about it was a good sign that I was not thinking about going back.  It was a great experience to live and study in the US for five years, but when I think back now, it was the best decision to go home (or to go the place I wanted to be next) when I graduated.  Why?  Because if I work there, it will be another three years of stay, and it will be even harder for me to leave the US.  So I will be bound there, for good and bad.  It's hard to say what was best, at the end of the day, because you can only try one choice out of many possibilities.

I am glad that I followed my own instinct to go home, despite so many people telling me "Why don't you stay when you can? You are so lucky to be in the US."  Their advice was sensible - to their own values.  And I appreciate their kindness to share what they think is the best. However, it was me who was to decide.  It's just that I did not have the same values as them - at least at that time.  It made me realize how easy it is for me to be influenced by other people's opinions and values and mistake them as my own, and make a wrong decision for me.  It was a good experience... at least it feels so now even though I was regretting my decision to go home a year ago.  Despite my regret, I did not change my plans even though I had many opportunities to do so.  That can be another way to know my true intention, deep inside self..  

Decision-making is always tough! 

So I completed the form, Notice of Departure, to indicate that I have left the US and have no intention to extend my student visa (and post-completion work visa).  Time only flows one way.  It was a memorable moment, to bid farewell to my chapter I spent in Michigan.

People probably go through this kind of farewell all the time - and it reminds me of a verse in a book I read when I was a teen - "People you will never be able to see again, places you will never be able to visit again, and music that you will never be able to listen to again - the world is full of such things." And that is exactly why, and what, make them so special.