Since my last article posted here, a lot has changed. I will try to take it slow here and analyze what actually happened with my readers. I'm not saying that everything is worse or better; it is just a change. Human behavior and experience attach "bad" or "good" labels to changes.
 
After settling down, everything was good. I always had a lot of energy, filled with motivation. I was happy to go to work, learn new things and experiences, and travel. It was hard at the start because there were many things I could not understand. A simple example. There are 2 gas stations on different sides of the same road, one sells the gas for $5 per gallon, and the other sells it for $5.5. As a human with common sense, I could not understand how people still go to the expensive gas station. And not just 1 or 2 cars were pulling up; no, there were many. I asked many people this question: Why do people go to the expensive gas station if the same gas is cheaper? None of them could give me an answer that would satisfy my common sense :) If you ask this question now, I will answer the following. People are getting used to things, and they don't want to change them. For many, it is not just the gas filling anymore; it is much more; it is a type of their habits and commute. They need to go in and say to the worker inside - "Hey John, how you doing" and have their small talk and feel satisfied. They don't care about those $0.5 per gallon anymore. They don't even notice the difference.

This is just one example out of many that was hard for me to accept into my common sense. This is what I call the transformation, adaptation and conversion period. A change in mindset. That is very important.

If you want to be part of society, you need to understand it. You need to understand the new rules; you need to understand the new habits. You can still be the same person, but you are being changed unconsciously. Agree or not, it is happening. For many, this might not be news. For me, it was, and it still is.

Covid-19 started in December 2019, and the US started the shutdown in March 2020, quarantine, isolation, and regulations. Big changes were about to hit the ways we were used to living. I started to work from home. It was hard to adapt since there were a lot of distractions, kids, noise, and access to the refrigerator :) I felt a decrease in my productivity and performance at the start, but when I started to get used to this new way, my productivity doubled. I started to feel that at work there were ALOT more distractions. I was able to do more during the day, more meetings, and more coding. The quality of my work also got a raise. Like many, I realized that this is going to be the future, it is totally possible.

With Covid though, there was a lockdown, you were not allowed to travel and meet people. The physical social life died. For many, it was a huge depression, but for me, I consider myself an introvert, and it was not too bad. I was able to socialize while playing my online games, it was a fun time. Since our office was not a public place, and there were just a few employees, we were able to open up early, and everything was back to normal. There was a big difference now. You can work remotely and still be successful in what you are doing. Of course, this won't work for many businesses, but it will for many others. Big companies now want their employees back in offices, but there is a big resistance. People don't work to go back to the office or worse, they don't want to work at all. I think the last part is stupid, it is a degradation. You need to do some kind of work, for others or for yourself, but you need to be in the loop.

The Loop - the dangerous loop many of us live in. There are many types of loops. Wake up -> Work -> Gym -> Sleep loop is a popular one these days. There are many others. Wake up -> Gym -> Sleep -> Party -> Sleep. It does not matter what your loop is, but if you can sense it, you need to do something about it. Again, loops are in our nature. It is about if you can sense them or not.
 
You can break your loop and start a new one. It requires a significant change in your life. You can move to another country, you can get married, you can have children, all these are things that break previous loops and start new loops.
But there are also ways to refresh/reset current loops. They require more other changes, like moving to a new apartment or changing your job.

The important thing here is the CHANGE; you must realize that only change can save you. A significant change, small change, or what particular change is needed, differs from person to person; you need to dig into yourself and find out.
Sensing the loop and realizing that you need the change is not enough. The hardest part is, having the guts for it.

This article feels "darker" to me compared to my older articles; it has this dark energy inside, and I can feel it too after I read it. But it concludes what was these 4 years like. Realizing, adapting, and constantly changing in a pandemic requires a lot of energy. I gave this energy; now I need to find some energy source, some new change.

I hope I will be able to dedicate more time to my blog since it is a great help to me. It is like thinking aloud, and it helps to analyze everything.

When I first went to one of those huge stores here, I was amazed. Compared to ones in my home country, they are 20 times bigger. You can spend all your day there, and don't even notice how time flies. Most of those stores have food courts there, so eating is not a problem. There are even kid playgrounds, so you can leave your kid there and spend your money :) My son decided to go with us though, as it is comfortable to lay down in those big shopping carts.

If you want to get good quality, not expensive furniture, there is a place for it. IKEA

Little bit of wikipedia here. IKEA is a Swedish-founded multinational group that designs and sells ready-to-assemble furniture, kitchen appliances and home accessories, among other useful goods and occasionally home services. It has been the world's largest furniture retailer since at least 2008.

There is another fun part with this store. The store has 2 areas. The first one is where all the products are showcased, and the second one is the warehouse. All the showcased products has a special code and a note where to find it in the warehouse. So the process is to write down all product codes and locations that you wanna buy, then go get them from the warehouse, by yourself :) 

At first this was kind of weird experience, as in my home country you just tell what you want to the workers, and they handle the rest. But I saw that all people here are just grabbing stuff from warehouse. Just check location, aisle and bin, find the item, check the code and you are done, pretty simple process. The second time i came to IKEA i felt as an expert in finding stuff in warehouse :) I enjoyed the process so much that for a short time I wanted to even work there.

For the prices, they are really affordable. And quality is good. If you still don't want to grab items by yourself, you can pay an official fee, and they can get them for you. What to do with all the beds, sofas, tables, chairs, kitchen stuff. How to get it to home? No problem, pay another 35$ and you get a next day delivery. Super cheap in my opinion.

Another fun with IKEA, though it may be just personal, is the assembly process. You get instructions with all products, all you need is some patience. I personally assembled all my furniture, and I really enjoy doing this. Still, if it is too complicated for you, you can always pay them, and they will come and assemble it for you. But come on, it is really fun to do it by yourself. And in the end you feel good, cause you made it with your hands.

So with few visits to IKEA, I had done with all my furniture. Beds, chests, sofa, rugs, tables, chairs, kitchen stuff like flatware sets, mugs and cups etc.

The next step was electronics and food. There is wholesale store Costco, which covers lots of this. In order to buy products from their store, you need to purchase their card first, there are 2 membership plans, but both of them worth it. They sell almost everything, electronics are always cheaper than in other stores, food is alot cheaper too, because it is wholesale. We usually don't buy too much food from there, my wife prefers Trader Joe's or Wholefoods.

With just one visit to Costco, I got TV, vacuum cleaner, hair dryer, iron. I also got stuff like drinks, napkins, paper towels, snacks, fruits, vegetables for a month.

The first month is the US is extraordinary. Time flies so fast, but after when you look back, and compare what you did in the first month versus second or third, you realize how special it was. I was able to do so much during a day, I had full energy as everything was new, I woke up at 6AM everyday and went to sleep at 10PM. I was not used to it, because in my home country, I used to wake up at 9:30AM and go to sleep at 2AM, so I was thinking to myself "what a good start in the US".
 

Currently I realize that it was just the jet lag, I changed 11 timezones and it took me a whole month for it to pass. But it gave me the opportunity to find and rent an apartment, lease a car, buy furniture (yeah, you rent an empty apartment in the US, only the kitchen is there), buy electronics: In few words create my new home from scratch.

You can never guess what was the first thing I bought in the US besides coffee :) I realized it when I took my first Uber. It was car seat for my son. Uber does not provide one, so you need to have your own and put it into the Uber car. In my country it is not required to use a car seat, but here it is a must. I was advised to check Toys”R”Us store because they were closing at that time and had huge clearance sales (80%), but it was just waste of time. Prices were still high, so I just went to Target, and they had many car seats to choose, and my son helped me to choose one.

So, first thing to do was to find a good apartment/condo or a house to rent. The prices went up few years ago in this area, because some big companies moved their offices to here, and more than 20.000 employees moved to live here. In June 2018, you could rent a clean 1 bedroom apartment in good area in Glendale, LA for $1700-$1800 and 2 bedroom one for $2000-$2300. There are always expensive ones, that are in new building and are in big complexes with gyms, swimming pools, offices included for free usage, but they are around $1000 more.

I used to visit 3-6 open houses every day, for 2 weeks, until I could make a decision and rent the apartment. Advice from me, besides visiting rental websites like Zillow, just walk in the area you want to find house, and check signs on front of the buildings. People are so lazy to add their listing to online directories, they just buy signs and put at the front yard. After checking around 40 houses I finally understood that they all are almost the same. The criteria for choosing the right one are:

 - Does it have laundry inside unit?

 - Is there enough light?

 - Does it have central A/C?

 - Does the owner provide parking spots, how many?

 - Any food markets near?

You can always add you custom criteria, but the houses are almost the same.

It will be super hard to rent an apartment or a house by yourself because the US has the "Credit Score" concept, and as you are new, you don't have it yet. So what you need to do is find a co-signer, any cousins, relatives who will be ready to help you. I have cousins in LA, who helped me with this and I did my paperwork fast and was approved fast. So after 20 days stepping in the US, I had my apartment, it had only kitchen in it, all the rooms were empty. The apartment did not even have refrigerator. As my contract in the hotel was for 1 month, I still had 10 days to make a sweet home out of this empty apartment.

Continued here

Hello everyone, I am Armen Haroyan. I want to start a blog about my experience in the US as a permanent resident. The blog is going to be in English, and as it is not my native language, it is not going to be perfect, anyway :)

I moved to the US with a Green Card in 2018 from Armenia and want to share my experience with all of you, especially the ones that gonna have similar experience.

Few words about me, I am 29, born in raised in Armenia, now married, have a wonderful son, almost 4. I am a web developer enthusiast with 10 years of experience with PHP and web development, 4 years of experience with managing/leading/supervising technical teams. I have experience with startups, and was able to grow 2 startups from 0 to profitable state. I like competitive gaming, mostly like multiplayer games. Yup, that's me :)

I will not cover all the processes before entering the US, like the paperwork needed for the Embassy interview in home country, preparing for interview, buying tickets, etc. because it can be different based on country from which you are moving to the US. 

I always wanted to live in Los Angeles, very attractive as seen in movies, perfect weather, biggest Armenian community and many memories. I visited my relatives few times before, and I loved this place.

I stood in the US in June, arrived at the LAX airport. I already knew where I was going to stay for a month until I find an apartment for rent, so I found a taxi right there in the airport and arrived to my hotel. 

This was the first mistake I did in the US :)

If you need a local transportation, and you don't have a car, the answer is Uber. You can also try Lyft, which is basically the same thing, but I went with Uber. So for the taxi that I got from the airport, I paid $95! And later, when I checked with Uber, it would cost me only $45 with UberX. So basically I payed twice the price.

I arrived to Days Inn which is the name of the hotel, and I payed $120 for 1 night. Good part with this hotel is that it had another hotel in the same building which was called Extended Stays, and you can stay there paying monthly, and compared to Airbnb or other hotels, it is SUPER cheap. I payed $1600 for 1 month for 2 double beds, which is considered cheap in my area. I also had to pay $1400 security deposit, which was returned to me in next week after I left the Extended Stays. The down part of this place was that the room had no kitchen, so we had to bring food from outside or just dine outside. But it was totally worth it.

Check out my next article about how find a home.