New Year's day

New year's day falls on the 1st day of January to mark the beginning of the new year.Unlike Christmas day,which is lightly celebrated overseas,the beginning of the new year is marked by a huge celebration.The build-up begins with fireworks preparation taking place at just about everywhere that you look.Kids and teenagers buy fireworks,while states and cities plan their own fireworks celebration on a grand scale.
Times Square in New York is known to have the best New Year's eve celebration.A ball is dropped from the sky with a big timer on it counting down to past midnight which would mark the beginning of the new year.There is a firework celebration going on downtown.Just down I-95,in the Baltimore Inner harbor there is a lot of fireworks going on also.It is great to be in these places,especially New York Times square,but if you can not make it there,do not worry, one of the national network stations will carry the event live for you.At New Year's eve,you can always find a party going on.Just call up one of your friends and you would be directed to one.Booze is in abundance,Heineken,Guinness,Michelob beer,Budwseiser,you name and it is available.The thing I loved most about living in the DC metro area is that,people work very hard and they also party very hard.Choose any of the parties going on and you will be guaranteed a good time.While you drink and chat with friends and family members,the TV set will be on and as the clock counts down to midnight,everybody rushes to the set in order not to miss the beginning to the new year.
New year's day itself is full of college football games.College football's regular season ends around the last week of November each year.Since there is no playoffs in the college football game,the teams with the best regular season records are matched in various bowl games around the nation to determine who becomes college football's national champion.This was before the Bowl Championship Series was introduced in 1998.Throughout the 80's and 90's teams played in different bowls games, then the coaches and football writers get to decide who the national champion was.
There has thus been co-champions in the past,Alabama and Miami in 1978,Colorado and Georgia in 1990,Miami(Fla)and Washington University in 1991 and Michigan and Nebraska in 1997.There is a coaches poll and another poll by UPI(this is the poll by an association of sport writers.
In the 80's one of the bowls that determined the eventual college champions was played on New year's day.Now the championship games could be slated anywhere from the first week of the new year through about the 9 day of the month of January, to avoid a schedule clash with national football league.

Work permit

When I got into the US in 1985, all you needed for employment was a social security number.Most of the time it did not even have to belong to you.It wasn't until November 6 of 1986 that then President Ronald Reagan signed into law the Immigration Reform and Control Act,making it unlawful to knowingly hired an illegal immigrant.Henceforth,employers were also required to request for proof of employment eligibility from potential employees.The bottom line, was to screened out undocumented immigrants.The jobs that I got while at Clemson and later on in Gainesville,Georgia,I provided a number that was issued to me by a friend.Even when I moved to Washington DC, I continued to use the same information to gain employment.By the time the Immigration Reform and Control Act was signed,I was already employed,so the law did not have an immediate effect on me.At the time,I believe current employees were not required to proof their legal status.
One of the side effects of the immigration reform was that a whole black market for official documentation started to explode around the nation.Fake driver licences,fake SSN,fake work authorisation permits could now be obtained from the streets.The first one that I got cost me 300dollars and it was a legitimate document.It was issued to me by an attorney of Haitian origin who was practising at the time in Silver Spring.I was introduced to him by a Ghanian friend of mine,with whom we worked in a gas service station.The first question the lawyer asked is how you arrived in the country?He then collects his fees and uses the information you provided him to process some work documents for you.The document arrives in your mail box in about a week or two.The guy must have been highly connected to be able to provide such legitimate documentation.He kept his operation very quiet,he did not request for any referrals.As a matter of fact, he requested that you not mention that you got the documentation through him.A number of my friends were shocked when I presented them with my legit working papers.I could not reveal my source though.The document help me a lot before it got missing on a metro train ride.I tried with no avail to locate the Haitian attorney.He had left the Silver Spring area and was probably operating somewhere else that was quite.
My work permit helped me get into many companies,included Fantle's drug store,Radio Shack,Circuit City,Burns Security and a whole lot of part time retail outlets that included Sears.By the time that I lost the document I was safely at Circuit City.I missed quite a few employment opportunities while I was at Circuit City.Sprint Spectrum had tried to hire me in 1998 and I had to turned down the job for personal reasons.Everybody,especially my co-workers were shocked because Sprint Spectrum was the place that everybody was dying to go work for.I did join Sprint PCS in the beginning of 1999,but that was after I had tapped into another black market source.This one I got the information about it while reading the Washington Post.There was an article there about a triving black market for official documentation downtown DC in the Columbia Pike area.This is an area with a lot of immigrations from Latin American.The article explained how the whole business is conducted from start to finish.They provided all types of documentations.
I got one from this source, after providing the individual with all the information that I wanted on the document.It did not cost much me either.About $100 is all I paid for it.There was a problem with the document though.A trained eye could tell that they were not legit.I could tell right away.I talked to a few people and they convince me that a company that really wanted to hire me with my experience would not bother to look too closely at the document.Companies interested in hiring you,actually go throw the whole hiring process and it is usually on the first day on the job that you are required to show proof of being eligible for employment.This was the case for the last two jobs that I held before leaving the US,at Sprint Pcs and AT&T Wireless.

Christmas Holidays

Christmas day is celebrated worldwide and US joins in celebrating the day that Jesus Christ was born.The built up to the day itself is treated differently than say in Cameroon.In the US it is a day celebrated quietly at home with a few friends and family members.People spend money on Christmas trees,including decorating the tree.It is also a cold period in most of the US,so you would not see people dancing in the streets and children moving from one house to the other to visit with their neighbours as in the case in the African countries.People spend a lot of money buying gifts though for friends and family members.This is one period when you do not want to be broke.People will remember you for not providing them with a Christmas gift.Retailers make a lot of their profit during this period.You go to the shopping centers and they are all full of people shopping.People shop for items,gift wrap them and get them delivered to the intended recipients.The post office and package delivery services are all busy during this period.If you want to pick up a job for the holidays,this is the period to do it.Ups,Federal Express and just about all the retail outlets will have "for hire" signs posted all over the place.I spent quite a few Christmas day at Willie's place.He had little children at the time.
I would buy them electronic games and educational hand held materials.I remember spending a few Christmas with the Awasums,Cecilia Awasum is my first cousin,married to David Awasum.At the time, they were living in Baltimore.They also had little children at the time.I would buy electronic gadgets for them and they will be all happy.On Christmas day,all you have to do is walked into any house and look at where the Christmas tree is.Underneath it you will see all the gifts that are ready for distribution.They are all neatly packed and placed underneath the trees.Once everybody is around, the gifts are distributed to the respective owners.The National Basketball Association(NBA)traditionally shows a professional basketball game sometime after 3.30pm.There might also be a college football bowl game or two.College bowl games are part of the post season match-ups that the NCAA provides during the holiday season.

Great College football games

I have watched some great college football games while in the US and I would start with a regular season college football game between the University of Miami and Florida State that took place in Talahasse,Florida in the 1986 football season.The game ended with Florida State coming from behind to get within an extra point of tying the game but Coach Bobby Bowden opted to go for two points to win the game and came up short.It was an exciting game though and Florida State won lots of fans that day including myself and they went on to embark on a tremendous record that would span about two decades, including winning two national champions.
The University of Clemson Tigers play their homes games in death Valley,Clemson,South Carolina and the University of Georgia is one of their big rivals.The game that I am talking about took place in the 1986/1986 college season and it was an up and down battle that ended with Clemson kicking a tough field goal in overtime to win a 35-38 thriller.It was one of the last games in the Danny Ford era at the School before he was push out for alleged recruiting violations.
Other great games include,University of Miami/Penn State in 1986,a game that Penn State won to knock Miami out of National Championship Contention.University of Miami versus Oklahoma for the 1988 National Championship win by Miami.The University of Florida versus Florida State for coach Steve Spurrier's national champion while at the University of Florida.Danny Wurlfull lead the Gators and in addition to winning the national championship that year,also won the heisman trophy.