Some worse news to go with my bad news. Yesterday, I received notice that my claim for unemployment insurance could not be processed because I am not a U.S. resident. Duh! I told them that when I applied a month ago, and they assured me everything would be OK, since I had worked in the U.S. and paid into the unemployment fund.

So today, at the advice of U.S. counsellors, I visited the Canadian unemployment office. No problem, they said... we get these cases all the time. We just have to do the paperwork, and your case will be transferred to Canada. You will get benefits, paid through a reciprocal agreement with the U.S., backdated to your original claim date. Great, I thought. Until my case worker told me the paperwork generally takes 8 weeks to process.