u/eyyuen

Hi everyone, it’s been a while!
I wanted to see if any U.S. folks have bought any kimono or accessories from Japan since the change in our import processes at the beginning of July, and if you had any issues with packages getting returned or destroyed?

I’m based in the U.S., and one of my kimono teachers has been telling people that since the beginning of July, nothing can be imported from Japan and any kimono items we buy are at a risk of being destroyed or returned to sender, and anything that has happened to get through since early July was just luck, so the only option now is to go to Japan and bring kimono back. However, we recently ordered a big shipment of kitsuke accessories from our kimono school in Japan and that arrived without issue.

As I understand it, there was a change that in some situations, shippers are supposed to provide some kind of manufacturing certificate online upfront instead of just on request like it was in the past. From what I’ve read, the target is mostly anything that appears to be for children, so people who had bought plushies or collectible toys were having issues, but the impact on clothing for adults, especially used clothing, was unclear. There’s actually some language in the policy that “plain weave” fabrics without nap (as silk is) have already been well shown to not be excessively flammable and therefore okay, although I am far from an import/export expert so not sure how much trust I can put in my interpretation! 🤔

I know there’s a handful of US folks in this group and I haven’t seen any mention of recent kimono shipping issues, so I am suspecting my teacher might be overreacting in an abundance of caution, but I wanted to check to see if anyone has had actual issues with shipping to the US since early July?

I was laid off from my job in April and immediately tried to recertify my IDR plan to see if I could get a lower monthly payment considering my loss of income.
Before the layoff I was making $95.5K but I think when I last had to certify my income was slightly lower. I have $42K in student loans from undergrad and grad school. Before recertifying I think I was on REPAYE, and my monthly payment was $482. Mohela is my loan servicer.
I had to redo my IDR application 3 times.
The first time I tried to submit my severance paperwork as proof of non-income, and they understandably didn’t know what to do with that and rejected it, and sent me paperwork to request an unemployment forbearance (which I ignored).
The second time I submitted a letter stating that I was laid off, expected a $12K severance in May, and after that would only have income from unemployment. They rejected my application because I had asked for the plan with the lowest monthly payment and due to the SAVE injunction they weren’t able to do that so I needed to submit a new application requesting the IBR plan.
The third time I requested the IBR plan and they approved my application and reduced my payment to… $469/month.
It’s now late July and I’m unfortunately still looking for a new job.
Is anything likely to change if I try to recertify IBR again now that the only income I’m expecting is unemployment and the July 1 changes are live?

I really don’t want to do a forbearance since I’d still be earning interest, but I’m also concerned about continuing to use my savings to pay down my student loans while I have no income. My goal would be to keep making progress toward repayment but hopefully at a reduced monthly payment while I continue my job search. Any tips or advice would be appreciated!

AT&T Fiber is newly available in my neighborhood and I'm wanting to switch from Spectrum.

When I moved in 2 years ago and Spectrum was the only thing available, my install was a huge pain. I live in essentially an older but recently remodeled duplex, and I guess the cable box was on my neighbor's side of the building? I'm still not totally clear on what the situation was. The Spectrum tech had to access the crawl-space under the building and crawl in the dirt from one side of the building to the other to pull the cable into my unit but the screws to open up the crawl-space were threaded so he couldn't easily open it, and it ended up involving a lot of back and forth calls to my landlord and took like half a day to get everything set up. I don't remember if the tech put new screws in to replace the old threaded ones when he closed up the crawl-space or not... the whole thing took hours and I kind of just don't want to deal with all of that again.

Would installing fiber involve the same crawl-space situation all over again, or do they only access inside your house? Is there anything I can like, go look for at the cable box to get an idea of how complicated the install might be? Just trying to get an idea of what I'm in for and how much I might need access to my landlord before deciding if/when I want to deal with it. Thanks for any insights about what to expect from the install!