Visa, please?

I'm fiiiiiiinally making some progress on the whole 'pack up my life and move across the ocean' thing. I know, I know, it's just a teeny, tiny bit late when I want to leave in a month. Except, as you will soon read, not at all, folks!

Yesterday I made my way downtown Halifax to a little, giant, building called SomethingorotherIwasn'tpayingattention. The point of the journey was to register my finger prints for my visa. Yeah, they're hardcore in the UK. It even says on the website that if you refuse to give your finger prints you make your application invalid. My question is, what happens if you don't have fingers to print? Of course, as with all government websites, this information was not readily available. Okay, maybe it was, but come on, I have enough trouble trying to find the information I need. I'm not going looking for a headache when I have all eight fingers and two thumbs.

Anyway, I found myself surrounded by students, all of whom are set to start university in the fall. AND they're just getting their student visas set now! I'm beyond relieved to know I'm not the only person who got side lined by the whole, 'By the way we need your fingerprints but we only set up the east coast finger printing clinic once a month. SORRY.'

The whole process took about fifteen minutes. First, a woman goes through your application and asks you a few questions. She wanted to see my photos, and I definitely wanted to refuse. My photos are terrible. If I could think of a word that meant 'more than terrible' right now, I would use that. I look like a shiny, fat troll. I made her promise not to laugh before I dug the photo out, promising her that I look much prettier and more human-like in person. I thought she was going to stop breathing from laughing so hard at my photo explanations, but she managed to calm herself down long enough to tell me that no one's going to care how bad the photo is. Uhm, I am going to care when I can't use it to make people serve me alcohol. "Hey, if you're going to make a fake ID at least get a photo of a human!" is pretty much what I expect every bartender in the UK to tell me. Oh, and I'll care even more if it gets me turned away at customs. "Sorry, no troll people allowed. If you were a gnome or an elf, maybe, but no trolls."

Anyway, I made it past the woman no problem. On to the man with the English accent! He turned on a camera and asked me some questions. I congratulated him on managing to get my last name right. It's not a hard name to say, unless you're from my Scot-descended town. Then you're just asking too much because the first syllable isn't 'Mac'. This comment, as it usually does, turned into a conversation about how people mess up the easiest of names. His last name rhymed with 'Matter' but most people insisted it was pronounced 'Mater'. He asked me if I came from a French community. "Oh no, it's Scottish," I replied, and he gave me a sympathetic smile. "Ah yes, they'd have trouble for sure. With their rolling r's or whatever it is they do there." Fantastic! Beyond fantastic! Even if he was just being sarcastic, an English guy even pretending that he has no clue about the Scottish accent is hilarious.

The guy turned out to be pretty nice. He told me I should have applied for an ancestry visa, since my grandparents were born there. I told him I was having trouble getting the documents together for an ancestry visa, but he told me I should have an easier time getting what I needed once I was there. "Just apply for that one the next time, and then you can stay as long as you want!" He also insisted it was easier than the government website made it out to be. If you go through the male line you don't have to produce marriage certificates and stuff. Well, that certainly would have been nice to know before I submitted my Tier 5 application. SEE: everything I said above about government websites.

Oh well, with this one I'll be able to see if I like living in the UK before I go through the trouble/cash of getting an ancestry visa. ALSO, it's processed really fast. I should know whether or not they're going to let me stay on their island in about 15 days! Yay!

<3 Jade

The pre-beginning

I wasn't going to start this blog until I had my visa in hand, but I've now had two requests for a post so, why not?

I'm going to the UK in September. I have no job, no place to live after the first couple of weeks, and no visa yet. The last bit isn't really my fault, since the UK wants my fingerprints and Halifax only does that once a month. The rest of it is totally my fault, but it's okay. I'll figure it out.

The pre-beginning is now, before I have a visa, where the learning curve is so steep I get out of breath just looking at the stupid thing. Do I have to have private insurance? Which neighbourhood should I live in? How am I ever going to figure out the subway system? What if everyone hates me because even though I'm ethnically at least half English, I'm Canadian?

So, what do I do around lots of attempts to navigate the awful UK immigration website? I go and get my tarot cards read. I can assure you all that the timing was purely coincidental. The sitting was a birthday gift and my birthday is in December. I'm just super slack, okay? Anyway, I'm going to tell you about it, from memory, so enjoy and try not to judge me if I've left stuff out!

***

The building was, thankfully, air conditioned. It was really hot and I was definitely worried about that, so I'm glad I can assure you I was nice and cool for the session! We [I took the gift-giver] were led to the back, behind a curtain, where a random table and three chairs were set up. I'm pretty sure there was also a candle, you know, to set the mood!

"I don't like to chew gum during sessions but my throat is just so dry!" the incredibly nice and awesome Tarot Card Reader [TCR] said immediately.

"Oh, don't worry about it! I'm chewing gum right now!" I replied, sitting down. TCR got me to pick a deck, so I did, then she made me wave my hands over the spread out cards and touch them and stuff. Sooo, I did that, feeling a little foolish, and then I pulled out 10 cards and she went to town!

TCR started going on about how I'm planning something big and there's lots of travel involved, but she also saw me opening up some career opportunities with a piece of paper that's super important to me. It was scary accurate because at this point I had just filled out the first part of my visa application to the UK, and I want to start my master's degree in 2011.

TCR added that I shouldn't finalize any big decisions until after Christmas, and she was pretty insistent about that. Of course, by this time I was probably visibly freaking out because I had just made a big decision! So, then the 'Please don't cry right here and now' reassuring started. TCR said she was a bit confused because all my other cards were saying go for it, make the big leap, or whatever, but this one card [I like to call it my 'Virgo' card] in this one particular spot meant take it slow. She got me to pick another card and I don't know, she only confused me at that point. I think I'm allowed to make some decisions but not allowed to do anything permanent until after Christmas? I'm going to have a lull around that time, I think! Anyway, she moved on from the topic.

TCR said I was about to put myself through a major upheaval, but that it was totally under control and it seemed like I had done a lot of research. She also said that things weren't going as expected for me, but they were on their way to being worked out. All totally and completely true. The visa thing is sucking a lot of time and resources, and I've been doing enough research that I could probably write a paper on the subject right about now. She also mentioned some stuff about how I'm doing this because an authority figure thought it was a good idea, and this authority figure thinks highly of me. She also said I'd meet some resistance from people but it was okay, they'd deal with it.

This was around the time I nerded out on her. I love numbers, especially even numbers, numbers that are in the 8 family, and 12. I had three cards that had the number 8 on them, and 8 is 2 cubed. I shared this information with her, and got a, "Uhm, okay." Clearly she didn't appreciate how awesome that was the way I did.

Anyway, the end was near, so TRC asked me about the Big Thing I was planning. I told her about the UK and my master's degree. She looked relieved and said that she thought the 'Virgo' card probably meant decisions in regards to picking a school, especially because all the other cards kept talking about career opportunities and lots of travelling [and travelling to unexpected places].

I didn't have any questions for TRC, even though she asked if I had any about a million times, but, obviously, if you're going to have your tarot cards read, you're going to ask about your love life! Time to cut the deck and learn about any future boys [ginger or otherwise] headed in my direction!

I drew 3 cards, one was the four of coins, there was a wand or sword card, and then there was the tower. You have to try to imagine this tower card. It was on fire. There were people around it freaking out, people in the windows. TRC started laughing while I wondered if maybe I should have asked about my health or something.

My love life. Except, on TCR's card there were witnesses watching me burn.

TRC likened tower card love to trying to walk a tight rope but then someone shoves you off. Lovely! He sounds like a charmer already, just let me get my pants off...

But wait, there was more!

I'm going to fall for this person pretty hard, but luckily for me, the coin card means he's a nice guy [and hopefully not a Nice Guy, you know the type]. So, after pushing me off he'll catch me. Maybe he felt guilty? Or didn't want to clean up the splat?

Anyway, I'm supposed to expect lots of life changes and plan changes and stuff to accommodate Mr. Shovepants. The wand-or-sword card means lots of unexpected travel with him and was a nice little continuity thing between the life and love readings. More travelling is a bonus for sure! Although, if it's to where he wants to go, and if he plans on messing with my choice of grad schools [because the master degree is nonnegotiable], I'm kind of hoping he'll pay. No? Oh well, at least I'll have a travel buddy!

So, the session ended after that and I skipped off home. That's pretty much it for my pre-beginning. I took notes and glued them into my tangible journal, so let's see if any of it comes true!

<3 Jade