remember remember the fifth of november

Today is Guy Fawkes Day! (If you do not know who this is and you are reading my blog, I am going to need you to go obtain a copy of V for Vendetta - the film or the graphic novel are both acceptable - and check back in when you are done.)
Scotland is a very... nationalistic place, to say the least. Though it is part of the United Kingdom, it is very much it's own country: Scotland has its own parliament and Scots law is different than English law. Yes, it's technically English, but it is its own variety of English. (They even have their own dictionary.) Here in Scotland, we are SCOTTISH DAMMIT. Someone who is a native of Scotland would probably be very offended if you thought they were English.

(The closest analogy I can give you is that Scottish nationalism is much like Southern [American] Nationalism - it's as if Texas was the most liberal part of America and constantly threatening to leave as a result of the rest of the country being too conservative. Perhaps more accurately, Scotland is what would happen if Vermont got its act together and decided to become its own country once and for all.)

So naturally the Scots are very, very excited about Guy Fawkes Day. How could they not be? Dude tried to overthrow an entire government by blowing that shit up. I imagine if their Personal Life Hero role had not been already claimed by Robert Burns (more on this in January), Guy Fawkes would be a close contender for the position. People don't seem to really excited about going out for Guy Fawkes Day like we would for the 4th of July, though I have been promised many fireworks tonight. I assure you that my daily life is not full of bagpipers and kilted men - though this does happen, but mostly for weddings and other severely formal events - but I would not be surprised if they were out in full force today.

incredible things are happening in the world

YOU GUYS GUESS WHAT CAME TODAY.

My visa! Yes! Apparently the consulate decided to take pity on me after all of this purgatory AND GRANTED ME MY VISA. I am very, very pleased, as this saves me several more weeks of anguish and stress. Conveniently, they UPSed it to me - I am glad that somebody involved still trusts UPS. But this is great news! I can get on with my life! Time to buy a plane ticket!

Also, I got my first paycheck from The Examiner today. This means I am a real writer... right? It only took 47 articles before I reached their payout level, but this is still exciting!

Things I Do Not Have III: Revenge of the UPS Guy

(I am sure you are tired of this. I'm sorry. I know I am, especially because I am fairly certain this title series is not getting any funnier. But this blog is about grad school and all things related...and this is certainly related. So here we are. If, somehow, you are missing part 1 and 2, scroll down a bit and start there.)

1. My computer
You guys, I would like to introduce you to someone. I'm writing this on my new computer! It arrived yesterday, which was alarming on the basis that at least UPS can do something right. We got to play the Remember All Your Passwords game for a while, and then we set forth on the arduous task of moving stuff between computers.

It actually wasn't that bad - when we got Beverly back, the nice folks at the computer repair place had taken the liberty of putting my hard drive in an external hard drive casing, so I could access all my files without any difficulty. (Beverly, that dear old gal, was very opinionated. If she decided she did not like what I was doing she would shut down. I bet she would have been jealous of this whole situation.) Obviously I nicknamed that hard drive "Beverly". (For the record I have not named this new computer yet, and it most certainly is not going to be Beverly II. That's just unfairly dooming it.) But I was pleased when I got the following message:
I mean, this was just too good. Even from The Great Hard Drive In The Sky, Beverly managed to make things difficult.

(Yes, I just anthropomorphized my (old) computer and its assorted innards. And you loved it.)

2. My Visa
I mean, we knew this was coming, right? Like, what would be the most unreasonable thing that could happen?

At 9 am yesterday we called UPS for confirmation that transcript had been delivered. Of course if you know anything about situational irony and/or you follow my life very comprehensively, you know what happened: they didn't know where it was. Again.

I am not entirely certain they ever had any idea where it was in the first place - how do you lose a piece of mail TWICE? I called the UK consulate for a flat rate of 3 US dollars per minute and listened to a British robot inform me that "all of our agents are currently assisting other customers" and that "we will answer your call in a few moments" for half an hour. I then e-mailed them (again), and faxed them a letter with everything my emails have said.

So now we are fucked, because in the very eloquent words of the UK Consulate:
If these documents [my UNH transcript] are not received by 13 August 2010 your application will be refused. In addition, if you fail to provide the correct documents as described above, we will assess your application based on what you have provided.
It is now 17 August 2010, which is decidedly not 13 August 2010. Hmm. That's not quite right, is it? I took my extra transcript that I had ordered to keep on file, which was no longer in its sealed envelope because I wanted to make sure it was right before we submitted it - and went down to the post office to express mail it, because it's all we have. Because UPS fucking lost my official sealed transcript, and now I will probably have to reapply, get my transcripts (again, though at least I know for this time), get my biometrics taken again and then we just might be driving ourselves over to the UK consulate in NYC to personally hand all of this to them so it will be filed all before September 18, which is the date that I am moving into my flat in Scotland, come hell or high water. Or bureaucracy parades.


As I am sure you can imagine, I was very proud of myself for not punching the UPS guy in the face when he showed up to deliver my computer later in the day.

3. Plane Tickets
We are not discussing this.


I give up. Here's a picture of the saddest kitten in the world.

I understand, buddy.


EDIT 8/17 1:40 PM!
Guess what came today! That's right, my original UPS shipment from Thursday! Apparently they couldn't read my handwriting, so it was deemed undeliverable. Um. If you insist - this doesn't account for the part where you don't know where it went for three days. Either way I suppose this whole debacle is technically my fault. I know I have terrible handwriting, but this is absurd.

Things I Do Not Have, Redux

1. My computer
Beverly is back! Well, kind of.

As I predicted, she had few problems with her logic board. On macs at least, the video card is part of the logic board. (I might not know everything about computers, like how to program them and build them, but I can recognize what parts are attached to other parts.) Basically the cost of an entirely new logic board + new hard drive as previously installed + LABOR = 1 new computer.

Since computers age in fruit fly years, Beverly was approximately 46821 years old (rough estimate. a fruit fly lifepsan is 10 human days, but then there was division and multiplication, so I made up a number). Rather than pay all that money for repair work on an ancient machine we bought a new computer. Beverly came back to me, a sad pile of metal and wires, soon to be retired forever. RIP Beverly! Have fun crashing in Mac Heaven!

2. My Visa
I mentioned that I needed to get my transcript from UNH to New York City in 7 days in my last post. Remember that I am a generally calm person.

This seemed doable. Okay! TIMELINE TIME.
FRIDAY 08/06 Notification arrives! Request 2 transcripts from UNH; one for my records and one for the British consulate. Remember that the weekend is coming up and the Registrar will probably not deal with it until Monday.
MONDAY 08/09 They have seen my request. If the registrar prints them and puts them in the mail today, they will arrive by Wednesday! It only takes two days for mail to get from MA > NH and NH > MA. Perfect!
WEDNESDAY 08/11 NO TRANSCRIPTS IN THE MAIL; commence panicking (see below). Anticipate the mail being hours late on Thursday, and then still not receiving transcripts. Anticipate not being able to fulfill British Government's demands. Request transcripts for pickup through Blackboard for Thursday.
THURSDAY 08/12: Nervously check the mail every 15 minutes from 9 am onward. (Feel like Dad.) Prepare to drive up to UNH if mail does not arrive by 11 am. Mail arrives at 10:55, with my transcripts; calm the fuck down. Sign envelope, write my application # on it, bring to UPS store to have it overnighted to NYC by Friday 08/13 as requested. Stop worrying! Call off impromptu trip to NH, go to Wheaton to work on research project.
FRIDAY 08/13 Resume panicking! No sign of delivery from UPS. Call UPS, find out they have no idea where my transcript is. They lost track of it somewhere after Shrewsbury, MA. Find out all of this at 4:30 PM! Offices close at 5! UPS guy says he will call back within the hour, as he is going to call ALL OF THE NEW YORK CITY DRIVERS UNTIL HE FINDS IT. UPS guy calls back - it is found but not yet delivered! Hastily e-mail the consulate explaining situation at hand and how it is not my fault.
MONDAY 08/16 UPS promises to have my transcript at British Consulate General by 9 am.

OK! I think we see a problem here. Namely that Monday August 16th is not Friday August 13th. So now I am back to worrying about my visa, because WHAT IF THEY TURN ME DOWN BECAUSE I DID NOT SEND THEM ENOUGH PAPER IN THE FIRST PLACE OH MY GOD. And by the way, it is their fault that I did not send my visa application in earlier. Oh, The Bureaucracy Parade, you are lots of fun!

3. Plane Tickets
As I think you have figured out by now, I still do not have plane tickets, as I am not allowed to buy those without a visa. If I try to do move to Scotland without one, I will eventually become an illegal alien in the UK, and that is generally frowned upon. I am only leaving in FIVE WEEKS. (Plane tickets are already expensive...they are going to be way more expensive than necessary at the rate we are going!)

the bureaucracy parade and me: not a love story

Because I am moving to Scotland, I need to apply for a student visa. The UK Immigration website tells me this.


The visa application is a fairly straightforward document. UK immigration wants to know stuff about you: your passport information, where you live, where you're from, who your parents are, if you've ever travelled outside your country, if you've ever been a terrorist etc. Unless you actually are a terrorist, this is a pretty simple process. If you ARE a terrorist, you may as well not bother applying because I'm sure you will be rejected. Sorry.

I was impressed, though. You are allowed to list yourself in a "marriage/civil partnership" meaning that same-sex couples are recognized nationally, with all of the rights and responsibilities comparable to that of marriage. How cool is that?

But like I said, straightforward. I had planned to have this completed and filed for the end of June, giving The Bureaucratic Powers That Be lots of time to process it accordingly. This was a good idea, except for one little tiny problem: I have dual citizenship with Canada. You wouldn't expect this to be a problem. However, I've been a dual citizen since I was born by virtue of the fact that Mom is a Canadian citizen and wanted me to be one too. (This makes Mom a resident alien in the US, meaning she is effectively a non-citizen of the United States. She gets very bitter about this during election years.)

But, that was done when I was three months old. Since then, all of my documentation is American: I have an American passport, driver's license, social security number. I have voted in a few elections. I don't have anything Canadian other than that one sheet of paper. Had I accidentally renounced my Canadian citizenship? After my citizenship was announced, we never heard from Canada about me ever again. So I called the UK Embassy to find out if I should list Canadian as a citizenship on my visa application.

They had no idea. They told me to call the Canadian government and ask them if I should declare their citizenship... who in turn told me to ask the US government what I needed to declare. This went on for a month! A MONTH. Depending on who I spoke to at each embassy, they either decided I should list both and note that I was Canadian by birth OR that I should ask a different government, because they were not sure.

By early July, we still hadn't gotten a straight answer. I gave up. I filed the first half of my application and set up an appointment with Homeland Security to have my biometrics done. Whatever it was, it sounded awfully British to me.

Mom frequently has to go to Homeland Security to get a new green card, allowing her to stay in the States. She warned me that the last time she was there, they were backed up for hours. "Get there early," she warned, "And be prepared to wait."

So I did. This past Wednesday, I went into Boston and arrived at Homeland Security half an hour before my actual appointment. I walked in and immediately talked to the lady at the front desk. She looked at my paperwork and my passport, scanned my biometrics appointment notification, and said "Come with me."

We walked past a waiting area and through a second security checkpoint. She led me to a little room in the back. "Sit down." I sat. There was one other guy sitting there. He was called, and a few minutes later, I was called too. A man whose first language was clearly not English led me to a little area blocked off by those nurse's-office screens. He pulled on rubber gloves; I was terrified. What were biometrics, anyway??

YOU GUYS, "biometrics" meant "fingerprinting". Yes, really. This rubber-gloved man put my hand on a scanner and took my fingerprints. Then he took my picture. He signed off that my "biometrics" were on file. AND THAT WAS IT. I walked out, fifteen minutes before my appointment was due to start.

After all of that, today I am mailing all of my final information to the UK embassy for processing. I am getting a visa to be in Scotland! Hopefully!