VISAVISAVISAVISAVIVSAVISAVISAVISAVISA

My UK working visa has finally been approved. Hurrah! It was SUCH a hassle getting it. Trawling through multiple UK government pages in an attempt to find clear guidance on the required documentation, fighting with Barclays Bank to get statements that conformed to the stringent visa application requirements (with each occasion eating up two weeks of my life as I waited for paperwork from the other side of the globe), being forced into handing over my fingerprints to the same government that lost the personal and banking details of 45,000 people last year as well as two (still unrecovered) CDs holding the child benefits details of 25 million families, and finally the long, long wait as their 6 week processing time turned into more than 2 months.

Not content with making my life a misery for three months, they continued to screw up what should have been the joyful visa approval by (a) forgetting to advise me of the outcome; and (b) posting it to my friend's house in Sydney despite me telling them I wanted to collect it from Canberra. Now I need to travel from Rocky-Sydney-Canberra-Sydney before flying out to Hong Kong on the 31st of May. Sheesh!

DEATH STAR VS THE ENTERPRISE

Sharing the geeky goodness:

ROCKHAMPTON

So I'm back in my hometown, crashing at my parents' house. Oooh yeah, I feel like a winner. For those who have asked what it's like being back in Rocky, I'll let this article from the Daily Mercury speak for me.

Ok it's not really that bad, but then again I haven't left the house much. The days have just been slipping away in a Foxtel-induced haze. My routine is as follows:

0930 Wake up
1100 Go to the gym
1230 Make lunch
1400 Lie on sofa channel-surfing
1700 Walk the dog
1800 Read/surf the internet/generally avoid my father's cigarette smoke and ear-splitting tv volume.
LATER Eat and sleeeeep

As you can see, I'm way too busy to do useful things like updating my CV, talking to my bank manager or going to the dentist. Some days I'm so busy with the channel-surfing I don't even make it to the gym. Shocking I know.

Still, the days are passing quickly. This would normally be a good thing, however I've convinced myself that my visa will be rejected on the basis of an inconsistency in the UK bank statements I submitted. I sent off for a letter to rectify this about a month ago, and a response is only now winging its way across the seas to me. I need this letter to (a) contain the information I need and (b) arrive before the decision on my visa is reached.

My experience with Barclays so far doesn't give me confidence that the response they've sent will be what I need. Assuming for the sake of argument that it is, the letter should arrive in Rocky mid-late next week, after which I need to package it up with a covering note and send it to Canberra (taking another 3 working days). Unfortunately, the decision on my visa is due early next week. Not looking that good, really!

So I'm a little tense and stressed out at the moment. Part of me just wants to know the answer, even if it's a no, so I can get out of limbo and move forward with my life. The other part of me is going to be really, really peeved off if it's rejected on the basis of a stupid mistake by Barclays so wants to delay the news until I get this other letter and try to fix it.

I applied for the visa online 61 days ago, so with the progressive elevation of my stress levels over the last 2 months I couldn't manage much more than lying on the sofa even if there was something more interesting for me to do here. So I'll be keeping myself to myself for the next week, hoping for the best but expecting the worst. My readers will be the first to know the outcome. Well, actually you'll be the third - after Twitter and Facebook. I'm such a social networking site junkie :)