Visa Requirements

Nothing is ever nice and straightforward and easy.

Today I got my confirmation of enrollment from the university, allowing me to submit my visa application with the Australian government. At one point it asks me which office I would be best able to attend should any interviews be required. Well, the only Canadian city on the list was Ottawa, which is really not convenient at all. So I decided to put down Seoul since I'll be in Korea prior to my arrival in Australia and figured this would make things easy enough.

Well! Was I ever mistaken. You see, I am required to undergo some medical examinations, and there is a quick, easy way to do this online, or you can do it the manual way if the online options are not convienent. So because I put Seoul, the various doctors offices I could attend were all in South Korea. Crap. I look at the manual list of doctors and there's Calgary!

So I call the one radiology clinic and they're like "oh, just come on down whenever. You don't need an appointment, it only takes a couple days to process, it's all good." So fine, great. I call my doctor and he's booking into May, but, they can fit me in Feb. 12. Well, if that's the case, Korea's starting to look good again.

Then I called a walk-in clinic, not the one I thought I was calling but another one (I have a feeling the one I actually called has nicer staff than the one I normally go to though so that's okay). After going back and forth on the phone with them for awhile they informed me that there was a doctor who would be able to assist me and that I could come by tomorrow evening as a walk in. Wonderful, though slightly dubious. I'll take my chances. They can get me in soon enough that if it doesn't work out it's no skin off my teeth.

But, I'm already in a rush for this visa application to go through and the manual way may create some delays. So I sent in a request to change my interview city to Ottawa, explaining my misunderstanding. Now I don't really know what to do. They said that a response would happen in 2 business days, I'm hoping to go into these various doctors tomorrow (although I can hold off since I don't actually have appointments). I might play around with the online forms a bit to see if I can find out what exactly is required of me online versus manual. And maybe I'll get a response by tomorrow from the visa people. One can always hope.

Getting There...

My how time flies! I am only a little over 2 weeks away from my departure date and still have so much to do!

I finally got my passport this week. Complete with it's lovely little warning sticker stating that I am a careless person and should be watched closely. Okay, it doesn't actually say that and I don't really know what the implications of having an observation on my passport means. I can only hope it doesn't mean more scrutiny at customs.

I've also got my plane ticket all sorted out. I leave, officially, for Korea on Feb. 5 and I arrive in Australia on Feb. 17. I start school on Feb. 25, so that gives me a week to find an apartment. Wish me luck because none of my hunting, apparently, can be done before I am in Melbourne.

The last big thing travel wise is getting my Australian Visa sorted out, which is on hold because I need another letter from the university that they wouldn't have been able to send out to me until they recieved my response to their last letter, which I emailed off yesterday. I will start panicking if I have not recieved this letter by Jan. 24.

I've been enjoying life as an unemployed person. I have lots of running around and spending time with people on my plate, so I'm glad I don't have an actual structured job getting in the way of that. Speaking of work, they screwed up on my last paycheque and didn't pay me for all the hours I worked, so that's put a bit of a wrench in the works for me. Nothing too major though.

Today was my last day of volunteering on the crisis lines. It was a good shift, quiet, much to my surprise, but it's weird to be done there. I liked it there. I would have stayed if the commute from Melbourne to Calgary wasn't such a bitch.

But I'm excited, really excited, and happy. Tomorrow I am actually going to start packing my "Australia" suitcase (as opposed to my "Korea" suitcase) in a concrete way. Right now I have this suitcase overflowing with stuff, but tomorrow I will empty it out and start working my Mary Poppins-esque magic to fit a little more than half my life into this one piece of luggage. I won't be finished packing it tomorrow, not by a long shot, but I'll have things much more organized and be that much closer to being ready to go.

I've constantly got this ever expanding and contracting "To Do" list floating around in my head. Every possible thing that I want to get done before I go won't happen, I know, and I can at least partially blame my Mom for that because she's stealing me away to Banff for a few days of R&R before I go. Actually, I'm quite glad for the break and for the Mom time. Besides, all the things that actually need to be done will get done in time.