Maiden Journey

First post, first post, first post! I wanted to do this for a little while, since I've been reading An American in London for maybe a couple of weeks. It's a blog, here at Blogger written by an American PhD student at Kings College who talks about her experience about being, well, an American expat living in London, fancy that. She has been there for 3 years and blogging strong. I don't know if I'll be as prolific as her or sound half way intelligent, but hey, not like anybody is going to read this anyways, right?

There are numerous options for blog hosting and I couldn't decide where I wanted to post. I've blogged before, not with any consistency on a few other sites, live journal and My Space to name a couple. Well, since I already had an account here because of school, well, here I am.

I'm still here, in the States as I call it, but not for long. I'm off to the UK, specifically London September 10th. I'll arrive there the 11th. Hmmm, I'll be arriving on foreign soil on the 6th anniversary of 9-11. That is going to be interesting. Wonder if I'll be considered a terrorist. I dunno, just a thought. The time is creeping up on me. All I can think about is the move. It's all I can talk about as well. I must be really boring people with London this and UK that. Lets hope this is a good outlet for me to blah, blah, blah-dee-blah about everything British that I'm obsessing over.

What am I obsessing over at the moment? I've been spending a lot of money lately. First was my round-trip plane ticket for $684, which was a big milestone for me, signifying that I'm actually going, things are serious now, say goodbye to California and Mexican food serious.

Then there was the faxing of the registration form for the classes I'm going to take in the fall, or as they call it autumn. Oh yeah, currently I'm an undergrad student at San Francisco State spending my senior year abroad at London Metropolitan Uni. It took me a full day to navigate London Mets website to come up with my schedule, a nightmarish day, where at the end I didn't care what classes I was taking as long as I had classes. I had to get a signature on my form from my academic advisor who I think wasn't actually in town. I emailed a PDF of the filled out form to him, he printed it out, signed it, scanned it and emailed it back to me, where I printed it out and faxed it to London, twice. Yeah, the first time I faxed it, I sent it to the wrong office. Ordeal! That didn't cost me much; set me back 5 bucks, but another big fat nail in the coffin. I mention coffin and allude to death because death as prescribed by tarot card readings means significant chance. As a human, a creature of comfort I dread change, no matter how positive it may be.

Next on spending agenda, registration fees for London Met, £390 (~$780). This is on top of my tuition fees. Most recent hefty fee (it just never ends), the visa application fee costing me only $208. I paid online yesterday, all furrowed brow and bated breath, when I finished my application. Thank you C. for letting me use your address on the form. You are my only friend in London, UK, or Europe for that matter. I made the mistake of choosing to submit the application along with all of the related documents in person. What was I thinking? This is what I'm obsessing about at this particular moment. I don't think I can even go back on that decision.

I needed to make an appointment at the consular office in L.A. I don't even have a car. I made an appointment in two weeks but I cancelled it. I'm still waiting for my unconditional acceptance letter from London Met. I need this for my visa. It would be too much of a pain to take bus or plane there because I still have to find a way to get to the British Consular by car (I wouldn't even think of public transportation, probably would take me 2-3 hours to get to my destination). I could rent a car but I don't have a credit card (I cut up my cards a year ago). I don't think I could use my debit card. I'm looking at spending $150 for the rental and gas, at least. Why? I don't want to go in person. I would have an appointment in the morning and would have to wait till 2 or 5 till I could get my visa and could leave. I want to send my stuff in the mail.

I had a cheap attack when I made my decision to file in person. I was thinking, oh I don't want to spend another $12 to send it by mail, I'll do it in person, there’s a British Consular office in San Francisco, right? Well, yes there is one but they don't deal in visas. Your regional consular is in L.A, a 6-hour drive or an 8-11 hour bus ride away. Remember you don't have a car anymore; you sold it before you moved up to the bay area. They have a visa help/question line, good place to call, right? I could ask them if there is any penalty for me sending it in the mail when I stated I was going to go in person. Oh yeah, it cost $2.49 per minute to call this phone number. Bloody hell!! I'm afraid to send it in the mail with a $12 check. They might turn down my application because I didn't go according to policy or something. I could be freaking out over nothing, maybe. Why does it seem that a big move always ends up costing more money than you plan on spending because you don't know better.