zerosleeps

NO.

Feeling a bit blue today. The original plan was that I would have been in Sydney for about a week by now, but there’s still no sign of my visa. It looks like I’ll have to get stuck straight into work when I finally get there now which is a downer, because I was counting on having some time to explore Sydney and get settled in.

It’s all starting to feel like such a hassle now, and I’m sitting here trying to convince myself that it’s going to be worth it (again).

Yep, still here, in Scotland.

There was a minor glitch with my visa application last week, and Australian Immigration needed some additional documentation from me. That documentation had to come from a solicitor, which cost me a little bit and took some time, but I got what I needed and my case worker has what she needs now.

Back to the waiting again.

Little tip for anyone moving from the UK to Australia: you need health insurance, but not very much.

I signed up for a health plan which included out-patient care, but the folk contacted me to say that plan wasn’t really necessary when you get reciprocal health care.

Okay, things aren’t as bad as I though they were. My nomination for sponsorship has been lodged, and I completed the first bit of my application tonight. It was all online, and was relatively painless. There were no questions that knocked me for six: just stuff like passport numbers and history of citizenship.

Think I’ve cracked health insurance as well: I need private health insurance until I enrol with Medicare, and I can only enrol with Medicare when I’m in Australia. And I’ve also discovered that if I stick with Medicare, I pay an extra 1% in tax at my level of earning. That’s to encourage me to get my own private insurance.

Next up: sending supporting documentation, which is again all done online. I believe anything I send has to be certified though, and I’ve got no idea how that works. Do I copy said documents, get someone to sign them, then scan the signed copy? Upload a scan of a scan? What’s the point, and how does it prove that the second scan hasn’t been forged?

Watch this space I guess.

I’ve just found out that the immigration and relocation team at the University of Sydney haven’t received the form I sent them with my personal details. This is what stress feels like. I’m told it takes several weeks for everything to be processed, and I was hoping on flying in about 3 weeks.

And then there’s the time difference thing: by the time I wake up, read, and respond to an email from Sydney, and then they wake up and read my response, 24 hours have passed. Aargh!