Wednesday, May 16, 2007

One wry laugh, two

For the record, not being a national of the place you live and love sucks untasty rocks. It helps to see the humour. Not least because otherwise you curl up into the fetal position and rock slowly back and forth in a way utterly unconducive to the completion of the dissertation you are allegedly writing.

My current application is called Extension of stay to write up a thesis. Dude, we are our very own immigration category. I get to suffer my secret shame in triplicate, for the very reasonable price of £295 (postal), £500 (in person). I could never have guessed that the shining glory of British citizenship is that English persons only have to explain their pathetic self-destructive avoidance issues to their families at Christmas. I get to explain it to a foreign nation state!

Naturally, I also have to say for the record (or, you know, tick the box for the record) that I am not awaiting trial for something, have never been convicted, have not committed a war crime, crime against humanity or act of genocide, nor have I been a member of a terrorist organisation or "glorified" terrorism such that some suggestible innocent might have gone and perpetrated some.

Piece of humour the second:

Question 7.7 Have you or any of your dependants included in this application ever engaged in any other activities which might indicate that you may not be considered to be persons of good character? Yes/No

What, no instruction to continue on a separate sheet if necessary?

1 comment:

Tom Bozzo said...

I'm so glad I'd put down my coffee before reading this post.

At first uncareful reading of the post, I thought it was a bit of academic paperwork. (After my own two years of varying intensities of shame, an employee of the graduate studies office very gravely announced that I'd have to pay up for four semesters of doctoral student sustaining fees I'd skipped.) I guess I'm a little surprised that you don't get some sort of Commonwealth membership break. Or do other foreign students get nicked for even more than £295?

As for the second bit of humor, it sounds right up there with post-9/11 airline check-in questions.