Sunrise, January 1st, 2008

So, with the parents trying to discourage me from going and the husband fast asleep with tissue stuffed in his ears (he's out of industrial earplugs), I made the decision to go on out to Jammie Steps and watch the sunrise, even if it meant I had to walk out of the house at 5am and drive there myself. As I drove along, I realized that I'd almost left it for too late. The sky was already starting to lighten. I got to campus and made my way up the steps to where the Nordiens were stationed. It turned out, I hadn't missed much.

The air was still (apparently a big change from previous years) and smelled of trees. We watched as the clouds that were skudding over the mountain turned from purple, to pink, to golden, and finally a silver tinged white. The sky went from navy to a brilliant azure. It was breathtaking.

In a moment of introspection that was probably influenced by my hopes and fears for the changes that are come in the New Year, I realized that sunrises can be seen as a metaphor for life. You can't compare one phase of the sunrise to any other. You can only hope to find the beauty in each and enjoy it while it lasts.

I'm glad I decided to watch the sun rise today.

New Year's Thoughts

So, I think it's still early enough for me to be posting some New Year's thoughts. Let's see.

1. Even if you're covered in itchy spots, all the mosquitos in Observatory will try to feast on you in the early hours of New Year.

2. Even though you're going on 28, if you're living with your parents, they will call you at 3am to find out where you are and what you're doing on New Year's.

3. You may find your parents mysteriously examining the lawn at 3:30am when you arrive home from your New Year's eve gathering.

4. Your husband will simply refuse to accompany you to New Year's day sunrise, using the argument "But you can go without me. I *want* you to go".

5. Your friends will still think it's unreasonable to take a nap between midnight and sunrise on New Year's even though they know that your are mid-morning person. Laragh peeps will know that I only function efficiently after 11am. Everyone else should know that I'm likely to fall asleep standing up after 11pm.

6. There may be a lot less people around next year to appreciate my bad jokes. Given the circumstances last night, I thought "Who let the cat in?" was a perfectly valid comment.

And that's as far as I got with New Year's thoughts, as I (predictably) fell asleep early on. But hopefully, will still get to see sunrise. *fingers crossed*

Otherwise, I am up to the following:

a) Watching re-runs of selected Battlestar Galactica episodes. Ohmygod this show rocks!
b) Listening to the Battlestar Galactica Season 3 original soundtrack. Bear McCreary gets better and better all the time. Personal favourites thusfar is Storming New Caprica. That made me want to go back and watch that episode again. (And did I mention that this episode rocks?)
c) Reading The Running Man by Stephen King, written under the alias Richard Bachman. It is awesome! It's been a very long time since I've been so nervous that I had to skip forward a few pages just to make sure the main character didn't get splattered too bad.
d) Playing cooperative Gears of War on hardcore level with the hubby, this time as Dominic Santiago. Forgot how hard it was. Grrr! Hate those damn lambent wretches! Hoping to move onto a new game after this or possibly go back to playing Oblivion.

The Fruit and Flowers anniversary

So today was our fourth wedding anniversary - the fruit and flowers anniversary. Apparently it's supposed to symbolize blossoming and fertility and something to that effect. So, in sticking with the theme, we decided to have breakast at Kirstenbosch Gardens followed by a walk among the fruit and flowers and fertile things, like ladies with lots of babies. Boy does that make a person broody. But it was very sweet. Made us feel all fluffy and romantic too. We used to go there when we'd just started dating. It was August/September so barely spring so we'd take a flask, chocolate cake, and a newspaper, then sit on a bench and read different sections of the paper. It was very chilled, very mellow and this morning was very much like that. It's kind of hard to believe that it's been four years already! Sometimes it feels like we just started dating yesterday!

Unemployed girl

Yesterday was the day I'd been counting down to since July 11th, 164 days ago. The day I quit my job. I'd been building up to it slowly but surely. There were days when I was focused and worked hard but they were few and far between. There were days when I worked in short bursts, now writing frantically, now lounging apathetically, my head on the gel pad before my keyboard. And there were days when I sighed, moaned, groaned, and made repeated trips to the kitchen and the front desk (for munchies). Those increased in number as the number of colleagues I cared about decreased. Needless to say, I was completely disfunctional by the last day. I really did think I could finish that last topic but in the end, there were just so many distractions on the day, that I barely got into it.

The going away gathering was held early in the morning. I almost missed it. I was taken aback by the sincerety of Roger's speech. It was so tinged by nostalgia that I suddenly realized that I'd miss Laragh, particularly the Laragh that used to be, the one on Kloof Street with the intimate little rooms, run down though they were, with the friendly people who'd smile and introduce themselves, and show an interest in your life. The laid back Laragh.

I got a card that said "Congratulations". It had penguins on it, wishing another penguin goodbye as he flew off in a hot air balloon. It was sweet. Even the generic Good Lucks and Take Cares were sweet. Particularly sweet were Kirk and Karien's messages - short and sweet but signed "Love". I choked up.

My going away speech was impromptu but I really felt a gush of emotion for the place. Sure it hadn't all been rosy and great. There were some dire moments, it's true. But for the most part I was happy there, accepted by others, and valued for my contribution. For that I guess I'll always cherish it and look back at it with nostalgia.

At lunch I was ambushed by the Magic peeps. I suppose I should have expected it, since we've all become so adept at keeping secret the suprise gatherings and gift givings that we throw each other but I really didn't expect it. I honestly thought we were getting together for one last coffee break. There were Ethne and Sharon (my Alt+130 is not working on this laptop coz there's no keypad!), with chocolates and flowers, and a personalized card, which made the leaving so much more real. It wasn't just random people or casual acquaintances saying Goodbye from Laragh but also those who I'd been closest to during my time there, and those who'd managed to escape before me.

It was the first job that I've had where I can tell someone "Remember when..." and laugh about it. But it's over now. And I've three or four weeks left. Unemployed, future slightly uncertain, back in my mum's house, hoping things will go well and turn out they way we want them to.

US visas approved

At about 9:30 this morning, the DHL people came to deliver our passports. Sameer received them and found our passports inside. His first comment was "You look like you're on drugs in this picture." It's true. I do look like a bit of a druggy in the picture. It's all Ferzana's fault. I was trying to smile with my eyes. :P Anyway, my visa is valid until the middle of June but apparently we are allowed to stay on for an additional 60 days after that. Sameer's visa only expires some time in 2010! I thought that was kind of odd but anyway. So yay. Two down, one more to go.

America, America, from sea to shining shore (lyrics?)

So we had our interviews at the US embassy this morning. We got there about ten to ten and left about ten past twelve. It was a fair wait but it was alright. They were quite organized and the guy behind the window pronounced Sameer's name correctly - "SameeR" not "Sameeye". The passports will be DHLed to us on Wednesday morning so by then we should know whether we have our visas or not. Fingers crossed!

Schengen sorting

Well, after a long spell in which we didn't do anything, we're finally back on the ball. We decided to go ahead and book a trip somewhere in Europe so that we could get our 90 day Schengen visas. This will allow us to go on random trips around Europe as long as we have time and money.

So anyway, we decided to go to Paris because it's romantic, close to England, and we haven't been there before. :P Finding accommodation was a major schlep! We didn't want to spend much money on accommodation and as we can only really afford a few days, we didn't want to have a long commute to the outskirts of the city each day. So that means dodgy lodging in the center. We found a few nice looking places on the internet but most of them got terrible online reviews from other travelers. It was really scary stuff! For others, our friend Zulaigha had reservations, and so we nixed them too. With all the horror stories we were getting from review sites and with all the time we were wasting looking for places to stay we eventually got fed up (we're that kind of tourist :P ) and decided to go for a chain of hotels. My argument was that they'd have standards at least. Probably very low standards, but standards all the same! Anyway, we booked three nights at the 2* Ibis Hotel near Gare du Nord so hopefully we'll spend very little time commuting. And then Sameer booked our flights on Easy Jet. We're leaving for Paris early on the morning of Friday the 18th January, and arriving back at Luton airport the same time the next Monday morning. I wanted to get an afternoon flight back but Sameer is keen to get to Cambridge at roughly the same time that the rest of his class does.

And then today we called the French embassy's visa hotline (so funny!) and booked an appointment for January 7th. We'll sort the Schengen visas out then. Apparently it only takes 24 hours to do! So yay. :)

Waiting...

There's absolutely nothing happening on the planning front. I'm back at work supposedly working and Sameer is back at campus working on his thesis and going for interviews.

In other dramatic news, Izzy has assimilated the entire Dalvie household. She is now Queen of that domain.

And we're not really booking or planning anything. Just plodding along. Ho-hum. Tick tick tick. Waiting, waiting.

I'm BORED!!!

MBA ski trip prep

Last week, Sameer's classmate Patrick and his fiance Florence convinced us to go up to Zurich for the MBA ski week next March. We weren't sure if we'd be able to afford it but we checked the figures and decided to go for it. After all, when would we go skiing again? It's not like we have experience in that or know anyone else (other than Patrick and Co) who are into it.

So yesterday we booked the tickets. We have an early morning flight to Zurich on Saturay, March 8 (just after Sameer's birthday) and we return to London Tuesday evening. That makes it's a three night/four day affair.

I hope the weather is good at that time, I hope the renting of ski-related paraphernalia isn't too expensive, and I hope we don't break any bones!

Approved!

Sameer and I received identical smses this morning at twenty past twelve. "Your processed application for UK Visa is ready for collection at Cape Town Application Center." Sameer went to fetch the passports (while I went to look at wedding dresses with the sisters) and after 1:00 he called to say that we'd been approved. We each have a little stamp in our passports. Sameer's says "Highly Skilled Migrant Program, No recourse to public funds" and mine says "Highly Skilled Migrant Program, dependent(S. Parker). No recourse to public funds".

Yay! I'm ecstatic! Overjoyed! And generally exclamatory!!!

The changes, they are acoming

You know how sometimes a chapter of your life closes but you don't realize it until a long time afterwards, once you've had a chance to reflect? Well, yesterday after we moved everything out of our house and locked up for the last time, and drove out of the garage I suddenly realized that a chapter of my life had suddenly and definitively closed. I got slightly emotional but I managed to keep it together.

Then we took Izzy to Ferzana's house. She dashed under the bed and stayed there looking shellshocked. And that was when I got all weepy. She was never going home again and neither was I. And Sameer and I would never be alone at home together with our crazy-bat cat.

When we got to the in-laws house there were boxes covering every square inch of the bedroom and while we were trying to make some space I was just all lump-in-the-throat and ashen feeling. I went to bed like that, slept badly, and this morning woke up with a "Where am I?" feeling.

Work was like an oasis. A safe place where things were just like normal. My desk, my stuff, my colleagues - even my boss! So today I am very grateful for my work and my routine.

Hopefully things will get better and I'll start to feel more comfortable and roll with it. As my team leader was saying this morning "Just be flexible." She was actually speaking about work but I think in light of our non-plans for the next six months it was very good advice.

Visa Facilitation Service

We've just got back from the VFS offices in Strand Street after sorting out quite a big hitch. I meant to pop out of the office for a mere 40 or so (ie lunch) just to drop of the forms and sign stuff. But when we got to the offices and started handing in our documents they stopped at the deposit slips and said "Wait, you've paid the wrong fee..." It turns out that as of last week Thursday, the admin fee has gone down by R100. So we told them "It's fine. Just keep it." But they said no, they couldn't do that. So we had to pack up all our documents, go find a Standard Bank, draw money for the cash deposit, go to Nedbank, pay the deposit, and then go back to the VFS office. When we got there, we had to fill in some forms to get a refund on our original payment. Needless to say, we were a bit miffed by the whole incident.

Anyway, after that it went smoothly. We both handed in our documents and had our biometrics taken. And then we left - two hours after we'd started. I started to get a bit panicky over things like Sameer and I only having one bank account and my transcripts all being in my maiden name (Ismail) but I made a note of the first in my application form and I'm hoping they will look at our marriage certificate and figure out that my transcripts are in my maiden name.

Before we left, they told us that most likely we would know what the result is by the end of this week or, for the lastest, the end of next week.

Fingers crossed!

Anyway, I'm back at work now and have lots of edits to do.

Documents and evidence

We're in a state of mild panic. We're addled. Generally, we're in a panic about the forms that we have to fill in for both our UK and US visas.

The forms themselves are not that hard except that they want names and addresses and contact numbers for every place you ever worked. This is not hard for Sameer who's had one job but pretty hard for my constantly-job-hopping self. In addition to this, we need evidence of everything. That means marriage certificates, degrees, transcripts, letters from campus and work, bank statements, proof of other income etc etc. And we keep second guessing ourselves. Is this enough money? Is this enough proof? Have we lived here long enough?

It's all costing us a pretty penny but we're hoping it will be worth it. If we don't get our entry clearances and permits, it will be a whole lot of money wasted and probably lots of anger and disappointment.

So, this afternoon we're tracking down the last of the contact details and taking passport photos. Hopefully we can sneak a trip to Vida e Caffe into this as well. :)

And then on Monday, we'll send our VAF2 forms off to the British Consulate. And then there'll be quite a bit of a wait until our appointment at the American Consulate on December 10.

The arrival of the tickets

Today Sameer when to Student Flights / Flight Center to fetch our tickets and buy our travel insurance. Then he swung by on the way back to campus to bring me lunch and show me the tickets. They were in one of those little leather folders that the travel agencies give you, all stapled together, and there were two baggage labels attached. My heart was all aflutter. :)

Twenty minutes later, he sent me an email to say thatBA had sent us our etickets for the Chicago flights.

I think it's such a strange coincidence that we got the papers for both our UK and US visas on the same day and then we got the confirmation of both our UK and US flights on the same day. I'm taking it as a good sign.

Pictures of us

Just thought I'd post some pictures, so you know who we are! (Also, I wanted a profile picture but didn't want to add any pictures to a photo host thingy.)

Tick tock, tick tock!

Things are moving along swiftly now! This morning, Sameer called the British Home Office and they confirmed that our HSMP had been approved! We now need to get FedEx to fetch all the documentation and bring it down to us. We don't want another mix-up like the last time. Hopefully, Sameer's degrees and certificates haven't been lost and are still at the Home Office. We're really not too clear on what went on there. At any rate, we still need to get our entry permits.

Also, the Chicago GSB sent us the documents that we need to apply for our US student-and-spouse visas. (The J1? Or is it F1?) He received those today as well and now we just need to download and fill in the relevant forms, get a PIN number from Pick 'n Pay, call the US embassy, and book a visa interview. Fingers crossed!

Oh, and just now, Sameer finally managed to get by BA's restriction on South African credit cards and has booked our tickets to Chicago.

I didn't post about the United Airlines fiasco did I? Well, basically United Airlines pulled all the flights for the day that we'd provisionally booked for and Flight Center said there wasn't anything they could do about it. So basically, we had to book our own flights online because the alternatives offered by the travel agency were so ridiculously expensive! And we decided to go through BA but then there was a problem with the online booking. Apparently the Reserve Bank or whatever doesn't allow you to book flights online if they don't originate in South Africa! We had to call the local BA offices and get them to book it for us, and then arrange to pay them directly. Only we did have to pay an additional fee but it wasn't much so, we went ahead with it.

Anyway, hopefully that's all sorted out.

The Adventure Begins

Today Sameer and I went to Student Flights to book our main airline tickets - Cape Town to London, London Chicago, return, and return again! Now that we've had to set dates, it seems like things are finally happening.

Oh, and not counting shut-down, I now have only 68 days left at Laragh. Woo-hoo!