Kevin is in a major push to complete our applications for permanent residency. (We've got a deadline. Kevin's Australian "use by" date comes up on July 16 of this year. I'm WAYYYY past good. Those Aussies- they love young white immigrants.) So, we have fun evenings of form filling. The medical one is a challenge. You need to list every hospital stay, every surgery, every disease, sickness or condition requiring medication. With dates. The police form asks repeatedly if you've been, you know, bad. And, when. This also includes traffic offences. Great. Like I can recall the date when I fell into the speed trap in Laura. I know I was in grad school and home for the summer. That narrows it down to two years.... or six months. Kevin didn't feel like I needed to list my two parking tickets (Cleveland Heights and Chapel Hill)- but I figure Australia WANTS people with some criminal color about them. This WAS a penal colony. I'm just trying to help out.
We also had to be finger printed. That was fun. It is a bit of a mental twist to extend your finger while at the same time keeping it loose and controllable by the stamper. The best part was reading the instructions posted on the wall. #2 Inspect the hands for deformities including amputations.
Today, then, I was late to two immigration appointments. That would be 100%. Fortunately, this did not prevent me from either having my blood drawn or my chest x-rayed. I'm wondering if I should be concerned about the small radio-opaque spot in my caudal left lung field. (The radiographer showed it to me and asked it is was an end on vessel or a granuloma. Damn. I forgot what I put there.) I'm afraid I may never know what the radiologist thinks since we'll get the report sealed and we are instructed to not open it. Wonder if I could get a copy of the report for myself... I wonder what the ethics of the situation are.
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Ha ha re the penal colony. You heard what the late great Peter Sellers wrote on arrival, when the landing card said "do you have a criminal conviction" he put "I'm sorry, I didn't realise it was still a requirement"
joking aside, going through permanent residence is stressful. Am I good enough? Do they want me? What if they don't want me? What if they find out I used to bite my nails as a child, does that make me a deviant? We did it for NZ, but part way through the process we found out I was a citizen already, so we cancelled that application and Podna applied again through the family route. Relief.
Thanks Cathi for reminding me of the Peter Sellers experience! One of the best Australian jokes I know! I'm not so worried about my deviant past as I am my forgotten medical history. I think about those people who have left out something inconsequential form their health insurance applications (I had a hangnail in 97) and then when they got sick the insurance company cried fraud and wouldn't pay out. Ahhhh.
Ann
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