Just found this tucked away in my email archive

This is a response to an email I received from a USC student who was interested in applying to study abroad at Kent in 2006. I just stumbled across it and figured I'd share. Enjoy.

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Dear kristen,
I am an anthropology major here at USC. I am thinking about studying at the University of Kent for my study abroad. I found your name listed on the study abroad office’s virtual advising network. I was hoping to ask you some questions about your time in England.
Did you enjoy studying in Canterbury? What was the university like? Was it easy for you to find your way around campus? What were the classes like? Was it expensive to study at the University of Kent? Did you live in a dorm? How did you find the people there? Were they friendly? What did you like to do on and off campus? How was the weather in Canterbury? Would you ever like to go back there again one day?
I would really like to know what you thought about the University of Kent and England. It will help me to make up my mind. Thank you so much for your time.
A----

show details 6/30/06

Hey A----,

You may want to take a deep breath and make a sandwich before you start reading--i tend to be a bit verbose in my praises of Kent. My year there was hands-down the best year of my life thus far, and I'd recommend it to anyone with enough guts to get on the plane. That said, i'm also aware that studying abroad is not for everyone, and some people have a seriously lousy, homesick, put-upon, offended time in the UK. It really depends on how you approach it.

Let me first cover my ass by stating clearly and directly that people are going to dislike you for being American. I've had many friends study abroad and come home screaming and yelling that they didn't make a single friend abroad because the moment they opened their mouth they alienated people with their accent. Nobody, in any country, likes Americans these days, so travel with that in mind. (Its not just the Bush administration's fault, though they've certainly helped. Americans have a penchant for being loud, bossy, impatient, rude, and ignorant in foreign countries, and if you pair that with our reputation for having money and power you'll breed a resentment streak a continent wide.) The easiest way to avoid the evil eye from your classmates is to say "i didn't vote for Bush." (even if you did--if you want to make any friends, do not associate yourself with the Republican party, support for the Iraqi war, or Christianity).

On with the answers to your questions:

I Loved Canterbury. The town is adorable--its an ancient walled, moated city with cobbled streets and more historic buildings than you can shake a stick at. Your Kent student ID card will get you into the cathedral for free at any time, and its always worth a wander. (Tourists have to pay anywhere from 8-13 pounds for admission and tours except during services) Its also crisscrossed with parks and paths that are so pretty you can't avoid picnicking in them. The town is always packed with tourists and shoppers, particularly around Christmas. C-town's proximity to Dover allows it to be a very inexpensive field trip destination for French and German school groups, so you'll do well to avoid large groups of children with giant backpacks. (There are hourly ferries from the Port of Dover to Calais, France, and foot passage costs 7 to 11 pounds. Always good for a booze cruise--beer and wine are much cheaper in France! And its only a 20-minute train ride there from central Canterbury.)

Canterbury has more bars and restaurants within its city limits than there are days in the year. Most of them are far out of the average uni student's budget, but there are a few that are worth your while. I recommend the Old Buttermarket (in the square across from the entrance to the cathedral) and the Cherry Tree (on a side road off the high street--its just a little ways down from Methven's bookstore on the right. the canterbury whole foods store is visible at the end.) Cherry tree has happy hour every day from 5-8--most pints are 2 quid! (best deal you'll find off campus.) It is also a haven for overpriced designer shops and boutiques (hence the Christmas shoppers) so if you want to shop, be sure to save up for a couple of years.

Erm...where was i. Canterbury's night life is so small its laughable. All bars close at 11pm, and the city's 4 private clubs stay open until 2am but have a cover. What most uni kids do is drink at the bars until closing, then stumble home and keep it going there until the neighbors call the police. So if you like the club scene you're going to be disappointed.

All university buildings are hideous at Kent. I think its actually a requirement written into the school's charter. The ugliest buildings by far are Eliot and Rutherford colleges (they're mirror images of each other), though Darwin runs a close second, and wins the "most contorted and difficult to navigate" award. The campus is layed out very simply and in a linear fashion, but the academic buildings resemble Escher drawings when it comes to getting around them. Eliot and Rutherford in particular are famous for having floors halfway between other floors, stairways that lead to nowhere, hallways interrupted by courtyards, and no semblance of a coherent room numbering system. The only times i've gone into Keynes college were to go to the bar on the main floor so i haven't really looked around the rest of it.

The university is by itself at the top of a big hill--it is a good mile's walk to town, so there's no non-university buildings around. The view from the library is stunning! The campus is very self-contained--you actually don't have to go to town ever if you don't want to (though where's the fun in that?). The school has 2 restaurants, 9 bars, a nightclub, 2 small grocery stores, a theater (for touring shows and movies), playing fields, and religious centers for students (the catholic student center has its own bar). Sports are not a big deal--most are just intramurals and never compete outside of town. The biggest student gatherings are at the Venue (the nightclub) on weekends and Pound-A-Pint night at Woody's bar in Parkwood.

Concerning housing...this is where it gets confusing. Kent offers two styles of housing: catered and self-catered. (i.e. we feed you or you feed you.) Catered housing is dorm-style in one of the four colleges, or self-contained school units. Darwin, Rutherford, Eliot, and Keynes colleges are massive, ugly buildings that contain classrooms, bedrooms, department offices, restaurants, ballrooms, bars, courtyards, theaters, lecture halls, lounges, shops, and game rooms. I've actually known students to not leave their college for weeks on end. Anyway, in these situations, you generally live on a hall in a small bedroom by yourself and share a potty and a shower with 5-6 other people. You have a sink in your bedroom. The residence hallways have doors at each end to block out some of the noise from the rest of the building--not that it matters 'cos they're party central 24/7. Residence in the colleges includes breakfast and lunch every day in the central ballroom, though breakfast is very early in the morning and the food is...urgh. can we say rubbery eggs?

The other housing option is self-catered, which is what I did. Self-catered accommodation is in a large community of townhouses about a half mile from the center of campus. (its a pleasant 10 minute walk down a very nice, well-lit path. the only time it sucks is when the paths get icy.) The area is called Parkwood, and the townhouses have 5 or 6 bedrooms and are arranged into courts of anywhere from 10 to 20 houses. Everyone gets their own bedroom (the idea of shared accommodation is rather foreign to the English) and the 5 bedroom houses have a full kitchen, powder room downstairs, and potty, shower, and sink upstairs. The six bedroom houses have a really big kitchen and dining room, potty and shower downstairs and up, and sinks in each bedroom. (I lived in a 5 br--it was a bit tight but nice.) the residents are responsible for keeping their bedrooms clean, though housekeeping comes through weekly to mop the common areas, clean toilets, and replace tp. The stoves are gas, which rocks, but the ovens are gas too, which sucks. just so you know.

There's a third option available now, which is a couple of big multi-storey buildings just on the edge of Parkwood which have suites, but i really don't know anything about them because they were being built while i was there. More info can be found at www.kent.ac.uk/hospitality.

Near the center of Parkwood is a complex which houses a grocery store, a laundromat, a housing desk (staffed with nice people who'll sell you laundry tokens when the dispenser breaks) and Woody's bar--the best (and cheapest) bar on campus.

Keep in mind that at Kent, as with most British schools, university accommodation is offered to freshers (first years) and erasmus students only. Second years and beyond live in houses all over town, though many are in a large community of townhouses about a mile off campus.

You are likely to find that all of your neighbors are really, really immature--even compared to American freshmen. There are reasons for this, most notably the fact that many Kent students have spent their entire youth education in same-sex schools. While this is not necessarily the case outside of the Southeast, be aware that Kent is a snotty rich kid uni and many of them went to very expensive grammar schools. Hence a lot of people will act like they've never seen someone of the opposite sex before and get really stupid. Disease transfer is rampant throughout the first semester. Be Careful.

Classes. Ah, class. The least significant part of my study abroad experience.

Each department behaves differently, and as I majored in theatre i doubt what I have to say will bear any relation to your experience. But across the board there are certain tendencies--a full courseload is 120 hours over three trimesters. Most classes will be worth either 15 or 30 hours, though i've heard that varies when you get into the sciences. The first two trimesters are spent in class, and the third is for exams. The theatre department did not offer any classes below 30 hours, so it meant that i had 2 classes (modules) each term. yeah. 2. But i had at least 4 class meetings (classes) a week as each module had both a lecture and a seminar. The seminars were the best part, hands-down, as you really get to discuss the course material with your teacher and a small group of classmates and debate or even bicker about how you feel about it. ALWAYS BE PREPARED FOR YOUR SEMINARS.

My grades in the lecture/seminar classes came from one or two short papers (2500 words), one dissertation (5,000 words), one presentation (at least half an hour including questions and discussion--you basically teach a class on your subject matter and lead the seminar), and participation/attendance. Note i did not include exams in that. The theatre department did not have exams. I actually had 6 entire weeks free to fiddle around and have a good time. This is, unfortunately, not the case for other departments.

My classes second semester were weirder--whereas first semester each lecture was one hour and each seminar two hours, second semester i had one class that met two hours on monday without the professor to prepare a performance and seminar for tuesday. The tuesday class was 5 hours long and included presentation, lecture, seminar, performance, discussion thereof, and often a film of the next week's play. (it was Modern European Theatre 2: Beyond Naturalism. DO NOT TAKE THIS COURSE.) The other class that term was a 4-hour acting class, but it was fun.

The classes have less, but harder work than American classes. you are on your own for a lot of it--not only acquiring texts from the library and reading them, but for finding research materials and preparing your presentations. Nothing is spoon-fed to you, and grading is tough. Moreover, every paper and exam is graded twice--both by your professor and an external grading board, which checks for plagiarism and cheating. Nobody earns a grade above an 80--they don't believe in perfection, or anything near it. But a 70 is an excellent grade.

A professor can make or break a class--i had two excellent professors, one sucky professor, and one bitch who artificially lowered my grade because she didn't like Americans. There's no excusing that. The sucky professor knew his stuff but he wasn't nice and tore everyone apart for their commentary, even when the student was right. Oh well. I learned a lot, i did a lot of research and a Whole lotta writing, but i didn't really care about the classroom. I made b's (known in the UK as a 2.1 or a 2.2--might i suggest you google the UK grading system? its a nightmare.) but they transferred back to USC as "pass" and did not affect my gpa.

The easiest and best way to meet people is to go to the campus bars. England is a drinking culture, so if you don't drink for whatever reason, people are going to think you're weird. They drink, but second years and up drink responsibly--it looks bad to get plastered too. Alcohol is not put on a pedestal in the UK--its consumption is permitted and encouraged among college students--so people are less inclined to abuse it the way we do here. My favorite drink at Woodys was the Snakebite--it is half cheap lager, half cheap cider, with a shot of blackcurrant syrup thrown in. Very pink, but yummy (though a lot of people hate it. just try it once!)
Without alcohol, most people are not particularly willing to talk to strangers. It is up to you to strike up the conversation, though once you do, chances are they'll be more than ready to talk to you for days. I made a lot of friends just by being genial and southern--it surprised a lot of my friends to see the number of folks who would wave and say hi to me every time i walked to class. Don't act like you're afraid of the locals--they can smell fear. Just be chill--don't apologise for being American, but don't gloat about it either. The last thing anyone wants to hear is "well its better in 'Merica 'cos..." If they see that you're willing to accept their culture for what it is, they'll be more likely to accept you.

Native Kentish folk tend to be more friendly and open than Londoners, who are trained from early childhood to expect anyone who strikes up a conversation with them to be a mugger or sex offender. Bar talk again is easiest.

I actually saved money when i went to Kent--the housing is cheaper! USC has an arrangement with UKC in which you pay tuition to USC (if you're in-state it means you can keep your life scholarship) and housing to Kent, and their exchangers do the same. When i was there the pound was worth $1.93- 2.00, so the cost of living was massive, but i budgeted carefully and came back broke, but not in debt. (I earned about $6,000 the summer before so i had that, LIFE, and my stafford loan to support me.) A few tips for not going broke:

don't buy textbooks if possible--check them out of the library
don't take the bus into town--its a very nice walk
shop at Tesco instead of Marks and Spencer (groceries)
pick a day or two for drinking each week
take out cash once a week and try not to use your debit
if you shop for clothes or other stuff, shop outside of Canterbury.
buy electronics in america!

Oh, random side note--there is a path that leads from Parkwood all the way to Whitstable (six miles--whitstable is on the water) its a BEAUTIFUL walk and was one of my favorite things to do on slow days with friends.
Canterbury is a 1-hour train ride from London (2 hour by coach (bus) but half the price). I dated a guy who's family lived in London, and got to spend three weeks with them over spring break (christmas and spring breaks are both a month). It really is a cool city to visit, though not really a great place to live. too crowded for my tastes.

Weather. umm. If you get seasonal depression, might i suggest the south of France? England is routinely gray. You get the odd pretty day in spring and summer, but don't expect anything besides gray, dismal, rainy weather. On the plus side, though, it doesn't get insanely hot or cold, and we got a foot of snow three times, to everyone's enjoyment!

Would i go back? I've been trying to get back there for a year now, but scheduling and finances are rather prohibitive. I dream of Canterbury still--i didn't want to come home. I still don't want to be home. One year there and i'm trying to become a citizen. The biggest draw is the people--they're typically very liberal, very chill, and very secular. I like that in a culture, though USC students have gone over there and wanted nothing more to come home for those exact three reasons. They have no patience for prejudice against anybody (in response to American congressional debate over homosexual marriage, Ireland went and formally legalized it) and they can respect diversity among people and cultures without cramming it down your throat, and their government is forced by the people to use funding responsibly and reasonably.

I helped a girl get over to Kent for this past semester--she hated everything about it. She didn't make any friends because she refused to go to bars, studied too much, and convinced herself it was her calling in life to witness the Bible to the crazy heathens of the UK. Most people rejected her solidly, and told her why. After three months of this policy her dad finally told her to loosen up and try doing as the romans do. Not only did she start to have fun, but people started to want to be around her. By the time it was time to come home, she didn't want to either.

Okay, sorry, i know this is long. take it in stages. There's a lot of worthwhile information cloaked in opinion--i can't write any other way.

Hope this has been useful! Let me know if/when you have any other questions or would like to see photographs. I have about 1,000 of canterbury, my social life, london, Paris, Barcelona, and campus.

Regards,
Kristen

No. NO. You are an adult.

Here I am. 26 years old. Highly educated, proven capable of handling a wealth of tasks with ease, courtesy, and warmth. Able to hang upside-down off the side of an aircraft carrier with a drill in hand Monday, then collate investment documents and tax mailings with precise attention to accuracy Tuesday, and with great decorum put clothes on hungry women Wednesday. I am bright, capable, versatile, and ready for a committed, rewarding career.

So WHY am I seriously considering applying for weekend gigs on the South Bank for a pittance?

No. I am a grown-up with real debts and real responsibilities. I should not think that my place is in a company-logo tee shirt surrounded by tourists on the sidewalk. That's one small step above standing on the corner waving a cardboard arrow toward the nearest McDonald's--a gig a homeless guy I know in Baltimore takes occasionally in exchange for burgers. I have worked too hard on my education to think that I don't deserve self-respect and a living wage.

But what education do I actually have? As far as business-sector skills are concerned, I have very, very few--and only ones that I've gained on the job. Touch-typing, filing, mail distribution, correspondence, dictation, teaching CEOs to use their computers...all tasks I've only undertaken as a low-paid temp. Nobody wants to pay people enough to not only eat but pay for their rent AND their student loans to hang lights and build fake walls. There's too many highly-qualified technicians out there who are happy to do it for free because someone told them that after a few years of interning and volunteering, the money'll start coming in.

This is not actually true. There are always enough recent graduates and hopeful young people to exploit that the need to pay people doesn't actually come up. If they start demanding money, you just find someone new. Now that I have a MA in being exploited I've moved up from being a dime a dozen to a dime for five, but still. A two-year turnaround on burnouts is plenty of time to keep your theatre staffed and your coffers full.

----

Oh I'm sorry I missed that lunch date, Arthur, but with a degree in maths and another in astrophysics, it was either hitch a ride on a spaceship or head back to the dole queue on Monday.

Henrietta

I just finished reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. It was an excellent read and beautifully edited. (Before this I read in rapid succession all but two of Jasper Fforde's comedic novels, such as The Eyre Affair and The Fourth Bear, all of which contain at least one glaring typo for every five pages, so I felt this was noteworthy.) While heart-wrenching and painful to read (particularly when Skloot and Henrietta's daughter Deborah find Elsie's mildewing autopsy report) occasionally disgusting (watching Zakariyya eat over a pint of ice cream off a paper plate), and reminiscent of all of the time I spent in high school learning to hate myself for just how much white people have abused black people for centuries in the USA, I nevertheless had room in my brain left over to consider the more pragmatic issues surrounding Mrs. Lacks's cancerous tissue.

The big question that dominates the end of the book regards the ownership of components of the self once they have been voluntarily removed from the body. No one argues that if someone hacks off someone else's arm for the fun of it, they should put it back, or at the very least compensate their victim for the harm they've caused. But if a surgeon removes a damaged or damaging component of a willing patient, should the patient still have some claim to it? I'm referring to tumours, gangrenous appendages, iffy-looking moles, ruptured appendices--all things that A. people are better off without, and B. won't survive on their own once they're cut off.

If biopsies, blood samples, and other bits and pieces are useless to patients, and will more than likely rot or be discarded if given back after testing, then it makes sense that people who not only have a use for the samples, but know how to keep them useful should keep them. Figuring they're doing all the work to keep the cells alive, preserved, or indexed, and spending all the money on formaldehyde and electricity to run deep freezers, it's only fair that, given the opportunity, they should be allowed to earn the money back from any commercially viable discoveries they make using said samples.

But.

Patients did put in all the effort of growing those tumours from the outset. Whether or not the friendly doctor saved his life by removing it, and whether or not he wanted said tumour, the patient did do all of the primary work. Not only that, why shouldn't the patient be compensated for all the time he spent in pain, nauseated, bedridden, coughing up blood, and generally having a lousy time of it? We have this concept in our world that people should pay to get better, not be paid for being sick. But being sick is work--indeed, for some people it's the most difficult work they've ever undertaken. It may not always be work that supports a profitable enterprise, but if a patient is undergoing some course of treatment it has the potential to. The fact that some people volunteer to make theatre doesn't mean that practitioners shouldn't be paid if the show makes a profit. Surely if a researcher wishes to be paid for his medicine, he should compensate everyone who worked to achieve it.

Now, Henrietta may have waived her eligibility for compensation--not because of something she signed in life, but because her cancer cells went out of their way to sabotage years and billions of dollars' worth of research all around the world. I mean, I'm sure there's a breach of contract violation in that somewhere. If nothing else, it made a lot of people unhappy when they thought they'd made breakthroughs, only to realize that no, they'd just made another freezer-ful of Baltimore Black Lady. Maybe that's what happens when you harvest malignancies without informed consent. Henrietta let science make great advances and save millions of lives, but she got some pretty good jabs in for her trouble.

Anyway, a very well-written, touching, and pragmatic book that approaches the reader like you're an interested adult--at no point did I feel patronized, but the style likewise never dropped into unintelligible medical jargon. I'm very glad Skloot took the time to do it properly (the project took her ten years), and to communicate with Henrietta's family as people--to not only get their story, but to help them understand what happened to their mother, and how she changed the world. I'm grateful to Henrietta Lacks.

And Georgios Papanikolaou.

Poked, Prodded, and Tea'd

So, I just got back from the colposcopy clinic. A very nice (man) gynaecologist did exactly what the procedure says on the tin, with a bonus prize: the colposcope has a camera built in, which was hooked up to a monitor, so I got to watch. The nurse (woman) kept me distracted and talking and I didn't really feel any discomfort, but I was absolutely fascinated by the whole thing. My cervix is exactly the same colour as my gums! There was a little spot, about the size of a pencil eraser, that turned white and looked odd, but the doctor didn't think it was a big deal. He took a cylindrical biopsy of it with this long skinny contraption, and got me to cough when he did it and somehow I didn't feel a thing. (I also didn't watch the monitor for that bit.) Well done there, I think.

Meanwhile the nurse was asking me about where I came from, oh isn't it warm there? You said you came here as a student, what did you study?

"I...erm.. What Did I study?" I was entirely too fascinated by my own personalized NOVA show to remember anything about myself. "My mom's a nurse too, but she works labour and delivery. This is so odd--I'm having a hard time believing it's me I can see." "Do you want to have kids?" "No, that's not really the plan." "Well, if you decide to have babies, they'll grow just behind that." "I'm well aware of that, I just mean I feel rather detached, more like I'm watching a science programme. Is that the string from my IUD?"

Afterwards I asked to see the biopsy, and found it fascinating, which made the nurse laugh like a drain. And there was a condom on the handle of the colposcope. And instead of foot stirrups they had these sort of curved leg pad things, far more comfortable. And everything smelled of vinegar. (The naughty cells react to vinegar, so fair enough). The lighting in the hospital is terrible, but the place was clean and well-appointed.

No one but me in the waiting room spoke English, but there was another waiting room just around the corner full of pregnant teenagers and their boyfriends, all of them white and dumb-looking. I wandered in there on accident and was briefly confused because they all had numbers, but the receptionist hadn't given me one. I was also the only person in there who had come alone, which got me some pitying looks until I realised I was in the room with pictures of babies all over the walls when I should have been in the room plastered with posters for cancer support groups. Way to make a lady feel comfortable.

So now I get to wait three weeks for the biopsy to...do its thing, I suppose. Are they going to try and grow it? Or make a slide of it and examine the cell pattern? I suppose I could look it up. I'll go do that.

Inexperienced and Unskilled, but suck at digging ditches

Hello world. I need a job. I've been working for about ten years in a diverse array of fields, off and on around my education, all around the US and now London. Well, I say working in London. I say working.

Okay, scratch that.

See, I've had the fun experience of either never being asked to do anything--quite literally, sit in front of this desk and wait for the phone to ring though it probably won't--and doing highly-skilled and important tasks that I'm not actually supposed to be doing for busy bosses who have eventually decided I was competent.

I have a large résumé, but it's full of short contracts, internships, temp work, and good jobs that I nevertheless did without a license or proof that I knew what I was doing. I'm a good MIG welder (untested) a strong rigger (unqualified, and with lapsed belay certification from 2004) a skilled carpenter (scenic, unverifiable), and a capable lighting electrician who can work safely at heights (unconfirmed). I've competently operated cherry pickers (without a license) and can drive a car (in the USA). I've maintained and repaired vehicles (with my dad) and can fix and upholster furniture (though the last place I did this as a job I left after a screaming match with my misogynistic boss who tried to make me cut Styrofoam with a hot knife without proper ventilation or a clean respirator while mocking my Wiccan co-worker for being a heathen and 'playing around with voodoo').

I have about 6 months (over three years) of administrative experience. I have a master's degree (in theatre) and a valid work visa (for 2 years, the point of which is to help me find a job that will sponsor me indefinitely, which is a burden no employer wants to deal with). I've never been fired (but I've had dozens of contracts lasting four hours to three months) and have spent the past six months volunteering (as a lighting technician in dodgy-at-best theatres and found spaces). I'm organized and efficient (when I have to be) have a pleasant telephone manner (with an American accent, which is inappropriate for a truly British company) and can type 95 words per minute (when it's warm out, otherwise my fingers lock up and I can manage about half a sentence before I start spewing gobbledegook.)

All told, with my CV and personality...I wouldn't hire me. Maybe I can go into landscaping. I quite like plants. Check out my lavatera seedlings:



And my tulips, as they get going:


And my daffodil (yes, just the one)



and my whatever the heck this is:


Green thumb? Perhaps not. More like greenish toe, but not in a gangrene sort of way.

Oh the life of the dabbler, the short-term gigger. The Temp. Too competent to be an amateur, but too inexperienced to be a professional.

col-PAHS-co-py

So. A letter just came through the door inviting me down to the girls room for a poke-n-prod.

Erm. To rephrase. I've received correspondence from my local NHS trust informing me that I have an appointment for a colposcopy. Apparently my most recent Pap smear turned up a HSIL, or High Grade Squamous Intraepithelial Lesion, or Severe Cervical Intraepithelial Neoplasia, which I've had a fun hour or so of reading about. At my appointment in 2 weeks I'll get the fun experience of having a 3% acetic acid solution spread on my cervix to see if it turns white in areas where there's a high concentration of cellular nuclei. I'll probably be biopsied and may even get to experience the sublime joy of the LEEP (looped electric excision procedure, which sounds a lot like the slice-n-toast knife in The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy film) And then, joy of joys, I'll get two more Paps over the next year, and annual pappage over the next 10. Whee, who doesn't love the sound of that?

Interestingly, in my last hour of low-grade-panic-driven research, I've learned that the plastic broom I've always associated with Pap tests is not very good at collecting cells, which might help to explain why my 2009 Pap came up completely normal but all of a sudden in 2011 it's come up hellafuckedup (technical term).

I've also learned that the person who detected my abnormality is called a Cytoscreener, which is awesome. Thanks, Cytoscreener, for helping me stay healthy.

I've known for a while that most everyone has at least one, and probably several strains of HPV. I know I have had at least 2, now--I also got a verruca from lifeguarding at a summer camp in 2004. Kids are gross. I had to have the verruca frozen off with liquid nitrogen which was astonishingly painful. Like, it felt kinda funny for a sec while the doctor was applying the goop, then he got up and left the room just as a bolt of lightning shot from my heel to my hip, causing me to clench up and jerk around like a rabbit in a snare while emergency lights flashed red in my head alerting me to the fact that my foot had been cut off. If the same thing has to happen to my cervix, be prepared for a killing spree. Getting an IUD was bad enough.

I like the way the letter was phrased. To paraphrase: "you're probably fine, this is all fine, don't worry, you're great, we love you, cancer, you're a good person, you're better than healthy, it's probably nothing, do not miss your appointment for any reason, this happens all the time, it's downright routine, hugs and kisses, NHS." Kinda like that time I was grabbed by a London transit police officer to have my Oyster card checked after a fault caused me to get smushed in the gate--ID badge, big smile, mind if I check your card? big smile. I'm sure it's fine, you look like a good person who wouldn't try and get away with not paying, criminal, big smile, there we go--the person ahead of you must have not touched the reader properly, big smile.

Oof. What is it, when people tell you not to worry, it just makes you even more anxious? Like when people tell you it's not going to hurt, you totally know it's going to be a gore-splosion, or when someone in a bad movie says "nothing could possibly go wrong." I'm sure I'm fine, I'll be fine, and even if it has the potential to be not fine, it is still in a it's-fine stage of not fine. But nevertheless...AAAARRGGGHHH.

As for silver-lining thinking: At least I'm not in the USA without health insurance right now. I have a valid NHS number and a valid work visa.

As for appropriate responses to that line of thinking: FUCK YOU, REPUBLICANS. I'm safer in the UK than at home, despite massive blows to the NHS under a Tory-led initiative to try and privatise and profit-drive healthcare because they're mass-murdering wankfucktards who have no concept of I can't afford it EVEN IF MY LIFE DEPENDS ON IT and therefore assume that poor people just don't care enough...even with those EVIL IDIOTS in charge, I'm BETTER OFF than with YOU.

Without tax-funded women's health centres like Planned Parenthood, many women will not receive Pap smears. They won't be able to afford them, or at least won't see an appreciable cost/benefit ratio to paying to have them as often as they should. They will not detect problems early. They will not have the fucking chance that I think I have...fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. Fucking republicrats. Fucking religious aristocracy trying to punish all us naughty heathens for our normal, human behaviour. Fuck you, yes you--judging me for bringing all this on myself with my youthful indiscriminate actions. If you hadn't told me not to, I probably wouldn't have. I pay my fucking taxes... (descends into incomprehensible mewling)

And Guess what I started reading on Monday?

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot.

Faaaaaaaack.

March in London, or "What are Begonias supposed to look like?"

My poor, sad, confused house-plant. I have no idea really how to care for it, or if I'm even supposed to at this time of year. I just looked at a bunch of pictures on the interwebs of what begonias are supposed to look like, and...mine doesn't look like that. It has one sad and strange looking cluster of flowers dangling off to one side and is otherwise a green, sprawling mess. Most of the leaves look happy and it has new growth but it's not the compact, flower-laden plant you see in the pictures.



I just took a lot of pictures of it with flash so that may confuse it, I don't know. I can just see all its chloroplasts screaming "I'm blind! Oh the Humanity!" (begoniaty?)



I water it when the soil gets dry, it is well-drained and gets as much sunlight as it can (not much, it's London and it's March) and I've fertilized it once or twice. I just have no idea if it looks the way it is supposed to, if it is happy and thriving or on its last legs. Should I put it outside when it gets warmer? Should I prune it? I put it in a larger pot about four months ago and it got bigger, but maybe I shouldn't have done that. But it has flowers at all now, whereas when we first got here it had none, and continued having none until I repotted it. I worry inordinately about this plant.




I think I have a sort of ET relationship with my lone house-plant. When I'm all seasonal-affective so is it, or perhaps I just imagine it to be so. I'm not getting enough sun, so Windowplant is likewise in the dark. I tried growing cilantro on the windowsill and it sprouted, looked around for about five minutes, and died. Well screw you too, dumb herb. I'm nervous to start any seedlings for the summer 'cos I'm pretty sure they'll bail on me too. I'm not going to bother with aubergines this year, but I'm eager to try courgettes with the assistance of fungicide. That stuff makes a mountainous heap of difference (between having courgettes and...not)

London has this cute tendency to cloud over for the brightest part of the day. Like today. It was cloudy all morning until about noon, when it cleared up partway, got me all excited...then clouded over again until just now. It is currently too dim to enjoy the clear sky, and Windowplant is not getting anything out of it. I pruned some dead twigs off my Big Pink Plant in the cold cloudy gloom, but it doesn't look like it wants to bloom this year. It has buds, but they look to be leaves. FAIL.

Quotation mark "abuse"

What is with the anti-freedom camp these days that makes them feel it is appropriate to put quotation marks around every word they find objectionable? "Gay" is the new homosexual. "Rights" is the new...rights? These numbnuts are so intent on claiming that other legal Americans don't deserve equal protection under the law that they will suggest that the word right may be used ironically. That's not funny. It's weird. I've actually seen the sentence ""gays" believe they "deserve" the "right" to same-sex "marriage"" on an official statement, along with "it is not "bullying" for my child to encourage your "gay" child to seek the path of righteousness."

I think your "grammar" is "gross".

It is also amusing that they've named their movement "pro-family" which is another can of douche. How can someone who is pro-family impede others in their attempts to have...a family? I'm pretty sure the "gays" are the "pro-family" side of this debate, and you, friends, are in the "anti-equality" trench. Or how about "pro-theocracy" if you've gotta be pro-something? Too much of a mouthful? Pro-hate? Pro-bigotry? Pro-white-wealthy-fundie-closeted-men-and-subjugated-sexually-repressed-women?

This is just another "grievous abuse of language" to go along with their gun-waving pro-life, union-busting pro-democracy, and consenting to job, service, and benefit losses while paying more in taxes so the aristocracy can maintain their tax cuts pro-liberty catch phrases. Think, please, before you give yourself a misnomer.

Hello UK

Hello, my name is Kristen, and I have the right to be here.

My newly-vignetted passport arrived registered mail this morning. I'm legal, it's official, it's in my hands.

I scheduled a National Insurance Number interview last week after I spoke with my UKBA case worker. I called to confirm he'd received my bank statements, and instead of answering that, he told me my visa was granted. (Oh darn! But I swear I wasn't hounding him to find out anything besides the delivery status of my documents!) I feel a bit silly now, as the Job Centre worker asked if I'd like a meeting tomorrow (Tuesday) and I declined as I'd been told my visa probably wouldn't be in my hands until Wednesday. She bumped it up to Friday. So now I have another week of thumb-twiddling, but things are in play.

My new visa is valid until the end of February 2013. I have two years to find a full-time job that would be happy to help me stay. I've already been looking will now continue my search with less despair. And I can apply without hoping they won't call me back immediately--I can hope for Fast Turnaround! Ooooooh.

----

In other news (if you don't care to hear a diatribe about religion, politics, or authoritarian regimes, the blog post is finished, nothing else to see here.) I read a lot of Science Blogs, particularly Professor PZ Myers' Pharyngula. He teaches biology in Minnesota and points out when religiosos try to cause harm or damage politics in their own special ways. Yesterday he provided a link to the blog of a Catholic wacko who annoyed me by trying to establish through scripture that giving a woman an orgasm is a mortal sin. So I've been giving him a hard time. I figure he won't publish my response to his blog post so I've reposted it here. If you think frank anatomical discussion is explicit, I suppose it is explicit. As a courtesy, I elected to try and write this as though I am party to the writer's own skewed version of reality. I probably got a few things wrong as I am neither Catholic nor tolerant of religion, but I did try.

----

Your refusal to address women and concerned husbands' questions regarding mutual enjoyment of sex demonstrates weakness--not of your mind, but of your evidence. You know that the location of clitoris, if designed by God, doesn't make a whole lot of sense, and that unpleasant and un-fulfilling sex is divisive, not unitive, and leads slowly and painfully to the breakdown of marriage. It doesn't matter if you don't believe the purpose of sex is pleasure--if one party enjoys it and the other doesn't, it fails the 3-font challenge of your description.

But I’ve figured out something that can help you. It’s simple, really, so I’ll state it simply. The clitoris is not sexual, so touching it is not evil.

Check it out. Yes, biologically the glans of the penis and the clitoris are derived from the same nerve cluster during gestation, so technically they are the same thing. But functionally, and therefore doctrinally, they are utterly different. The clitoris contributes nothing toward procreation. The organ itself and its functionality are in no way related to baby-making, therefore usage of the clitoris is unrelated to sex. The fact that stimulating it leads to an energy build-up and release that society calls “orgasm” is irrelevant. The fact that it is near the vaginal opening is irrelevant–unless you want to argue that the bridge of the nose contributes to the function of the eye. The concern of the Church is that procreative organs are exploited for pleasure and not for procreation, but the clitoris is in no way procreative, therefore exploitation of it is wholly outside the realm of sexual ethics. Touching the clitoris cannot lead to the spilling of semen nor the expulsion of the egg. As long as you do not massage it with a procreative organ its use is cleanly and definitively separate from sex.

If you try to impress upon me the notion that the clitoris is sexual, then you are seeking to impress upon me the notion that the clitoris is a vital component of procreation. If so, then you’ve unfortunately defeated your own argument–if it is vital, then it must be stimulated in order for God’s design for marital acts to be fulfilled. If it is not, it is a system and entity entirely unto itself and is therefore fine. It exists not for sexual pleasure, but simply pleasure itself.

If you had to reach into the woman’s sexual organ to stimulate the clitoris it would be different, but then again, this issue probably never would have come up as stimulation thereof would be considered a normal component of the procreative act. But it is separate, therefore it is separate.

If you can find, in scripture, anywhere that it says “women have an organ separate from the entrance to the womb that feels good when you touch it–do not touch it” fair enough. But anything more vague than that does not pass muster. It is a separate entity, it is not sexual, so it may be stimulated by either partner with impunity.

developmental biology for beginners, or Mother Nature is Amoral

If by some bizarre set of circumstances Asshat McGee in Georgia manages to shove through his "miscarriage punishable by death" legislation, the logical next step is actually the prohibition of any non-barrier form of contraception up to and including the rhythm method.

See, he wants to define personhood as beginning the moment a sperm bites into an egg. Wham, two cells combine, it's Joe. Unfortunately, the fact that cells have combined in no way guarantees a live birth, or even that the active zygote won't be passed in the woman's next menstruation. Indeed, it is a matter of general consensus among reproductive healthcare providers that after day 13 of the menstrual cycle one or more eggs is released into the uterus and will survive about 24 hours. If the egg is not fertilized in this time it is flushed out of the body about two weeks later. If the egg is fertilized in this time but for whatever reason doesn't adhere to the blood-rich uterine lining it too is flushed out of the body about two weeks later. Joe, meet tampon.

Women's bodies do this on their own all the time, as is doubtless being discussed throughout the internet at this moment. Billions of uteri over the years have rejected or simply failed to accept viable zygotes because the zygote simply never made it over there, for no particular reason. This is not a tragedy, this is not a miscarriage, this is not a baby, this is not a person. It is a microscopic cluster of cells that oozed out of a woman along with a whole bunch of blood and mucus.

Inter-uterine devices (IUDs (or Coils, in the UK)) work (we think) by inhibiting a zygote's ability to attach to the lining of the uterus. If you look at it like a Fundie, that would mean that an IUD works by starving the poor helplessly-flailing fertilized cell to death. Progesterone-infused IUDS are even worse--they don't usually inhibit egg release, but they do prevent the body from building up a uterine lining And physically inhibit zygote implantation. Oh, what a hostile environment!

Hormonal birth control methods generally do inhibit ovum release, so I guess they should be Fundie-fine, but they're absolutely horrible in every other way. They screw around with women's physiology so much that they cause neurological disorders, emotional disturbances, weight problems, digestive problems, dermatological problems, fibroid problems, bleeding disorders, and a host of other unpleasant changes. Barrier methods likewise prevent fertilization...when they work, but they're notoriously movable, breakable, by-passable, and faulty. The most reliable, least-unpleasant form of contraception is in fact the IUD, which, to the Fundie, could be considered forced miscarriage, i.e. muuuuurrrrder.

Obviously, non-implantation happens on its own constantly--the Mayo clinic has stated that non-implantation and even implanted miscarriage within the first 3 weeks of pregnancy occurs all the damn time, far more than the 1/4 of detected pregnancies that end in spontaneous miscarriage. Evidence exists to suggest the likelihood of Most pregnancies failing at this time, but it is utterly impossible to tell how many unacknowledged fertilized ova have been absorbed by sanitary products, even in women who were hoping to not have a period this month.

All IUDs do is bump up this number a bit, but if you believe, as many morons do, that personhood begins at fertilization, they could be seen as aiding and abetting the natural inhospitable nature of the uterus toward God's chosen innocent helpless blastocysts. It would follow, then, that the miscarriage police would feel comfortable in banning implantation-inhibitors, and should enforce that all sexually active women take human chorionic gonadotrophin supplements to prevent evil progesterone cycles triggering the uterine lining to shed before implantation occurs. If personhood begins at fertilization, we must do everything in our power to ensure that zygotes survive, including suppressing normal biology and causing heinous damage to women's bodies and minds in the process.

----

The trouble is, religion and law don't really fit with the truth of how bodies and societies actually work. They exist in this idealized, inhuman sphere that cannot cope with the truth that the body is amoral. It does its own thing no matter what you tell it. Whenever life begins is irrelevant to the uterus. The menstrual cycle is only a pattern of chemical releases, one that pregnancy may or may not interrupt. So too is a woman's decision-making process entirely comprised of electrochemical impulses. Whether the uterus or the brain decides to not see a pregnancy through, it is all part of the functionality of the female. If a fertilization results in a non-viable foetus, if a woman is on drugs, what have you--the inside of a woman must be off-limits to the prying, judging, moralizing, arbitrary eyes of the law and the church.

In conclusion: It may be Joe, but that really doesn't matter.

breakdown at the PO

Thank you, NatWest Greenwich bank guy. The interim statement you requested on my behalf was shoved through my door on Saturday morning, three days earlier than expected. I re-enveloped it and took it to the post office to send to my case handler about an hour ago. I was fine addressing it, hiking up there, waiting in line...then I got to the window and the shit hit my mental fan.

Hands shaking, I slid the envelope to the attendant and she asked what I wanted her to do with it. I said I didn't know, I needed to get it there by...

'Tomorrow?' she helpfully supplied. 'That'd be registered mail, guaranteed by tomorrow. £5.20. You'll get a tracking number.'

Wow, that's a lot of money. It doesn't weigh anything. That seems ridiculous.

'What's first class?'

'£1.20, but it's not guaranteed overnight. It may get there in two to three days. Are the contents valuable?'

'Financially, no, but valuable. Um.'

'Are they replaceable?'

'I... I don't know. I mean technically yes, they were free, but they're worth a lot to my visa, they're worth everything. But if they don't get there by Friday they're worthless. Absolutely worthless. I could get more copies if they were damaged but it wouldn't happen in time and by then I'd be riding freight back to the port of Charleston and OH GOD JUST SEND IT REGISTERED. I'll have to pay debit because I don't have any cash because I'm broke and you know five quid really shouldn't feel like that much money but it's a lot to meeee...'

Cue breakdown into tears in the Co-Op a few minutes later. I'm sorry, Post Office worker. I don't know how much of the above I actually said.

Notes from a discussion; A letter I sent to my senator

I can honestly say I've never had a worshipful attitude toward science. I recognize science for what it is--the process of trying to figure out how things work. That's it. Its not fickle--it grows and changes as researchers continue to think they've figured things out. There's no central hierarchy, it's just an ever-growing body of knowledge. Some published papers are bullshit, some may lead to helpful technologies. Conceptual science rarely sticks its nose into my daily life, though if I'm seeking medicine for a gastric ailment I will seek the advice of a qualified pharmacist.

I don't think I understand your sentiment regarding love's enslavement. I certainly don't allow my behaviour, wants, needs, or opinions to be dominated by the people I love. If we differ, we discuss. Frequently we agree to disagree and leave it alone. We may try to persuade one another to conform to our thinking, but we are free to refuse. If we come across an insurmountable, relationship-ending difference, we're free to leave. That's one of the great things about being an adult--you're not bound to places and people that make you unhappy, and you're not required to do things that make you unhappy to please others. If you choose to...well, that makes me sad, but it's your choice.

Religions are not like this, however. According to many sects and theocratic governments, if your wants and needs do not conform to established teachings, you must change. Even if they are not harmful to yourself or others, your views and behaviours are not to be tolerated. And according to their beliefs, you can't get away--if you reject your religion to pursue that which makes you happy, you'll be punished--either after death or by your state. There is no room for the self in religion. If that makes me selfish. . . good. It's not anybody else's job to give a hoot about my distinct individuality.

The thing that is so different between mortal love and holy love, though, is that if you stop believing that an omnipotent supreme being loves you--not because you've done something wrong, but because you can't believe it exists--it disappears as though it never was. This is not so for another human being. I can't decide that Ben doesn't love me. Even if I try and convince myself he doesn't, my disbelief in it won't change it. Likewise if he stops loving me but I continue to believe that he does, that won't make him start again. But as soon as I realized I didn't believe in holy love, it went away and I felt fine. No grieving, no sense of loss. Quite the opposite--for the first time, things made sense and I felt whole.

I didn't have a gaping hole in my psyche or emotional needs that I had to turn around and fill with something else--physics or what have you. The desire to worship is not inherent. That's where a lot of people get lost, and where a lot of people try to interject their own Ism-bound interpretation of simple atheism. Atheism is not a belief. It is a concise declaration that you have an absence thereof, because "sansbeliefitude" sounds funny and custom decrees that you can't get away with saying nothing. Many people, particularly in the UK, are able to, one morning, state calmly, "I have no need of faith-based belief" and never think about it again. They go on with their lives completely unperturbed by it, without a need to justify it, mull over it, or even occasionally sit down and wonder why they're here at all. If someone asks them what the meaning of life is without belief, they can easily say, "it doesn't matter, and I'm happy with that."

I don't believe people are endowed with certain inalienable rights. I recognize that established societies tend to adopt a responsibility for the base-line well being of most of their populace. The fact that most Britons aren't huddled starving in the streets attests to England's general success in that pursuit. But it is a pursuit, not an inherent responsibility. No geographical region Has to have defensible borders, nor does it have to establish a system of governance that looks out for the well-being of its inhabitants. And a lot don't.

But spiritual rights and privileges are immaterial. Yes, every believer has equal access to their god, but that does not fulfil their physical needs. Among those who believe, they will always believe that their deity is on their side, regardless if they are in direct conflict with another believer. Right and wrong, good and bad, are still just as contentious within the religious world, and the winner is not always the most good. Because being convinced that something is god's way doesn't make it right, or good, or useful. And being convinced something is evil doesn't make it bad. That's why institutions schism so frequently. Then of course one is invited to align with a belief structure that suits their principles, but where does that land them? If enough people don't agree with it they can change it? That means mortals are calling the shots. The fact that religions disagree, in my mind, undermines the entire concept. And as everyone believes that their sect is the most right, the Real One, the one everyone else should drop what they're doing and join...impasse, again. It's funny, really--or would be if it didn't make people so angry.

But I think that's my trouble with it, in a nutshell--it doesn't make people happy. It does not placate, it does not comfort, it is not an opiate. I broke through religion because I found it was an undue burden. I didn't like the way it told me to view myself, others, the church, or the functionality of the world. Indeed, the fundamentals of nature had nothing to do with it--it was me. There it was, in black and white, submit to, get down, obey men--I couldn't. I wouldn't. I knew it was wrong. I realized then and there, age 12, that this set of moral absolutes was a construct of mankind intended to suppress the individual from within. No matter what it says, even if I got to write the rules of my own religion according to what makes me happy it wouldn't work. I can't accept that any set of absolutes or free-standing instructions on how to live are anything more than one person's way of controlling the minds of others.

----

I realize that Fort Mill and the surrounding area are full of fundamentalist Christians, and you'll of course make plenty of them happy by trampling on the rights of women and severing our access to birth control and cancer screening, but believe it or not, it is not your job to protect evangelical Christians from being offended by the existence of Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood does not proselytize, it is not out to get you, and it is not staffed with baby-haters or rampaging atheists bent on world domination. They're there for the poor, the helpless, the scared, and the overwhelmed. They're there for women--a group it IS your job to protect. Your job is to ensure that people who are not causing harm do not come to harm. Not to ensure that the will of the mob is enforced on the maligned minority (or in the case of women, the traditionally abused majority).

You want to help prevent abortions? Ensure we have free, no-strings-attached access to contraception. Planned Parenthood provides this to women who can otherwise not afford it. Planned Parenthood gave me my IUD for free when I was broke, and it is to Planned Parenthood that I owe my freedom, my safety, and the fact that I've never needed an abortion. No one else in South Carolina offered me this. Nowhere else, aside from USC's student health center, could I find contraception I could afford.

You have to give us something. I don't care if contraception goes against your moral code--if you're not going to help poor women to have abortions, at least allow us to prevent unwanted babies. You will not make a woman want a child by taking away her ability to get rid of it. No woman seeks one out for fun. No woman thinks of abortion as a form of birth control. It's a last resort before your life is ruined. Before your Fundie parents begin beating you or throw you out of the house. Before you starve. Before you lose your job, your home, and your future.

You cannot force women who don't want children to abstain from sex. Sex is normal, natural, and important. Regular, satisfying sex is a vital component of mental health. Women enjoy it and should be proud of the fact that they do. Any religion that tells you otherwise is dangerous. Abstinence is not the solution. Psychological research has beaten this archaic notion down again and again. People don't, they never have, they're not supposed to. Give it a rest.

I've been in a monogamous relationship with the man I love for six years. I have always used protection, and I count on the IUD Planned Parenthood gave me. I've donated what I could to them every year since because I appreciate what they did. My friends' lives have been saved by the early detection Planned Parenthood cancer screening provided, both of the breast and the cervix. A PP practitioner even patched me up when I was injured.

By offering Prevention, Early Detection, and Termination Planned Parenthood has saved the USA millions, possibly billions of dollars on cancer treatments, complications of pregnancy, and legal fees. Planned Parenthood has made your job easier, and empowered women to live their lives without fear. If you kill Planned Parenthood, you know good and well that fear, abuse, and poverty will take its place.

Face it. The only reason to de-fund Planned Parenthood is misogyny. Do you hate women, sir?

Progress, or "My Bank Thinks Deportation is Funny"

Dateline: 16 February, 2011. 10:30 AM. Lewisham.

My cell phone rings. It's a blocked number. I answer to hear the crisp, professional voice of a real live UKBA case worker. So excited and nervous I'm ready to pee myself, I convince myself to stay cool long enough to find out what the fellow needs.

It's about my bank statements. I had to supply documentation proving that for at least the 90 days prior to my application, I had at least £800 to my name. I had asked NatWest for this information back in November. November 19th, to be exact.

I'm normally happy to have my bank statements available online, and had opted out of having paper statements mailed to me because I'd just have to file them. So I walked down to my local branch and requested copies of my 3 most recent statements so I could include them.

I was told, after waiting in line for over two hours to speak to a poorly-trained receptionist, that they'd have to request them from on high and they would be mailed to me in 10 business days. I asked if they would include statements from up to the day I requested them and was told of course, I would have my most up-to-date information.

So when I received my statements on November 29th, I checked that they were all mine (they accidentally also sent me someone else's, with my name and address hand-written on the envelope) and dumped the whole pile of application materials into the post. Same day.

I then waited for three months.

Today my case worker informed me that the most recent statement was from 21 October, A month and 8 days away from my 29 November application date. I needed 8 days worth of statements to be within the acceptable timeframe to evidence my continued financial stability. Because some asshat at NatWest Corporate processed my request for my 3 most recent statements, then waited a week, in which my new statement came out, before sending them to me.

Well, no, probably a computer at NatWest Corporate automatically spat out my statements the moment they were requested, which then joined the "to be addressed and mailed" stack, which had to be done by hand by one work-experience kid who had no idea what he was getting himself into. Either way, it took over a week, and in so doing screwed me up rotten.

So. Return to today. The case worker tells me I can get a printout of my transactions for that week and have it stamped and signed for by a bank employee, and I can mail it to him. He gives me 5 working days to achieve this, otherwise he'll have to send my application off to the next stage as-is, and it may be rejected.

I go online and look up the phone number for my nearest branch--Lewisham. I call it and the phone is answered by Ricky who's happy to help. I explain that I understand that statement requests take at least a week and up to two to be processed, and I don't have that kind of time, so is it possible to get a print-out stamped and authorized by a bank employee? He says he can't handle that over the phone. I say I know, I'll be over there in ten minutes if it is possible, but please let me know if it can be done. He says I'm sorry, I can't handle this question on the phone. I say, seriously, I live in Crofton Park. I can be in front of you in ten minutes to handle it in person, please just let me know if it is a service you can provide. After several minutes of this he finally informs me that I haven't actually reached my branch, I've reached a call centre in the Midlands that handles branch inquiries. I ask if I can speak to someone actually at my branch and am told no. I tell him his job is useless and hang up.

As by this point it's nearly 11:30 and I know the lunchtime rush is about to get going at the Lewisham branch I opt to visit the Catford branch. I'm second in line at the inquiries desk and am seen quite quickly, which is a shock. I explain my situation and my request to the staffer, who tells me they don't do that. The only way I can get an official copy of anything is to request a statement that will be posted to my house in 7-10 working days. I tell him this is impossible, my right to live in this country hangs in the balance and I don't have that kind of time. Is there anything that can be done? I need it no later than Monday. He says this sort of thing is not valid and UKBA would not accept it anyway. I assure him that they would, that my caseworker--would you like to speak to him?--told me to ask for precisely this. He says no again, says he'll ask his manager, and stomps out of the room.

He comes back five minutes later, after audibly standing around chatting with other bank employees about their personal lives the entire time, slaps a folder on the table and says "I asked my manager and I am right. We cannot authorize a statement. It is illegal." I assure him that that is in no way true. He says he can print off copies of my statement on normal printer paper and I should submit those. I tell him that won't work, they have to be authorized, but he prints away anyway. He tells me that they can't because the signatures and stamps could be used for fraudulent purposes. I say okay, then can you authorize them and then send them to UKBA on my behalf? He gets even more annoyed and says no, that is completely illegal. I assure him that too is quite legal if I sign a release, and that way I don't get the opportunity to copy anyone's signature or official stamp. He tells me there is nothing that can be done, and it never has been done this way. I take my copies and return to the lobby.

I phone my case worker and tell him what has transpired. He expresses confusion and informs me that he has a dozen applications on his desk right now that are signed stamped printouts from NatWest, and they're perfectly legit. I tell him what I have, he says they might work, as long as there's an e-mail address at the bottom of the printout that someone can contact to confirm their validity. I inform him there is not, and in all honesty they look worthless even to me. He says to send them over and he'll give it a shot, but he may have to ask me to try again.

I ask another employee what the deal is and with barely-suppressed annoyance he explains that as of the first of the year branches have been given a directive to no longer authorize anything in person because of repeated instances of fraud. I ask if there's a central bank, a main bank that I could visit who would help me without needing to mail statements to me. He says nope. I state that my time limit is completely out of my hands and I must have something quickly or I'll be deported. He shrugs. I tell him to fuck himself and burst into tears.

After sweeping gracelessly out of the building I call Boy and explain the situation. He suggests, with impressive calm, that I go from branch to branch to branch for the rest of the day until I find someone who will help me. Try Greenwich. I plough onto a bus, cross town, take a number, and wait patiently while a bank employee cheerfully tries to up-sell a small business owner an account that includes mobile phone insurance and he politely but firmly rejects it. I'm seen soon and, with a level of calm and courtesy I didn't know I still had, explain that I understand my predicament but need an authorized document by Monday.

He smiles and says of course, I can get you an interim statement in 3 business days. What dates do you need it for? That'll be fine. You should have it by Monday. The international students at the University of Greenwich need these all the time for the border agency. And that's all requested, like I said, should be at your house by Monday. If you don't mind me asking, why do you need this? If you requested your most current information back in November it should have been fine.

I smile, shrug, say something must have gotten confused in the initial request, and exit the building. I phone my case worker again, and quickly say, "Hi, it's me again. I just wanted to let you know that I went to another branch and they said they'll send me an authorized document by Monday. And they didn't yell at me. I'll send it along as soon as I receive it." He thanks me and Boy arrives, having abandoned all hope of getting any work done with all his worrying about me. We wander around Greenwich Park for a couple hours, wave at the Royal Deer, make fun of the goth ducks, and generally let it go.

So. What have I learned. Don't go to the bank in Catford. Don't go to the bank in Lewisham. Take No for an answer then go somewhere else where you'll get a yes, or at least an "I'll help you." Bankers would rather see a customer deported than admit they don't know what they're doing. Visit banks near universities if your concern is student-related. Contact your MP if you have a sneaking suspicion your application has been misplaced. Tell your friends that if your application is rejected they can all be in your wedding--this may confuse the entropy gods. And whatever you do, DO NOT JOIN NATWEST.

Still Waiting

I'm into week 12 of my long, lonely wait for UKBA to tell me...anything. Anything at all. A uni friend came over yesterday to use the phone (certain numbers can only be called from a landline in this country--it's weird) and discovered that she'll probably have a faster and easier time of getting the visa we both need if she goes back to New York and applies to the embassy. The New York UK Embassy is notorious for its impenetrability--you have to pay $12 to call a private company which will speak to you on their behalf, they don't allow in-person applications, you can't ask questions, and they don't answer emails. I had to send them my student visa application registered mail--from less than 12 blocks away. That said, they did turn the visa around in under a week, so maybe they know what they're doing.

Ben has contacted our MP to ask if she can shed any light on what the problem is. With all their recent and upcoming changes and the current downsizing kerfuffle I'm convinced my application has been misplaced, as surely after 3 months, when they claim their wait time is 3 weeks, I would have heard Something. By this point I should have either gotten a decisive No or a request for more information, or a request for me to go register biometrics or information on how I can go fuck myself. I imagine that when I call them in two weeks to ask what's going on the very curt receptionist will confirm that they received my application 29 November and I'll just have to be patient because frankly all hell has broken loose behind her and a pack of velociraptors has just eaten the mail clerk. Except she'll pronounce it clark.

Erm. Yes, MP. I sent her assistant information regarding my application--what it was, when I sent it, the weird bits that didn't make sense (it asking for a card I was forbidden from having) their stated wait times versus how long I've been waiting, the fact that all of my information is clearly valid and uncomplicated, and the recent announced changes. Hopefully she can ask someone if anything weird is going on, like how come all the biometric appointments are booked until the end of April, when the Tier 1 post-study work visa ceases to exist.

My American friends and I feel...hmm, what would be the most appropriate term? Fucked with. Yes, I think that sums it up nicely.

What it works out to is this. The UK is tired of non-English speaking foreign nationals coming in under student visas for dodgy or non-existent schools so they can get unskilled jobs that pay more than they would earn in their home country. I don't know if they're sending money back, as people claim Hispanic foreign nationals do re: the US, but they are seen as a problem. But rather than tackle the problem head-on and say "we've been having trouble with This country, This country, and This impoverished region and people are going to This fake school and This fake school and This school which turned out to be a Nike sweatshop," in all their well-meaning egalitarianism they've decided to turn out Everyone, including highly-educated English-speaking Americans.

Whenever America is included in the "other" category I get this sort of swell of imperialist outrage. How Dare you include me with those ruffians?! I'm not Foreign, I'm AMERICAN. *begin frothing at the mouth like the Gungan king in The Phantom Menace* I don't actually believe in American Exceptionalism at an intellectual level, but the US school systems do a pretty good job of ingraining the sentiment into one's very core. But I mean c'mon, if you have to call us Foreigners, at least make an exception for the Good foreigners... Who am I kidding. I don't care how they change their minds in the future just so long as they keep their word regarding what they said in the past. I paid a lot of money--more than I'm inclined to argue it's worth at this stage--for UKBA to do what they said they were going to do. And they haven't. At this point I'm beginning to want a visa And a refund, or a settlement for wages lost due to their negligence. I could be employed by now. Paying taxes. Paying off loans. Not just waiting to hear that my passport was accidentally shredded by Jeff the Neanderthal while he was wetting the plug to create sparks so he could burn my degree confirmation letter to stay warm.

Yes, I assume UKBA only hires extinct personnel. It's either that or believe members of my own species can be this incompetent, and I just can't bring myself to do so.

A Dab Here

Pillow alcove and instrument collection. The window seat is lovely in the summer when you can open the skylight and lean your head back on the roof.

My desk and hobby paraphernalia. Before you wonder, the jars contain paint thinner and water, not urine.

The Giant Shelf. The vacuum cleaner box contains my landlord's non-functioning drag-behind model. The box is to the one Boy and I bought a few months ago which is an absolute powerhouse. And yes, Boy has more audio equipment than I can fathom a use for.


Room 3 of 7 (plus the stairwell) is now painted. The study was the first carpeted room, which added a bit of challenge, as well as the first one that had its ceiling refreshed. (As the room is mostly ceiling it seemed like a good idea.) The study also contains 2 of the 4 light fixtures I've replaced in this house, evidenced by the fact that you can't see a bare lightbulb on the ceiling or a broken fixture in the stairwell.

I listened to a recording of Pride and Prejudice, read for LibriVox by Karen Savage, for this room. As I stood on desks and chairs, covered my tattered jeans in paint, and bent myself into rather strange angles to reach all the nooks and crannies in this room I wondered just how quickly Mrs. Bennett would faint at the sight of me. Lydia and Kitty would certainly point and laugh, Mary and Jane would quietly disapprove, and Lady Catherine would slap me for disgracing myself, but I think Lizzie would probably give me a clandestine thumbs-up.

The ceiling in this room is only about 7' high so I only needed a desk chair to reach everywhere. The room is mostly edges and corners so I spent quite a long time staring cross-eyed at my flat artist's brush trying to smooth the ragged lines left by the masking tape. I had to patch about twenty holes in the ceiling before painting, and a few unfortunately need another coat of emulsion. Never trust spackle manufacturers' claims that their product does not drink paint!

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Bathroom door and card catalogue. 'Cos, you know, we need to index things in here. I know it's a bit blurry but it's dismal out and the flash screws up the colour.

New taps I installed before my family got here for graduation. I think it's a hospitable gesture to ensure your guests can turn the water both on And off.

Our Floor-Soak Plus shower door, along with the airing cupboard doors I took a few liberties with. I selected the wall colour from the design on the tiles. I couldn't not, really. Thankfully it was featured in the Wickes "Landlord Chic" line, so I was able to get a good price on a water-durable formula.


The bathroom, paint job 2. I didn't really mean to paint this one as soon or as quickly as I did--I sorta launched into it at about 11pm the day we went to the hardware store and was mostly done about a day and a half later. The shade of yellow you see is actually indistinguishable from worn-out white under incandescent and compact fluorescent lighting, and unfortunately, England's natural lighting tends to leave something to be desired, so it took another week of tweaking at different times of day to get all the holidays filled.

The soundtrack to this room was Jane Eyre, also courtesy of a team of LibriVox volunteers, so I think I got more annoyed at the cracks in the walls than I probably should have. I nearly painted the doorframe yellow while yelling "come on Charlotte, don't be ridiculous--no sane 19th century waif would think God wanted her to volunteer in India!" Still, my fury with the book did keep me motivated.

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The kitchen is down a few steps from the dining room, something I've never quite understood. Next door's kitchen is the same. The pantry is behind the kitchen door, too, so you have to waste time and effort waving both doors around in order to get anything out of there. I've considered taking the kitchen door off, but where would I store it? (If I ever find a place, I'm putting our crappy mattress in there too and getting a new one.)

Dining room seek-and-find! Do you see: 1 fedora? 2 computers? 3 glasses cases? 4 marine animals? The number 5? (Why do we keep our fiction library in the dining room, you ask? The bookshelves in the living room are for non-fiction, serials, and CDs, of course.)

The same room, the same paint, but without flash. This colour is very fun for that--it's completely dependant on the lighting. Sometimes it's red, sometimes it's orange, sometimes it's almost pink. Heart. We nicked the lanterns from my sister's wedding.


This was the first room I decided to paint, mostly because I kinda messed it up and needed to fix it. Some owner of the house many moons ago put an ugly-as-sin paper border up at chair-rail level, and some later, lazier owner elected to, rather than remove it, paint an attractive puke green over it. Later still someone painted over that with a sherbet pink, which was then covered with four or five coats of everyone's favourite Chunky White. This all happened, of course, years after someone hung the Decorative Lumps wallpaper that eventually became a structural element of the house. I couldn't do much about the lumpy walls, but the peeling, glaringly moronic painted border was downright nauseating. What can I say? I'm impulsive. I picked at it. Quite a bit. By the end of an hour I had a razor blade, a sponge and a bowl of water out and was carefully removing the ghastly thing from the entire room...which of course left me suddenly needing to paint. Whoops.

Charlaine Harris kept me company on this room with several Sookie Stackhouse novels, read by Johanna Parker. The whole scrubbing, patching, and painting process took about a week, and I typically listened through one book a day. If it weren't for all the gratuitous sex scenes the stories would belong firmly in the Early Teen section of the library--the characters are so simple and stupid it almost hurts. Every chapter includes at least two highly-detailed paragraphs of how Sookie gets dressed or what she's wearing, down to the last yellow ball earring. Still, Parker has an amazingly comforting southern accent (and does all the voices really well--when she reads phrases like 'Suddenly, out of the dark I heard,"I knew you'd be here, silly girl." It was exactly the voice I was dreading.' you can easily tell which character it is long before they're identified), and Harris always includes references to local food, customs, history, and behaviours that get me all nostalgic. That's not fair, Sookie, I can't get pickled okra here!

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Gross words: Formula. Premium. Deluxe. Nugget.

Undirected Impatience

As of two days ago I'm officially in limbo. My student visa has expired, but UKBA still has my passport and my post-study work visa application is "processing" (e.g. collecting dust in a locked filing cabinet shoved in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying "beware of the leopard.") I submitted my form just under 10 weeks ago, but they say they are currently reviewing applications submitted 3 weeks ago. Without my passport and a valid visa of some persuasion I have no evidence of my right to work in this country. I also have no idea if I have, or will have the right to work in this country. They have changed the application criteria but will not attempt to impose them retroactively, so at least I have that.

Since November I've painted two rooms of my house (both including baseboards and trim, one including ceiling), volunteered on 4 shows, graduated, fixed a silly little computer, installed new taps in the bathroom, applied for 10 jobs (just for fun, really) been rejected from 3 jobs (no surprise there, Ms. Dubious Work Visa), had some work done on the house, doodled a lot, fixed and made a few pieces of jewellery, and spent the rest of my time reading, staring at the wall, and kicking things. I've also tried to encourage my neighbours' cats to let me pet them when they play in my back yard (so far...no) and cleaned everything far too thoroughly. In short, if it weren't for the fact that I've been alone, I've been behaving like I'm on vacation. Except without the fun or the relief.

Two days ago a Royal Mail special delivery guy parked his van right in front of my house. He withdrew about a dozen small parcels from the back, checked his list...and then proceeded to efficiently deliver them all to twelve houses near mine before driving away. I was incensed. Wait a minute, Mr. Postman! Surely you see this is not fair! Jerkface.

Worried worried worried. I bet my passport made its way onto the black market and is currently being used by a Ukranian drug mule. My application is not remarkable, so why is it taking the same amount of time as the really complicated, distinctly dubious ones? Y'know, like the application submitted in Swahili for a completer of Oxford Street Unn-Iveristy so she may immigrate with her 9 children who are all men and older than her. Is Central really that unheard of? Laurence Olivier went there. As did Dame Judi Dench, all of the Redgraves, and Catherine Tate. It's not some mob-run diploma mill! What's wrong with my credentials? Why am I on the back burner? Did you find traces of LSD on the envelope? What else are post office employees supposed to do all day?

Erm..

sorry.

It's been too long for me to feel comfortable or safe. But I accidentally painted the cabinet that contains my suitcase shut and I'm not sure if I'll ever get it open again. Maybe it'll be fine. Maybe it really did fall down behind a cupboard, or Daisy Mae spilled her coffee on it and they've had to ask the US embassy to print me a new passport.

Yeah right. They'd totally make me pay for that.

Interesting Changes at UKBA

So UKBA's website has undergone some heavy information updates in the past month, changes which would invalidate my application if they were retroactive. For sanity's sake I can't believe they would try it, as I submitted my form a month before they told anybody anything about them, but the office trying to learn the new criteria and evaluate applications differently based on their submission date could delay things. I'm trying to keep a cool head. I still have 8 of 10 fingernails.

As of December 22, everyone who is applying for Tier 1 and Tier 4 visas must have a biometric residence permit. This is a big change, as when I applied for my Tier 4 (Student) in 2009 I was told not only that I should not apply for one, but that I couldn't have one. Moreover, only Tier 1 (General) applications needed one at the time, and my application is under Tier 1 (Post-Study Work), a completely different form and set of criteria. I mentioned a few posts back that there was a weird confusing page on the application regarding BRPs, and now I see why.

I've read news that UKBA seeks to do away with the post-study work visa, which exists to provide a route to work for non-EU graduates, but that they haven't done so quite yet. One of their representatives was quoted recently saying "The fact that you've taken a class here does not give you the right to settle here" which makes me feel all warm and cozy. The message to graduates is clear: we want your obscenely-inflated tuition fees. We don't want you. I feel used.

The thing that really irks me about this is that it is pathetically inconsistent. A high school dropout from Poland who speaks no English and only understands the rudiments of lawnmowing has more of a right to be here than a native English speaking American with a Master's degree. Under current laws no one from the EU has to do anything at all to get a legal job, settle his or her family and put the kids in school, or even claim unemployment benefits in the UK, but Americans who paid for the right to even apply to be here, were subjected to intense scrutiny and prodding as to the validity of their identities and courses, paid extortionate tuition fees contrasted with their EU classmates, worked hard to earn a high qualification, and clearly had to be able to afford to fly here 'cos we sure as hell couldn't pack grandma in the Chevy and drive across the Atlantic are told clearly and flatly, "get out."

I know there are jerks out there who make up phony universities to provide an entry route to otherwise-unqualified migrants who just want to loaf around here. I realize that every country has its fill of useless freeloaders and shouldn't be obligated to take on other countries' bums. I know the standard of living is pretty attractive here, but the country can't afford to pay for every Joe Blow to mooch off its socialized services. I'm not that obtuse.

But eliminating the Post-Study Work Visa won't help you whittle down the number of bums who wind up here. Indeed, the whole reason the visa programme was developed was to ensure that only useful, qualified graduates could stay. I had to provide detailed letters from my school to prove I'd earned a real MA from a real, accredited university while here on a valid student visa. If a certificate of completion from Joe's Diploma Mill is making the cut it is a sign that you need to perform some internal corruption sweeps, not take away career opportunities from the highly-educated graduates your business community needs and your internal revenue service would appreciate. There are probably some highly-educated foreign graduates of British universities who could help you make them.

I'm not going to try and tell anyone what their laws should be, but I do believe the laws a country creates must be enforced fairly. If I'm not welcome, then Piotr shouldn't be either.