The Outback Expat

Patience is a Virtue Apparently

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For me, I think not so much but I am trying to become more patient.

In addition to still having no idea what the Aussie means when he describes a surprise for me as being “a bird with big feet” I am currently waiting for Immigration to process our visa application which was submitted in July and now for a university to decide whether to offer me a place to study the subjects required to qualify as a Solicitor in Australia as well as the UK.

The waiting time for processing the visa we have applied for is according to the Immigration website, 6 months from receipt. To be fair to Immigration, we did apply with only minimal documents at the end of July because my previous Visa expired in August. We submitted the rest of the documents that they need at the end of October so I am counting the 6 months period from October and will hopefully be pleasantly surprised when they process it earlier than that.

The frustrating thing about the Visa application process is that on the website you just receive a message that says that the application is being processed and someone will be in contact soon! I think it would be much more helpful to allocate it to a Case Officer and for that Case Officer to contact you and say, yep I have your application and I am processing it but its taking X number of months to process your kind of Visa so you won’t hear from me until at least then.

I’ve heard that the fact you haven’t heard anything is probably a good thing, but not for someone with no patience of course!!

a quiet study

I have also this week finally got around to submitting an application to begin studying again at University. It’s taken a while to get going because I had some questions and then when I received the answers more questions (trust a Lawyer to be that way inclined right?) for them as I am classed as an International Student currently.

I applied yesterday and was almost immediately told some of the documents I had tried to upload had not uploaded so sent them and now I have to wait and try and be patient whilst trying to remember I actually have to do the studying once I am offered a place 🙂

Study study.

Are we Nearly There Yet?

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It’s been a while since I did a visa update but I think we might finally be on the final straight for this visa business and it reminds me of when your a child on a journey and keep asking your parents “are we nearly there?”.

We have gathered the following “evidence” to be submitted:

1) Statutory declarations from friends and families with just a couple outstanding;
2) Copies of emails, text messages, Skype and phone chat logs;
3) Evidence of our travels together;
4) Evidence of employment;
5) Bank statements, receipts, tickets as evidence of joint finances;
6) Certified copies of my passport and driving licence;
7) Proof we live in the same address – which is hard to do as we don’t get post to the home address but our PO Box address but we have evidence the post goes to the same place;
8) Copies of cards, letters and emails to and from friends when we discuss my moving to and being in Australia with the Aussie

Now we just have to do the following:

1) Finish our statutory declarations and get them certified/witnessed;
2) Get the Aussie’s passport and driving licence certified;
3) Wait for the outcome of my UK police check;
4) Wait for the outcome of the Aussie’s police check for Australia;
5) Finish filling out my application form;
6) Fill out a form which asks for everything I have done for the last 30 odd years including where I have traveled outside Australia, education and worked (seriously!).

I have tried to think of everything possible to support the application and sometimes think we have gone over the top but then I think is it better to give them more than they need so they don’t end up needing more from us so the process is smoother?

I think we will then be done if we can just get these last few bits finished off this week. Then it will be a case of submitting the application, being granted the bridging visa (hopefully) and waiting.

I do still wonder whether we should have used a Migration Expert but with the cost of the visa being so high we really wanted to avoid that cost. I’m hoping we do have everything together finally. Has anyone else used a migration expert for this process? What was your experience?

One of my friends in Darwin said to me that I should just write in my statutory declaration that I live in a house in the middle of nowhere with an outside toilet and shower, why would I do that if we weren’t serious!! I think she has a good point 😉 Not sure that’s what immigration is looking for though.

Piles-of-paperwork-002

*** Please note that I am in no way giving visa or legal advice about applying for visa’s in Australia or anywhere else – this is just what I have found and is only relevant to our situation ***

Grateful Heart Monday Part Two

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The Grateful Heart Monday event is run by Emily of Ember Grey and today I wanted to post about how grateful that I am that my family and friends both in the UK and Australia have taken the time to help us with this damn visa application (it gets called various insults these days as it’s taking so long to get everything together).

Whilst we float along on a bubble of, maybe we’ll be ready next week and then another week passes they have been writing statutory declarations about me and us as a couple to help support our application. As I have mentioned before we have to prove we have been in a serious relation for more than 12 months and that we are a genuine couple so these statutory declarations are so so helpful.

I can imagine how hard it must be to write them as well, when doing so and having my application accepted, means I will be staying in Australia beyond August this year but they have done it and written such lovely things I have felt extremely touched.

So I am grateful for their help and also want to say thank you as it means the world to me.

Ember Grey

Visa Update – Evidence

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We’re having a break from filling out the forms for the visa and this weekend I’ve been concentrating on gathering the evidence we need to demonstrate that we are in a genuine relationship and that we’ve been together more than 12 months.

So this weekend I have been looking through all of our photos to find the photos we have taken together. These are the photos from his visits to the UK, mine to Australia and then since I arrived last August which were quite a lot as I take heaps of photos!! I’ve found about 20 showing the various stages of our relationship and saved them all in to one document that can be uploaded/turned in to a PDF.

I’ve also been taking screenshots of our What’s app conversations, Skype calls (I just discovered that Skype only save them for 6 months so it’s best to keep these records if your planning on doing the same kind of application – although the Aussie has managed to find a way round this – no idea how but can ask if needed by anyone), phone call logs since I have been in Australia (it looks like the iPhone call logs aren’t that great either and I can’t go back before then without a 3rd party application or website).

I also wanted screenshots of a sample of text messages since we got together to show we weren’t just dating but were in a relationship. This proved difficult on the phone itself as the iPhone is very slow at displaying old texts and you have to do them in blocks of messages. I did some research and found some downloadable programs that find your backed up texts on your computer and displays them for you to save as a PDF if you want (at a charge). I didn’t want them all so took screenshots of the messages I wanted.

I might take screenshots of all references to Australia and the Aussie from Facebook maybe if they are easy to find.

I also thought it would be helpful to get my phone bills as I used to have to pay to send text messages to the Aussie so they are all on there but they only keep them online for 2 years so I’m going to have to get them to send the others to my family so they can send them to me.

I will also be trying to arrange to print all emails we have sent to each other and relating to our travelling together. I’ve flagged the ones I want up and its over 150 so that’s going to be fun to print! I think probably we just need a sample so I will go through them and select a few.

I’ve also read it might be helpful to show emails, texts etc where I refer to the Aussie and our living arrangements so I think I will probably screenshot/print those as well.

I’m not sure if I am going overboard or there is more we need to demonstrate our relationship but this is all I can think of at the moment so hopefully it will be ok.

All in all I feel like this when it comes to the computer!

woman asleep on computer (Small)
(Image from here)

*** Please note that I am in no way giving visa or legal advice about applying for visa’s in Australia or anywhere else – this is just what I have found and is only relevant to our situation ***

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