The visa extension debacle.
Finally, I’ve got my NZ Visa extended. After a good month of preparation, what with medicals, paperwork and the money to pay for it, I’ve got the stamp of approval and I’m now legal here until July 2011.
It didn’t all go swimmingly well though. I really dislike forms and will try to do as little as possible to read them completely. This was my initial downfall. I’d like to pass it off as dyslexia, but the truth is that forms, whatever shape they come in and if more than 3 or 4 boxes long, scare me.
So I didn’t read all the form and trusted the administrator at the desk in the immigration office to provide me yes or no answers to my questiononic statements.
‘is this all I need?’
‘yes’
‘have I filled out the pages correctly’
‘we don’t have time to check them for you’
‘I’ve got my medical, the initial form and my money, that’s enough’
‘yes’
Obviously it was not enough, as I got my application sent back to me in the post a week later. As I live in apartment blocks the post didn’t get delivered to me and I had to rearrange to get the package delivered to the post shop to get my documents back which took another 10 days of mostly my languidity.
I had thought that my visa expired on the 3rd of August. I’ve thought this for a year. This being my mental context, I now thought that I was illegal in New Zealand, and had to leave the country. Nervously, I phoned up immigration and was assured I didn’t have to leave the country, I just had to provide a detailed cover note as to why I was in this position and then pay more money, $260, more than twice the original fee. The immigration officer receiving this note would made a judgement on the basis of what he read.
Now I was confused! I then received and email from immigration telling me that I had 12 days before my visa expired? Which was it? 12 days or already expired?
So I went to immigration with my forms, and the bits of documentation I was missing. My passport (this now seems like an idiotic thing ont to include) and my financial balance.
They confirmed that I had until the 31st of August. They showed me that in fact my passport also said 31st of August in a doctors handwriting scribble that I thought was actually a signature.
I resubmitted the application and in a week, I had an email telling me the status of my application had changed. This was too soon! The process takes a month so I must have failed again. Perhaps it was the money that wasn’t enough, though the admin girl at immigration had told me that I would probably be fine. Perhaps I missed some more documentation, or I needed to refill the form out again. I got angry, and all the permutations in my mind began to present themselves. how could I mess this up? I leave everything to the last minute!
I went on the immigration website and tried to log in. To no avail, I simply couldn’t find the log in link. I searched the help section, I searched Google. I searched my Gmail. Nothing.
My brain fog lifted, and I tried the front page again and saw the link staring at me disguised as an image. I clicked that and followed the process through.
When I had logged in, I saw my status had been extended to July 2011. Well that was it then! Done! I double checked it a view times and found out more information but it was true, finally I got another 11 months on my visa.
Never had I been more emotionally involved in a form.
