Two steps forward, one step back

The wheels of bureaucracy continue to grind at a glacial pace, but things are moving in an undeniably forward direction. The visa application was finally submitted this week (exactly 1 month later than Laura's Unrealistic and Completely Neurotic Fantasy Timeline). Within a minute of submitting the application, I received email notification that additional medical screening is required for both Justin & I. Two steps forward, one step back.

Luckily, there is a physician's office in Halifax that does immigration assessments (because of course only certain physicians are able to make sure we don't have TB), and we were able to get an appointment in December. Despite my snark, I'm trying very hard to stay humble about the experience of prepping to study overseas. Yes, it is tedious and frustrating. But I am now acutely aware of the amount of privilege associated with even considering international graduate studies. Not only is this process is expensive, with hidden costs at every step, but the amount of coordination and navigation is exhausting. Justin & I both have well paying, flexible jobs. We can step away for an hour to run to the bank or use appointment time to attend 5 hour immigration medical appointments (not kidding). I can't imagine how stressful this process would be if we didn't have the luxury of resources. And while to us it does feel a little icky to use medical resources for things that feel very un-important and non-urgent, I do understand why the processes are in place. So I will just sit with my own frustrations and work on cultivating some gratitude.

In other news, we are continuing to clean up our house. Each week we try to take out a bag of garbage and a bag for donation. Following my strange bookmark collection, the next most interesting observation from this process is the number of old pairs of headphones I have lying around. I have thrown out at least 4 pairs that were full on broken but for some reason I was still holding on to. I also finally parted ways with the Organic Chemistry cootie catchers I made in Second year O-chem to help me learn reactions. Of course, I made Justin pick an element and reaction first, so he could get the full chemistry experience. Unsurprisingly, he could not identify the products of the reaction based on the reagents he picked. How embarrassing.