I took my Life in the UK test yesterday. I showed up at the test centre desperately sleep deprived, as the insomnia is hitting new lows, and was joined by a number of others like myself - Kiwis, Americans, Algerians, Fillipinas - all needing to pass this damn test. After parting with £33.28, I started the test. You get 45 minutes to answer 24 questions.

It took me 1 minute 36 seconds, which the test centre says is a new record.

I aced the test.

So in one week I send in my paperwork for my Indefinite Leave to Remain. It will cost me £750 and more info than I've ever had to give to the Home Office previously, including every single time I've been out of the UK, why I've been out, and for how long. That was unbelievably difficult to do, actually, and I had to use this blog and various blurred passport stamps to try to work out the details.

I then have to wait a year before I can apply for citizenship, as I am here on a work visa. It's increasingly important to me to be a dual citizen. I worry about the changing tide here - immigrants are becoming the bane of society as the job market shrinks, as layoffs happen, as people compete over jobs that immigrants are also competing for.

We've discussed getting married to short-circuit this process. I'm partial to this site personally - Angus wants a wedding and this could get it done for not so crazy money, as long as we're prepared to get married on a Thursday (we are) . And we discuss it then we have an argument about something unrelated, as we did a bit ago that turned into a 5-day ballbuster, and we postpone the talks because in typical Helen and Angus fashion when we get on it's fucking amazing and when we don't we make the Civil War look like a minor skirmish over blue and grey. But wedding talks are on the table to some extent, and I have to say - I'm fucking useless at this wedding planning business which is ironic considering I've already done it twice.

Watch this space, anyway.

I went to dinner with a friend in London last night. Instead of wearing my usual jeans, I slipped on a skirt and top. It was cold so I grabbed the coat and gloves and purse my folks gave me. On the train I tucked up with a book and then, once arriving at Waterloo, saw myself in the glass of the train.

There I was, makeup and jewelry on for a change. The coat was Burberry, the gloves Prada, and handbag Mulberry. The girl wearing all of them was a fraud.

A small, pathetic hometown girl wearing clothes she hasn't bought, wearing clothes that she doesn't emulate. The lipstick looked garish, the clothes said "Look at me and my confidence. I belong here." And in my head statistics flew round - 0.5 percent of the UK population is Black African. 10% of the UK population is Roman Catholic. Click inside the box to indicate your answer, you have 45 minutes.

This visa nonsense is the last bit of bureaucracy I have to deal with. I have the driver's license and have served out my probation. I have the work visas and the forms showing the amount of tax I pay each year. It's just this last route.

Years ago we lived in Colorado Springs. I remember going to Stapleton Airport in Denver, riding on the walkways to the terminals. It was the first time I ever rode on a moving walkway, and I remember that it went one direction and then, over a chasm that crossed the building, the moving walkway would go in the other direction. I used to imagine that something in life would happen that would have me on one walkway, moving in one direction. On the other walkway I would see someone I loved and needed moving in the other, and I couldn't get to them.

It's funny the things we worry about.

-H.

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 10:26 AM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
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