My Quest for Adventure

7 weeks and counting...

2006-04-27T13:12:00.000Z

been worried these last couple of weeks that my skills assessment had been "lost" in the post since I hadn't received any receipt notification... royal mail were unable to tell me anything useful (international signed for service... the point please?) and the skills assessment board weren't replying to my email.

Ended up ringing the assessment authority up directly. I can't tell you how relieved I was to find out that they HAVE received my application and it's being processed... the reason I hadn't received a receipt email from them was because they had recorded my email address incorrectly. Fills me full of confidence that does I tell ya!

Talking of incompetance, Phones4U are my current target of choice this week. Went into one of their shops on Saturday to just simply change my supplier and get a new phone... simple, yes? NO!!!!

As a consequence of my innocently walking into their store I was blantantly lied to and wasted multiple valuable hours of my life listening to BS. When I found out on Monday I stormed into one of their branches ready to tell every customer entering the shop not to use the company and generally cause merry hell.

When I arrived I dealt with what I will call a "rural" manager (being out in the sticks as I am) who had obviously never been on any kind of pissed-off-customer management course. After 15 minutes of him trying to tell me his colleagues hadn't lied I managed to get him to admit that in actual fact yes they had blatently lied to me. I was then told that it would take 20 minutes to sort everything out... 2 and a half hours later I was running back to work having completely gone over my lunch hour!!!!!!!!!!! They did end up giving me 70 quids worth of stuff to appease me but even still, it took the absolute piss.

Oh and I STILL don't have a new contract!!!

patience is a virtue...

2006-03-21T15:19:00.000Z

a virtue I don't possess!

it's been 2 and a half weeks since I posted my skills assessment off. they should have received it about a week and a half ago and I've not heard anything yet, not even a polite thanks for the application, it made us laugh, now go back to your grey life in old blighty and don't bother us again!

but perhaps I'm being a tad too impatient.

so other things that have happened... I've been ill, mmmm nice. Went to the outdoors show at the b'ham NEC, which was fab and where I saw Ben Fogle mmmmmmm *drool*. I'm now planning the trips I want to do before I disappear down under. On the list is Iceland, the Arctic to go polar bear spotting, Italy, in particular Mont Blanc, Prague in December and Scotland for some curling lessons! Bit concerned about the amount of cold I'm going to be subjecting myself to here... perhaps I'm subconsciously trying to fit in a life time's worth of winters before I head to warmer climes!!!!

Would love to do Africa but the money is going to be tight even for these few trips, plus Africa is a viable jaunt from Oz anyways so plenty of time for cute and cuddly wild animals :o)

on with the wait......

ahhhhhh contented sigh

2006-03-08T09:03:00.000Z

saw Mr Mraz last night at b'ham academy with Ian. Jason was amazing... of course!

still my favourite artist.

ahhhhhhhhhhhh

going to go listen to him and relive it all ... I suggest you all go do the same!

:o)

you know that fate thing....

2006-03-06T09:48:00.000Z

knew I should have kept my mouth shut!

anyway, on to more important things.... I've sent my skills assessment off!!! :o) It was put in the post on Friday (3/3)
I reckon the package will be delivered in about a week's time which means that I should have a result by the 21st April at the latest (11 weeks from now).

I've already started having dreams about receiving the results letter... so far the dreams haven't been positive :o(

I'm going to give it a couple of weeks then start looking into what I need to do for the actual visa application so that, should the result be positive, I can send the application off as soon as I receive the result.

Gawd, I can't believe I'm actually doing this. All seems like a dream.

Me and caroline have already started planning what animals we're going to have once we're back in Oz. We're going to have a bassett hound called bruce and a cat called sylvester (Caro's nick name is tweety, I used to get called Pie... so tweetypie and sylvester!!) :oD

OK so we were under the influence when we came up with that one but hey it amuses us!

what a fab few days....

2006-02-22T12:09:00.000Z

EKW have (finally!!) put my employer reference in the post, I managed to get tickets to see Jason Mraz in B'ham on 7th March, my mate paul has decided to come to cornwall with me at easter, I've managed to get a B&B for easter, Jo is having a b'day party in a couple of weeks, Luan is coming up to B'ham to visit, I have friday pm off work AND I'm going to Amsterdam for the weekend!!!! things are just going fabulously!

now I just need to make an appointment with a lawyer to get all my documents certified and then I can send my skills assessment off!!! Finally!!

:oD

Is it at this point I should start worrying about tempting fate?! ;o)

Mr A-Z is back!

2006-02-15T12:58:00.000Z

WAHOO!!!

I've just found out that Jason Mraz is back touring in England!!!!!

He has to be my favourite artist of all time.
However the gigs that I can actually get to are all sold out! NOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooo!

:'o(

what is a girl to do?

I live in hope that more tickets will come available *fingers and legs crossed*

P.S. employer references are on their way! :oD

february blues...

2006-02-13T15:06:00.000Z

....have well and truely set in.

still haven't got my job profiles from my ex-employers. Sent an email this morning to the relevant people to ask where things stood and I haven't even had a reply from either of them!

my mastercard is going to stop working tomorrow because the bank has a "backlog" of new chip and pin cards to issue... pah! I hope they lose millions and millions of pounds as a result. wonder what they said if I had a back log of bills to pay and they'd just have to wait until I got around to paying them?

and just to make it worse my probation period is over at work as of tomorrow, which means I'm incarcerated in this place. *HELP?!*

grumble grumble grumble.

ZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz......

2006-02-08T11:16:00.000Z

Pooped, totally pooped. Must learn not to stay up till the early hours watching pap tv.

Still not heard from ex-employed wrt my work references. Gggggrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Think next week I'm going to start chasing. I mean all I want from them is a job profile! They must have a generic job profile for my job filed somewhere surely!?!!! Surely they would have to have one of those for legal reasons if nothing else?!

I shouldn't be surprised I guess. After the events this last few months with being made redundant, nothing about companies should surprise me anymore.

Well at least the CV is ready to go now. So literally all I'm waiting for is the work references and then I can get things certified and sent off for the skills assessment. Wahoo!

Now to find something to keep me occupied whilst I wait... any suggestions anyone? A nice holiday would go down a treat but money probably won't stretch. A nice day in a health spa would be fab... same money issue. I guess a walk in the waseley hills at the weekend will have to suffice... all those puppies to meet! :oD

Can't wait till the weekend. Sleep, sleep and more sleep!!! :o) Going to try not to drink this weekend tho, the diet is not going well this week and if I drink over the weekend it'll be even worse. Think I ate too much nice food over the weekend, my body has remembered what it's like to eat lots of rich lovely food and wine! PAH! chicken and veg it is for me tonight... and perhaps a bowl of cereal if I've been really good! :oD

What I need is some form of exercise, which I enjoy ;o)
If only!!!

flubber....

2006-02-06T11:14:00.000Z

OMG whose feckin' idea was it to go eating and drinking all weekend?!

But god it was so nice :o)
The tapas restaurant on saturday was fabulous, I'm in love. Albeit with chorizo.....mmmmmmm
and the sangria *homer drool*

the diet pretty much went out the window tho.... 2 pounds gained in a weekend, not good! No drinking for me in the next couple of weeks. Feel like a bowl of flubber squelching from one place to the next.... really lovely sensation, believe me :o

Was great meeting up with my old buddies tho.... even tho Greg did lose my "sheep worrier" badge I bought him within minutes of me giving it to him! Feckin kiwi's

The good news is that my university transcripts arrived whilst I was away... now just waiting for my employer references then I can send my skills assessment off!!!! Scary stuff. I may be wrong, but I've got a suspicion that the skills assessment is perhaps going to be the biggest hurdle for me in the whole migration process. I'm already nervous about it and I've not even sent the application off yet!

God I can't wait until I live somewhere there isn't permenant grey cloud and dampness. February has to be the worst month of the year in old blighty.... it should be law that on the 31st January everyone can go home, climb under their duvets with lots of good books and dvds and not surface until 1st March. The world would be such a better place!!!

So, this place called work? what exactly is it that I'm supposed to be doing here?

hmmmmm to be or not to be...

2006-02-02T14:40:00.000Z

to take a contract or not? Now THAT is the question.

Looks possible I might get offered an interview with Warner Music for a contract position. Could be up to £45 an hour for 6-12 months. That's £1800 per week, that's £93,600 for 12 months pre-tax.

Would certainly help my emigration fund that's for sure.

But what of the risks associated with contracting? What if I take the contract and then they terminate it early? I'd then be unemployed again and I'd have no money for my emigration

hmmmmmmmmmm

answers on a postcard to.....

In the beginning...

2006-02-01T14:21:00.000Z

... there was paper. Lots of paper. And consequently lots of reading and filling in of forms and letter writing.

Whose idea was it to emigrate to Australia anyway?
OK, OK so it was mine but who ever listened to anything I had to say!??!

Well I'm hoping the worst part is over, THE DECISION. It took me about 12 months to finally come to the conclusion that the grass really is greener on the other side of the world but I've now put the wheels in motion. Hence this blog... I've got to share my despair over the next few months with my nearest and dearest obviously!

So here's my current task list:
currently waiting for work references and university transcripts to be sent to me
get documents certified by solicitor (some places actually charge you £5 PER COPY!! damn lawyers)
tart up the old CV
fill in skills assessment form
send skills assesment form (eek!!)

wait for skills assessment to come back (8-12 weeks)
get positive result (fingers crossed)

fill in migration visa application form
plus other stuff that I'm trying not to think about until after I get my positive skills assessment back (the power of positive thinking!!)
send of migration visa application

wait for visa result (who knows how long that will take!)

NO PRESSURE!

The hard bit at the moment is sitting around waiting for people to get back to me with the information they've promised me. I can't do anything without it but I'm desperate to get my skills assessment sent in... after all if I fail that then the application goes no further and I have to consider the working holiday visa option in the hope that I can find some nice kind company to sponsor me once I get out there.

Whatever happens I intend to be on my way to Oz this time next year in some form or another.

Anyway onto other things, I'll be boring you enough in the months to come with Oz and my woes.

Off to Surbiton this weekend to see Tracy in her new pad. Really loking forward to it. Will be catching up with teh old DST crowd in the Rat on Friday and then mooching around markets on Saturday and then going to El Rincon Latino in the evening with Tracy, Paul D, Colin and Greg... Me and Tracy with 4 boys mwoahahahahahahaha, 2 each. mmmmm sangria. Can't wait.

Need to get some sleep before then tho... talking of which back to work for me..........

till next time xxxx