My Life As an Immigrant

I would like to just say that being a legal immigrant is no good. If you are going to immigrate to a foreign country, try to do it illegally. Because doing it the right way is expensive and not very productive. My visa application got rejected this week. Why? Well you could say it is because they are trying to get rid of as many people as possible, so they thought they would start with the highly educated and skilled workers who speak English and send them back from where they come from. What they told me it was because my letter from my University saying I had been awarded a Masters degree did not specifically say that my original certificate awarding me my degree is not available. Never mind it specifically says in the instructions that if you don't have your original certificate an official letter from the University stating you have been awarded the degree, along with your transcripts, would be adequate. And guess what! I can't just send them the stupid certificate and be done with it. Nope, have to send them a brand new application that will cost another £820 and take another 2 months to process. Which means another 2 months of no job and of not being able to look for one. I am very lucky I have Martin and a supportive family. I sincerely feel for all those people who have been rejected and are not able to re-apply due to finances or have anyone to go home to should they have to leave. Who I don't feel for is this stupid government that lets every Tom Dick and Harry from every country in the world except mine come into the UK, live off benefits and not contribute to society at all. Meanwhile, I pay taxes and do everything by the rules and I can't use the benefits I help pay for. I am a little pissed off.

Aspartame and Crocheting

These two things don't really go together but are two things I have been thinking about. Aspartame because I was eating a yogurt this weekend and for some reason it tasted odd to me. I began to read the ingredients and was shocked to find aspartame on the label. I try to avoid this as a sweetener as they say it is similar to poison and was distressed to find it in my breakfast. I am hopeful that when I look at other flavors this additive won't be in my future yogurt purchases.

Crochet I am thinking about because Martin's sister is pregnant and I thought I would make her a baby blanket. Looking on ravelry I found this one http://www.ravelry.com/projects/conicuts/noahs-ark-blanket. This being the cutest baby blanket I have ever seen I decided Janis must have it. Sadly, it is crochet, like many things worth having. So, I have busted out my crochet hook and started to practice. I am fairly confident I can get it to look decent as I have some crochet experience from the afghan we made our sister. So far though the test blanket doesn't look right and I have to rip it out and start over. Here is a crochet question for any one in the know...one of the instructions says to 3dc in each of the next 2 chains. Now I am assuming that this means you double crochet three times in the next and following chain. What I want to know is when you are doing this, where do you insert your crochet hook for the 2nd and 3rd dc? In the original chain? Cause that is what I have been doing and I am pretty sure it is right but something is going wrong. What could it be?!

Fall Down Go Boom

While running this weekend I had quite a tumble! Luckily I didn't hurt myself but it must have looked pretty bad. A woman in her car drove past while it was happening and turned around to make sure I was okay, with a look of horror on her face. I thought that was very nice of her. I basically just tripped over a crack and I could tell I was going to fall. I even made a half scream half cry kind of sound on my way down and had time to think, "that was a strange noise". I managed to land on my hands and side kind of and although it wasn't graceful I walked away nearly pain free. It did scare me though. Plththth.

Still waiting for my visa to be approved. Been about a month they have had it and in the meanwhile I keep hearing horror stories about various reasons why people have been rejected. Luckily I have prepared for every situation that has been illustrated to me and I should be okay.

I have been watching a lot of music television lately and Beyonce is on it a lot. She is on the radio a lot as well. Is she that popular in the States? I am a little tired of her personally. Although I do like that song Halo. (Halo halo)

Starting to prepare for a half marathon which takes place in October. I am running about 6 miles right now so I should hopefully be ok. I have decided I am not going to do any kind of training program. I am just going to up my mileage every week and do some cross training and that will be it. No more speed workouts, etc. I hated doing them and I still ran slowly so just forget it. I am also going to try and volunteer on an organic farm this summer. We aren't taking any vacations and I thought this would be a good opportunity to do something new in a new place. And see what is exactly involved in farming. The dream one day is maybe to have one where we have chickens and a milking cow and live off the land. Apparently there will also be a pig involved that will get slaughtered. Mmmmm. Anyway, that is a long term goal. And we will have to figure out which farmers it is that make money. You never hear about farmers being rich. They always seem to be struggling in one way or another. Except dairy farmers in England. Apparently that is the most cash lucrative. Too bad it is really bad on the environment and I wouldn't feel good farming cows. Yuck.

Speaking of farming cows I just read My Year of Meat. This was actually recommended to me a while ago but I couldn't find it in the book shop. A friend here had a copy and loaned it to me. It was a little far fetch I thought but it did remind me why I don't eat meat which I needed. I was beginning to reconsider and thought maybe I would start to eat organic only. Maybe But after I read this book that little flicker of an idea was extinguished. Now I am reading East of Eden. So far I love it.

Time for tea!