Guess What?

Well... we had used an older form (although not expired according to the writing on the bottom, NOT TRUE!) to submit this and all the paperwork came back in the mail yesterday. If I cursed, you could insert curse here.

We did know it was an older form, but I had carefully checked the new form against the old and THEY ARE EXACTLY THE SAME -- but when bureaucracy is involved and is the rule of law, the fact that the forms are identical DOESN'T MATTER!

We could have sent the newer forms on that day, but we would have had to fill in the whole 20 page application forms again for both of us and and I would have had to drive to the university to get my husband to sign his form and then mail it.

All things work for the good, though, so perhaps if it had gone through the date for the isometric appointment (finger printing) which I'm told comes really fast in the heels of submitting the application would have been during our trip to Florida, so maybe now it will be when we are back in a month. Hopefully. ]

Yeah... I was so mad and stressed out I didn't even want to look at the papers.

Second reason to be thankful (apart from the hypothetical one about the appointment) is that there were a few small mistakes in the form and we printed out some emails and receipts to prove our association memberships (they are all academic associations such as the MLA, BTW, I don't know why they would want to know that, but they do, just in case we're member of some iffy thing like a communist association or something).

OK. Fingers crossed that we won't get it all in the mail again next week. That would be upsetting!!We are submitting the same document copies -- which have received a line of printing at the bottom and even the same checks. It wouldn't be trouble to write new checks (they have only been stapled through, that's all), but making the document copies and notarizing the translation certification paper would be a pain. Sigh...

Wish us luck. I'll keep you posted.