--Portland, OR--
I'm taking a rather round-about way of getting to New Zealand. First I'm going to drive from Portland down to California, so that I can drop some things off at my parents' house, deliver a car that we need to get rid of, and, most importantly, see everyone down there one last time before I go. That'll be a 10 hour trip, and then I'll stay for three nights before I get on a plane.
My first flight ($317, one way) is going to be from San Francisco International to Vancouver Canada, and then I'll get on a plane that will take me to Tokyo. I'm going to stop in Japan for a little over a week to visit my friend Alex, who I haven't seen for over a year now.
After that stop, I fly ($464, one way) from a different airport in Tokyo to Manila in the Philippines. I would love to get out and explore Manila while I'm there, but the layover is only going to last 4 hours. From there, I fly over to New Zealand, arriving on a Friday afternoon.
The SkyBus airport shuttle will take me from Auckland International Airport to the city centre (NZ spelling!) for NZ$16, and from one of those stops I'll be able to check in at my hostel in the Central Business District (CBD). I'm going to stay at Base Auckland, which has high reviews on Hostelworld.com, but poor reviews on google. There I can stay in a 6-bed dorm for NZ$30 a night. Right now I'm going to stay there for the first 5 nights while I acclimate to the new hemisphere and time zone, learn about the city, and view apartments and flats to rent.
[Added 9/23 - ALWAYS BUY CANCELLATION PROTECTION]
Right after I booked my hostel I wrote to my advisor Melinda with my travel plans. She wrote back later in the afternoon with an offer to pick me up from the airport, have me stay with her for a night, and then drive me into town on Saturday for a tour of Auckland.
Fortunately(!) I added the $1 travel protection to my deposit on my hostel booking. Double fortunately(!), I now have a chance to switch hostels! In my initial overview of Base Auckland's reviews, I only read the average rating, but didn't read anyone's individual reviews on Hostel World. Turns out it's a party spot, and the bathrooms are rather dirty. So now I am booking with the Attic Backpackers, who have good reviews from both Google AND Hostel World.
Thursday, September 22, 2016
Wednesday, September 21, 2016
Mobiles (Pre-Departure)
--Portland, OR--
Today I'm looking at cell phone plans ahead of my move. My iPhone 5 should work on the local networks once I arrive. The main thing I have to consider is what plan to use for my phone.
AT&T roaming rates for NZ are US$3.00/min of voice, $0.002/kb of data, and text messages are $0.50, or $1.50 with photo and video. Basically, I'd burn through a phone budget almost immediately.
AT&T also sells monthly Passport Packages, which give unlimited text messaging, a decent amount of data usage, and a cheaper voice rate. The cheapest option comes in at $40 for 200 MB ($0.20/MB over the max) and voice calls at $1.00/min. However, this plan is only available if I maintain my domestic US phone plan, so there's no way this option would be feasible for a 3-year stay.
Alternatively, I can unlock my phone at an AT&T store in the US, and then plug in a New Zealand SIM card for a local mobile carrier, of which there are four options: Vodafone, Skinny, 2Degrees, and Spark. All of them offer prepay cards with the option to 'top up' on minutes and data. Skinny is the only company that doesn't offer a 'postpay' plan.
Each one of these carriers has tons of ways to customize what you get out of a pre- or post-pay package, and it's really overwhelming trying to consider all the possibilities at once. So just to narrow things down, I'm gonna look at what it would cost me to call or text my loved ones in the US with each carrier.
Vodafone doesn't have any clear option for making international calls on their personal plans, but they can be made at $0.89/min to the US, or $0.31/text, on a prepay plan.
Contacting US numbers with Skinny plans costs NZ$1.39/min, and $0.20/text (which seems to be the same price for all in-country texts that don't come with a package). They also offer an Overseas Chat add-on which gives 300 minutes for $10/month.
Costs for calling the US with 2Degrees depend on whether the package is prepay or monthly. With prepay it's $0.89/min, $0.20/text, and $0.50/photo text. On a monthly plan, the rates are $0.69/min, and the same price for texts. However, 2Degrees also has a $10 prepaid International Chat Pack with 300 minutes, but no texts.
Spark offers international packages of 200 min and 100 texts for a chosen country at $9.00/month ($0.91/min to North America and $0.30/text over the max). Spark monthly mobile plans also come bundled with Spotify Premium and Lightbox, a New Zealand television streaming service, while some of the prepaid plans come with Spotify only.
So those are the contenders! At this point, Spark seems to be the best deal for someone like me who will mostly be using my phone to text and browse the internet within NZ, and text and call people back home. But 2Degrees is also notable for having really good roll over policies. The question becomes, how important will texting people in the US be to me?
Most likely, I should use an AT&T Passport Package for the first month, and decide between Spark and 2Degrees based on how often I text the US.
Today I'm looking at cell phone plans ahead of my move. My iPhone 5 should work on the local networks once I arrive. The main thing I have to consider is what plan to use for my phone.
AT&T roaming rates for NZ are US$3.00/min of voice, $0.002/kb of data, and text messages are $0.50, or $1.50 with photo and video. Basically, I'd burn through a phone budget almost immediately.
AT&T also sells monthly Passport Packages, which give unlimited text messaging, a decent amount of data usage, and a cheaper voice rate. The cheapest option comes in at $40 for 200 MB ($0.20/MB over the max) and voice calls at $1.00/min. However, this plan is only available if I maintain my domestic US phone plan, so there's no way this option would be feasible for a 3-year stay.
Alternatively, I can unlock my phone at an AT&T store in the US, and then plug in a New Zealand SIM card for a local mobile carrier, of which there are four options: Vodafone, Skinny, 2Degrees, and Spark. All of them offer prepay cards with the option to 'top up' on minutes and data. Skinny is the only company that doesn't offer a 'postpay' plan.
Each one of these carriers has tons of ways to customize what you get out of a pre- or post-pay package, and it's really overwhelming trying to consider all the possibilities at once. So just to narrow things down, I'm gonna look at what it would cost me to call or text my loved ones in the US with each carrier.
Vodafone doesn't have any clear option for making international calls on their personal plans, but they can be made at $0.89/min to the US, or $0.31/text, on a prepay plan.
Contacting US numbers with Skinny plans costs NZ$1.39/min, and $0.20/text (which seems to be the same price for all in-country texts that don't come with a package). They also offer an Overseas Chat add-on which gives 300 minutes for $10/month.
Costs for calling the US with 2Degrees depend on whether the package is prepay or monthly. With prepay it's $0.89/min, $0.20/text, and $0.50/photo text. On a monthly plan, the rates are $0.69/min, and the same price for texts. However, 2Degrees also has a $10 prepaid International Chat Pack with 300 minutes, but no texts.
Spark offers international packages of 200 min and 100 texts for a chosen country at $9.00/month ($0.91/min to North America and $0.30/text over the max). Spark monthly mobile plans also come bundled with Spotify Premium and Lightbox, a New Zealand television streaming service, while some of the prepaid plans come with Spotify only.
So those are the contenders! At this point, Spark seems to be the best deal for someone like me who will mostly be using my phone to text and browse the internet within NZ, and text and call people back home. But 2Degrees is also notable for having really good roll over policies. The question becomes, how important will texting people in the US be to me?
Most likely, I should use an AT&T Passport Package for the first month, and decide between Spark and 2Degrees based on how often I text the US.
Friday, September 16, 2016
Welcome to Catch of the Day!
This blog is a record my journey from the United States to New Zealand, where I will be working for the next three years on a PhD in Anthropological Archaeology at the University of Auckland.
My name is Reno, and I'm an American archaeologist. I have done fieldwork in California, Oregon, Washington, the four-corners region of Colorado, Utah, and Arizona, and in West Africa at a Dahomenian palace in Abomey, Benin. Once, I excavated a mammoth skeleton from an artichoke farm in Castroville, CA (that was paleontology though, not archaeology). When in the laboratory, my specialty is zooarchaeology - the study of animal bones, teeth, and shell that interacted with humans at some point in the past. These days, I mostly try to tell people's stories from the fish they caught and ate.
Most of the posts on this blog will be bi-weekly summaries of recent hi-jinks, and observations on the differences between life in the US and New Zealand. When I'm out on exciting trips I'll try to provide daily updates, or at least post a daily journal soon afterwards. These posts are primarily intended to provide my friends and family with a means of keeping up with what's happening in my life, and they are also a tool that will hopefully prompt me to record my stories. Avid travel blog readers may be interested in following me on my journey, and travel enthusiasts should be able to find some useful information throughout this blog that will be of interest to anyone who is considering a move to New Zealand.
To ready an account of my journey to New Zealand via Japan, in which I get lost descending from a volcano, start with Day 1 of my Tokyo Journal.
For a summary of all the trials and tribulations that I went through for a year and a half before I even departed for New Zealand, you can read these three posts (scholarship, university, visa).
My name is Reno, and I'm an American archaeologist. I have done fieldwork in California, Oregon, Washington, the four-corners region of Colorado, Utah, and Arizona, and in West Africa at a Dahomenian palace in Abomey, Benin. Once, I excavated a mammoth skeleton from an artichoke farm in Castroville, CA (that was paleontology though, not archaeology). When in the laboratory, my specialty is zooarchaeology - the study of animal bones, teeth, and shell that interacted with humans at some point in the past. These days, I mostly try to tell people's stories from the fish they caught and ate.
Most of the posts on this blog will be bi-weekly summaries of recent hi-jinks, and observations on the differences between life in the US and New Zealand. When I'm out on exciting trips I'll try to provide daily updates, or at least post a daily journal soon afterwards. These posts are primarily intended to provide my friends and family with a means of keeping up with what's happening in my life, and they are also a tool that will hopefully prompt me to record my stories. Avid travel blog readers may be interested in following me on my journey, and travel enthusiasts should be able to find some useful information throughout this blog that will be of interest to anyone who is considering a move to New Zealand.
To ready an account of my journey to New Zealand via Japan, in which I get lost descending from a volcano, start with Day 1 of my Tokyo Journal.
For a summary of all the trials and tribulations that I went through for a year and a half before I even departed for New Zealand, you can read these three posts (scholarship, university, visa).
Student Visa - May 2016 to September 2016
To live in another country, it helps to get that country's permission first, if you can. When I was provisionally accepted into the University back in March, I was warned that the student visa application process for New Zealand can be involved. As it turned out, the visa application process was not the worst part about my preparations for the international move. But it certainly was involved. And expensive.
When I first looked up the requirements, it seemed to me that the application process breaks down into a few different categories: Academic Check, Police Check, Medical Check, and Financial Check.
First, Immigration wanted to make sure that I was going to be actually registered with a school before they were going to give me a student visa. This was the hardest part of my application to complete, because it required getting an 'offer of place,' which ended up taking forever to get. But eventually I got it at the beginning of August.
I wasn't just gonna wait around for the offer of place to come through, though, so at the beginning of June I started work on satisfying the Police and Medical Checks. The Police Check, which is actually called a Police Certificate, was the first part that I finished. Basically, New Zealand wants to know if you have a criminal record. To get a police certificate as a US citizen, I needed to order an Identity History Summary Check from the FBI. Going by mail takes 12-14 weeks, and you can only apply electronically through an FBI approved 'channeler.' So I went down to my local FBI channeler, where they took my fingerprints for $50, and within seconds I was emailed the results in a pdf form letter. Since they also did passport photos ($20), I ordered a couple sets, which were necessary for the medical check and for my visa application.
The Medical Check, or Medical Certificate, was by far the worst part of the application experience. Basically, the longer you stay in New Zealand, the greater the lengths you have to go through to prove that you have an 'acceptable standard of health.' Because I'm staying for more than 6 months, I needed to prove I don't have tuberculosis with a chest x-ray. Because I'm staying for more than 12 months I needed to get a full physical and blood work done.
(Side Note: I hear there's a simple skin test for tuberculosis. I asked the doctor about it and he said that New Zealand Immigration requires photo evidence because in some other countries people can bribe their doctor in exchange for good lab test results. However, I'm pretty sure it'd be just as easy to bribe an x-ray technician to submit a picture of someone else's lungs. It's also silly because I'm pretty sure if you have tuberculosis, you could transmit the disease within 6 months, long before you're supposed to prove you don't have it. So basically, this medical certificate biz is a racket.)
So the first hurdle is to find a doctor. New Zealand Immigration will only accept medical certificates filled out by a doctor who is on their 'panel of physicians.' There are 36 of them in the United States. The closest of the panel doctors to Portland, OR are in Seattle, WA; Oakland, CA; and Los Angeles, CA. I called in mid June, and the Seattle office was booking appointments a month and a half out at $480 a pop. The Oakland office was booking a week or two out at $780. I figured time was of the essence, so I went with the Oakland doctor.
($780 is the actual cost to the patient. I was asked to sign a form waiving my rights to have any of the cost covered by insurance when I showed up.)
I took the 10-hour trip down to my parent's house in the Bay Area (~$112 in gas, round trip), and then drove out another 45 minutes to get my chest x-ray'd and my blood drawn. Once I got to the clinic, I realized I'd left my passport and passport photos back in my parent's house! So I got a new passport photo taken across the street at a drug store ($10), ran back in, paid them their blood money, and then had the physical and blood tests done. I was missing a lot of blood after that part. I got a little woozy, but I had a bunch of energy bars stashed in my car so I just ate those, sipped water, and listened to the radio for a while until I got my bearings. Then I came all the way back to Oakland the next morning with my passport in hand to get the x-ray at a partner clinic, and then I had to take the x-ray results back to the first doctor.
A week later I got the results back. Unfortunately, I had abnormally high levels of white blood cells! That could indicate that I had a parasite, or, much more likely, that I had allergies (I was sneezing all month; thanks hay fever!). My doctor told me I had to go to a medical lab franchise and get my blood work done over again to meet New Zealand Immigration's 'acceptable standard of health' ("You mean I don't have to go through an over-priced panel physician?!"). I was leaving for a roadtrip to the southwest, so it wasn't until a couple days later that I got to a lab in Albuquerque, NM, where a very kind nurse drew a (much smaller) blood sample and that was it. Thankfully, insurance covered the bill. Within a few weeks I got my final test results and a clean bill of health. Either the parasites kindly left my body once they realized they were an inconvenience, or I'm not as allergic to New Mexico as I am to Oregon and California.
Finally, I needed to prove that I could support myself financially while I was living in New Zealand, and afford a plane ticket out of the country when my studies were done. New Zealand Immigration gave no guidelines about what 'proof of funds' looks like for either of these requirements. Fortunately, my living costs were covered by my scholarship, which I proved with a formal scholarship offer, which also proved that my tuition was paid for.
For the outward travel, I went off the requirements that the University of Auckland uses in their immigration guidelines: Proof of Funds for outward travel can be established with bank statements showing 3-months transaction history and an available balance of NZ$1,500. Those statements could be mine, or for any rich person who would be willing to co-sign and sponsor my visa. Turns out, I am incredibly lucky. I didn't have all that much cash in the bank until Alaska Airlines paid me $800 after they bumped me off an oversold flight to Reno, NV for a family trip and refunded me the cost of my ticket at 400% the original price. With that kind of cash on hand, my balance was just over NZ$1,500 with early September exchange rates. So, all I had to do was go down to my local bank office, ask for 3 months transaction history, convert my available balance into NZ$, scan the 30-odd pages, and attach them to my online application.
Which was its own pain. No individual file that I uploaded for the application was allowed to be larger than 10 mb, and my bank statement scans kept coming in at 15 mb. I creatively cut out some of the blank pages and advertisements, hoping that Immigration officials wouldn't try to catch me up on the missing page numbers. The online application portal was filled with similar ambiguities and difficulties. I found out that I had to write in a comprehensive employment history, answer a number of arcane questions about the details of my academic program, and, with lots of uncertainty, finally hit submit.
Four weeks later, I received my student visa (total cost: $972)!
When I first looked up the requirements, it seemed to me that the application process breaks down into a few different categories: Academic Check, Police Check, Medical Check, and Financial Check.
First, Immigration wanted to make sure that I was going to be actually registered with a school before they were going to give me a student visa. This was the hardest part of my application to complete, because it required getting an 'offer of place,' which ended up taking forever to get. But eventually I got it at the beginning of August.
I wasn't just gonna wait around for the offer of place to come through, though, so at the beginning of June I started work on satisfying the Police and Medical Checks. The Police Check, which is actually called a Police Certificate, was the first part that I finished. Basically, New Zealand wants to know if you have a criminal record. To get a police certificate as a US citizen, I needed to order an Identity History Summary Check from the FBI. Going by mail takes 12-14 weeks, and you can only apply electronically through an FBI approved 'channeler.' So I went down to my local FBI channeler, where they took my fingerprints for $50, and within seconds I was emailed the results in a pdf form letter. Since they also did passport photos ($20), I ordered a couple sets, which were necessary for the medical check and for my visa application.
The Medical Check, or Medical Certificate, was by far the worst part of the application experience. Basically, the longer you stay in New Zealand, the greater the lengths you have to go through to prove that you have an 'acceptable standard of health.' Because I'm staying for more than 6 months, I needed to prove I don't have tuberculosis with a chest x-ray. Because I'm staying for more than 12 months I needed to get a full physical and blood work done.
(Side Note: I hear there's a simple skin test for tuberculosis. I asked the doctor about it and he said that New Zealand Immigration requires photo evidence because in some other countries people can bribe their doctor in exchange for good lab test results. However, I'm pretty sure it'd be just as easy to bribe an x-ray technician to submit a picture of someone else's lungs. It's also silly because I'm pretty sure if you have tuberculosis, you could transmit the disease within 6 months, long before you're supposed to prove you don't have it. So basically, this medical certificate biz is a racket.)
So the first hurdle is to find a doctor. New Zealand Immigration will only accept medical certificates filled out by a doctor who is on their 'panel of physicians.' There are 36 of them in the United States. The closest of the panel doctors to Portland, OR are in Seattle, WA; Oakland, CA; and Los Angeles, CA. I called in mid June, and the Seattle office was booking appointments a month and a half out at $480 a pop. The Oakland office was booking a week or two out at $780. I figured time was of the essence, so I went with the Oakland doctor.
($780 is the actual cost to the patient. I was asked to sign a form waiving my rights to have any of the cost covered by insurance when I showed up.)
I took the 10-hour trip down to my parent's house in the Bay Area (~$112 in gas, round trip), and then drove out another 45 minutes to get my chest x-ray'd and my blood drawn. Once I got to the clinic, I realized I'd left my passport and passport photos back in my parent's house! So I got a new passport photo taken across the street at a drug store ($10), ran back in, paid them their blood money, and then had the physical and blood tests done. I was missing a lot of blood after that part. I got a little woozy, but I had a bunch of energy bars stashed in my car so I just ate those, sipped water, and listened to the radio for a while until I got my bearings. Then I came all the way back to Oakland the next morning with my passport in hand to get the x-ray at a partner clinic, and then I had to take the x-ray results back to the first doctor.
A week later I got the results back. Unfortunately, I had abnormally high levels of white blood cells! That could indicate that I had a parasite, or, much more likely, that I had allergies (I was sneezing all month; thanks hay fever!). My doctor told me I had to go to a medical lab franchise and get my blood work done over again to meet New Zealand Immigration's 'acceptable standard of health' ("You mean I don't have to go through an over-priced panel physician?!"). I was leaving for a roadtrip to the southwest, so it wasn't until a couple days later that I got to a lab in Albuquerque, NM, where a very kind nurse drew a (much smaller) blood sample and that was it. Thankfully, insurance covered the bill. Within a few weeks I got my final test results and a clean bill of health. Either the parasites kindly left my body once they realized they were an inconvenience, or I'm not as allergic to New Mexico as I am to Oregon and California.
Finally, I needed to prove that I could support myself financially while I was living in New Zealand, and afford a plane ticket out of the country when my studies were done. New Zealand Immigration gave no guidelines about what 'proof of funds' looks like for either of these requirements. Fortunately, my living costs were covered by my scholarship, which I proved with a formal scholarship offer, which also proved that my tuition was paid for.
For the outward travel, I went off the requirements that the University of Auckland uses in their immigration guidelines: Proof of Funds for outward travel can be established with bank statements showing 3-months transaction history and an available balance of NZ$1,500. Those statements could be mine, or for any rich person who would be willing to co-sign and sponsor my visa. Turns out, I am incredibly lucky. I didn't have all that much cash in the bank until Alaska Airlines paid me $800 after they bumped me off an oversold flight to Reno, NV for a family trip and refunded me the cost of my ticket at 400% the original price. With that kind of cash on hand, my balance was just over NZ$1,500 with early September exchange rates. So, all I had to do was go down to my local bank office, ask for 3 months transaction history, convert my available balance into NZ$, scan the 30-odd pages, and attach them to my online application.
Which was its own pain. No individual file that I uploaded for the application was allowed to be larger than 10 mb, and my bank statement scans kept coming in at 15 mb. I creatively cut out some of the blank pages and advertisements, hoping that Immigration officials wouldn't try to catch me up on the missing page numbers. The online application portal was filled with similar ambiguities and difficulties. I found out that I had to write in a comprehensive employment history, answer a number of arcane questions about the details of my academic program, and, with lots of uncertainty, finally hit submit.
Four weeks later, I received my student visa (total cost: $972)!
Wednesday, September 7, 2016
University Application - October 2015 to August 2016
Pretty soon after I got word that I had a scholarship I started my University Application. I wasn't petrified, but I was still terrified. Feeling that I was committed once I'd been given an offer, and more so once I accepted it, I decided to speed through the process. High on adrenaline.
I looked up the website, wrote project proposals, came up with a Dissertation Title (where did that come from?) and filled out pages of forms. References. When would I be ready to start the program? March? I have no clue! Published work (uhh zero), examples of writing (ok got that). But it wouldn't do to press on ahead without checking in with my advisors (I will have two, Melinda, who I'd briefly met, and Thegn). I sent them a draft of my proposed dissertation topic, Thegn replied that it looked fine, and I sent in my application.
Then Melinda wrote back with some suggestions for serious revisions to my proposal.
I was going way too fast and didn't know how to handle having two advisors. I switched from mania to total submissive, immediately apologizing profusely for the gaff.
All was well. Melinda was patient, and helped me contact the people who could help me fix my mistake. They explained that applications were revised all the time. I revised the proposal, got an answer back from both advisors, and then sent it back in.
I didn't feel like doctoral student material at all. But my application was in and corrected by the end of October. All I had to do now was wait. And wait.
And wait.
And by waiting, I mean I totally changed tracks and spent all of my time writing my Master's thesis. My defense date got pushed back from late December, to early February, and then again to the middle of March as I kept going through revisions. Meanwhile my application was receiving the highest levels of scrutiny specifically because I did not have a Master's degree in hand.
Eventually, finally, I got a conditional offer of place at the University of Auckland in the Anthropology Doctoral Program on March 3, 2016. The offer was conditional on my finishing my degree at PSU. That didn't seem very long away at all. I successfully defended my Master's thesis on March 16th, and after a few days of quick revisions I submitted my thesis to the graduate office. But it was not over yet.
I submitted my thesis far too late in the term to graduate in the Winter Quarter. The good news was that I was in the window where I would have to be enrolled in Spring Quarter, but I didn't owe any tuition or fees. We (Melinda, Thegn, Virginia, the Portland Anthropology students, faculty, and staff) were all confident that I had met the conditions of my offer at the University of Auckland, and I'd soon be enrolled. But it didn't work out that way.
First I had to get my thesis processed by the Portland State graduate office. The only person able to do that was not going to be able to help me until the very end of April. I ended up having to make a few formatting revisions before I could finally complete my Master's, and then I was given a letter that explained I was done with the program...but that I wouldn't get my degree until June.
I wasn't sure how to go about forwarding the letter to the University of Auckland, so on May 2 I asked them about the problem, and they considered it for several weeks. I sent inquiries and got no reply. By the very end of May, Melinda intervened and got us some answers. Turns out that my letter of documentation from Portland State was not going to be sufficient for the conditions of my offer of place. Only a degree in hand would do, for immigration purposes, you see. So I went back to waiting.
On July 12 I was graduated from Portland State University. I wasn't attending graduation, but I was nearby on the Willamette River competing in the annual dragonboat festival. My team took first place in our division by 0.07 seconds. But I still wasn't close to finishing my application process. The graduate office was going to start awarding degrees on the 15th, and I expected to get a notice around that time. Instead, I heard nothing. Apparently, you can pay extra money when you apply for graduation to have your degree processed first. It's basically an institutionalized bribe. I had not paid it, so I was going to continue waiting.
For several more weeks.
Finally, on June 24, I checked in with the graduate office, and that apparently helped move me up the list. On June 26, my transcripts were officially processed and my degree was actually awarded.
So now I was finally able to order my official academic transcripts. They were sent off for New Zealand from Portland at the beginning of July. It took the whole month, but they eventually were received and accepted. At last, on August 7, I was registered as a student at the University of Auckland.
At the beginning of the processes, I was petrified. By the end I was frustrated and over it. I had hit so many snags along the way, but somehow I managed to make it through an entire year of applications, inquiries, and bureaucratic hoop-jumping.
But I haven't even told you about my student visa application yet...
I looked up the website, wrote project proposals, came up with a Dissertation Title (where did that come from?) and filled out pages of forms. References. When would I be ready to start the program? March? I have no clue! Published work (uhh zero), examples of writing (ok got that). But it wouldn't do to press on ahead without checking in with my advisors (I will have two, Melinda, who I'd briefly met, and Thegn). I sent them a draft of my proposed dissertation topic, Thegn replied that it looked fine, and I sent in my application.
Then Melinda wrote back with some suggestions for serious revisions to my proposal.
I was going way too fast and didn't know how to handle having two advisors. I switched from mania to total submissive, immediately apologizing profusely for the gaff.
All was well. Melinda was patient, and helped me contact the people who could help me fix my mistake. They explained that applications were revised all the time. I revised the proposal, got an answer back from both advisors, and then sent it back in.
I didn't feel like doctoral student material at all. But my application was in and corrected by the end of October. All I had to do now was wait. And wait.
And wait.
And by waiting, I mean I totally changed tracks and spent all of my time writing my Master's thesis. My defense date got pushed back from late December, to early February, and then again to the middle of March as I kept going through revisions. Meanwhile my application was receiving the highest levels of scrutiny specifically because I did not have a Master's degree in hand.
Eventually, finally, I got a conditional offer of place at the University of Auckland in the Anthropology Doctoral Program on March 3, 2016. The offer was conditional on my finishing my degree at PSU. That didn't seem very long away at all. I successfully defended my Master's thesis on March 16th, and after a few days of quick revisions I submitted my thesis to the graduate office. But it was not over yet.
I submitted my thesis far too late in the term to graduate in the Winter Quarter. The good news was that I was in the window where I would have to be enrolled in Spring Quarter, but I didn't owe any tuition or fees. We (Melinda, Thegn, Virginia, the Portland Anthropology students, faculty, and staff) were all confident that I had met the conditions of my offer at the University of Auckland, and I'd soon be enrolled. But it didn't work out that way.
First I had to get my thesis processed by the Portland State graduate office. The only person able to do that was not going to be able to help me until the very end of April. I ended up having to make a few formatting revisions before I could finally complete my Master's, and then I was given a letter that explained I was done with the program...but that I wouldn't get my degree until June.
I wasn't sure how to go about forwarding the letter to the University of Auckland, so on May 2 I asked them about the problem, and they considered it for several weeks. I sent inquiries and got no reply. By the very end of May, Melinda intervened and got us some answers. Turns out that my letter of documentation from Portland State was not going to be sufficient for the conditions of my offer of place. Only a degree in hand would do, for immigration purposes, you see. So I went back to waiting.
On July 12 I was graduated from Portland State University. I wasn't attending graduation, but I was nearby on the Willamette River competing in the annual dragonboat festival. My team took first place in our division by 0.07 seconds. But I still wasn't close to finishing my application process. The graduate office was going to start awarding degrees on the 15th, and I expected to get a notice around that time. Instead, I heard nothing. Apparently, you can pay extra money when you apply for graduation to have your degree processed first. It's basically an institutionalized bribe. I had not paid it, so I was going to continue waiting.
For several more weeks.
Finally, on June 24, I checked in with the graduate office, and that apparently helped move me up the list. On June 26, my transcripts were officially processed and my degree was actually awarded.
So now I was finally able to order my official academic transcripts. They were sent off for New Zealand from Portland at the beginning of July. It took the whole month, but they eventually were received and accepted. At last, on August 7, I was registered as a student at the University of Auckland.
At the beginning of the processes, I was petrified. By the end I was frustrated and over it. I had hit so many snags along the way, but somehow I managed to make it through an entire year of applications, inquiries, and bureaucratic hoop-jumping.
But I haven't even told you about my student visa application yet...
Pregame - April 2015 to September 2015
For almost a year and a half, I've been thinking about the possibility of moving to New Zealand.
It started on April 19, 2016 the 80th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology was winding down in San Francisco, and there was someone that Virginia, my graduate advisor, really wanted me to meet. Her old friend Melinda was offering a scholarship for a graduate student who would work with her on some kind of fish bone research. Building mathematical models of fish populations and sustainability in the South Pacific was mentioned. I knew of Melinda's work on the study of fish hook function and form. Yes, I would be interested in meeting her.
Melinda had just arrived in San Francisco from New Zealand for the meetings , and she was dealing with massive jet lag AND a cold. It was hard to arrange a meeting time around all of the talks, but through Virginia we arranged to meet for a few minutes on the last day. We found each other in a lobby crowded with about 300 other archaeologists. We exchanged some pleasantries, talked briefly about the position, and then we both had to go.
In August the advert for the funded PhD position went out. I was about to start the third year of my Master's program at Portland State University, and I had no plans for after I got my degree. I told myself it wouldn't hurt to apply. There were several appealing factors. First, I would get paid to live for three years in New Zealand. Second, I could get a PhD in three years, as opposed to the 7-10 year average commitment for an American PhD in Anthropology. Lastly, the project would be writing a history of Maori fishing, evaluating the impacts of Maori fishing techniques and climate change on fish populations, and using the information to make recommendations for more sustainable fishing practices.
Seemed like a perfect fit. But it was also terrifying to consider the possibility that I might get in.
On September 8th I sent in my application materials. On October 1st, I got word of the decision: I had been provisionally selected! All I would have to do is finish my current graduate program and get into the University of Auckland.
I was totally petrified.
It started on April 19, 2016 the 80th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology was winding down in San Francisco, and there was someone that Virginia, my graduate advisor, really wanted me to meet. Her old friend Melinda was offering a scholarship for a graduate student who would work with her on some kind of fish bone research. Building mathematical models of fish populations and sustainability in the South Pacific was mentioned. I knew of Melinda's work on the study of fish hook function and form. Yes, I would be interested in meeting her.
Melinda had just arrived in San Francisco from New Zealand for the meetings , and she was dealing with massive jet lag AND a cold. It was hard to arrange a meeting time around all of the talks, but through Virginia we arranged to meet for a few minutes on the last day. We found each other in a lobby crowded with about 300 other archaeologists. We exchanged some pleasantries, talked briefly about the position, and then we both had to go.
In August the advert for the funded PhD position went out. I was about to start the third year of my Master's program at Portland State University, and I had no plans for after I got my degree. I told myself it wouldn't hurt to apply. There were several appealing factors. First, I would get paid to live for three years in New Zealand. Second, I could get a PhD in three years, as opposed to the 7-10 year average commitment for an American PhD in Anthropology. Lastly, the project would be writing a history of Maori fishing, evaluating the impacts of Maori fishing techniques and climate change on fish populations, and using the information to make recommendations for more sustainable fishing practices.
Seemed like a perfect fit. But it was also terrifying to consider the possibility that I might get in.
On September 8th I sent in my application materials. On October 1st, I got word of the decision: I had been provisionally selected! All I would have to do is finish my current graduate program and get into the University of Auckland.
I was totally petrified.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)