Chapter Thirty-Three: Exchange Rate (~jinghan)

This feels like coming out of the closet. It’s nothing that exciting actually. Just that I’m going to America on exchange for a year and I haven’t blogged about it yet.

I guess the reality hadn’t set in yet.

When I say to people, “sorry, I won’t be here for that, I’ll be in California on Exchange for a year. Yeah at UC Davis, near San Francisco.” I think it feels like bragging. But what it really feels like is that I’m telling other people a secret that I’ve neglected to tell myself.

More on that later.

—

Tuesday 2nd August, 6:2oam: My alarm wakes me up. This is the earliest I’ve needed to get up for a while. But I am surprisingly not tired. I hop on the yellow brick road and it’s off to the US embassy I go.

Well actually this isn’t where the yellow brick road started. It started back in August 2010 which I first started filling in paper work, writing exchange essays about my excitement to go on an exchange trip I couldn’t envision at the time, trolling the websites of overseas universities for good subjects… and more paper work and more paper work. Actually so far the yellow brick road has been entirely a journey of paper work.

Just to make it more fun, by the time you get accepted by a university you get to pay all sorts of fees just to add some variation to the paper work:

  • VISA Appointment Booking Fee $14AU
  • SEVIS (system) Fee $180 USD
  • VISA Appointment Fee $140 AUD (paid at an Australian Post Outlet for – no, not an official document – but a little scrap of receipt)
  • Express Post Premium Satchel $14.50 AUD
  • Visa Photos $24 AUD

At the US embassy they stick a little barcode on my chest, flick through the pages of my book incase I conceals a bomb in there, x-ray everything. “What did they ask you when they interviewed you?” everyone asks me afterwards.

“Do you have any family in the US?” Asks the guy behind the thick glass window.

“No.”

“Do you have evidence of financial support?”

I hand over my  bank statements and my parents bank statements.

He flicks through them and hands them back. “Okay, take a seat you’ll be called up to pay for your visa in a few minutes.”

  • Visa Issuance Fee $105 USD

I must conclude: Issuing visas is either very expensive or very lucrative. But there it is: I’m away away from the Embassy one visa richer… (or poorer depending on which way you look at it). There it is: I’m going away for a year, going to America for the first time, living away from home for the first time…

Watch this space for more.