Just in case I had any second thoughts...


( Some comments from the UK-Yankee forum )

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But for now, no UK for me. I need to get on with my life and not be continually waiting for whatever the next boneheaded pronouncement from the Home Office will be.

Depressing. Especially the Student MIgration, Entitlement to Work, and Working After Graduation sections.

I understand and sympathise with the desire to protect the economic interests of existing Britons, but it seems as if time after time he cites clear violations of the existing regulations and uses them as justification for enacting new, harsher regulations.

I've never felt so clearly delineated as a persona non grata.

It's really finally sinking in that something I've dreamed about and worked for for years is just being completely shut off. I've only myself to blame--I doubt I will ever stop kicking myself for making the wrong choice in 2007.

A friend passed on this news. Basically, the UK is cranking up the drawbridge a little higher.

I will still be able (so far) to get a post-study work visa if I do a master's in 2011/2012 (unless they change *that* in the meantime, which they may), but there is now officially *no* way I would be able to transfer from that to a regular Tier 1 work visa. Not unless I were able to land a job paying £150,000 or more right out of the gate (average UK salaries in the GIS field are ~ £35,000 at last report, FWIW).

If they eliminate the post-study work visa, I'm canceling my study plans. Barring that, it's still worth it to get a couple of years' stay in the UK. In fact, it frees me up from trying to get a really high-paying job, as I know there's no way way I can earn enough to stay. I can spend the post-study period just enjoying being there.

But I did have to think for a bit and make the calculation. Is it really worth it? And I'm sure that's just what the government want--to make skilled, qualified people who would work hard and contribute to the UK think twice about moving there.

"Little England" just got a bit littler.

I had a lovely new year's eve hanging out with my family (my sister, her partner, my niece A, and the twins), and it's been a very nice new year's day doing the same. I'll be back to see them in the morning before leaving tomorrow afternoon/evening to head home to the catboyz. A and I welcomed in the new year with the last drams from a bottle of Cuban rum a friend of hers had given her, chatting over NYEs past while the others slumbered upstairs (though the adults, and one of the toddlers, came back down a little after midnight, briefly).

I have some plans for how I'd like to make some changes in my life in 2010, but for the most part I'm not going to try to nail them down in resolutions. They are all things that will be done, or not done, without making big proclamations about them. One thing for sure, though. This is the year I go to the UK.

Even that has one proviso. I applied for a job last month; I don't think I'll get it, but if I do I'll feel obliged to stay in it for a year--it's a serious job of a sort I've not had before, and I'm not going to cut it short irresponsibly.

That will only delay me, though, not change my trajectory. If I finish the degree I'm working on now, so much the better; that will make moving easier. If not, I'll get a student visa and launch into one of several postgraduate plans I've been working on and see where that leads me.

It would be silly to pretend that I'm not a bit fearty about the idea of moving so far, of all the work that it's going to entail, of all the things that could go wrong. But if you don't at least try to reach your dreams, it's a sad, dull life you'll have.

For now I need to start decluttering myself, finish my classes (one group ending in March, the last batch ending in June), and start seeing what plans I can make ahead of time. I have enough saved up that, if I really needed to, I could live--not lavishly but not starvingly--for a year or so without touching my retirement funds. If I can earn some income during that time, so much the better--I'll be able to stay that much longer.

One way or another, though, UK, here I come! :-)

Either I have previously misread the 'work permission' requirements on the Scottish Police Services Agency website, or they have changed.

( faffing about rules )

I tried the sample test from this site that markets guides to the 'Life in the UK' test and got an 83% (I like to think that if I had studied I would have given a correct answer to at least one of the two questions I missed).

It sounds as if the revised version of the test they are doing from this autumn onwards is slightly less full of ridiculous statistical trivia (if I were to fail, if and when I get to take this for real, and had to retake it, I shudder to think the obloquy which would be heaped on me...)

Of course, I was a sucker and bought the study materials for the old test, just for fun, back when it was announced. But I have no sorrow in knowing they will be obsolete.

I missed this last monnth:

Immigration Minister Liam Byrne, today unveiled the timetable for introducing the UK’s tough new Australian-style points based system for migration, during a fact finding visit to Sydney.

I hope it doesn't mean it will be harder to get a visa the next time I try. :-(

Lots of stuff going on!( Read more... )