Once I was a Chandler, now I'm more of a Ross

Finally without all the worrying I have time for things like updating the blog.

Obviously we are going to be staying in New Zealand for a while longer. My scholarship is for three years, so we have that long to decide. Holly has been looking into new work in either the event co-ordination or creative arts fields. She has been looking seriously at the WETA workshop as a long-term goal. They are best known for producing all of the creative elements for the Lord of the Rings trilogy, both CG and physical. It is one of the most progressive production studios in the world and happens to be based in Wellington. It would mean moving to the north island, so it is at least three years off. You only need to watch a few minutes of the 'behind the scenes' from the LOTR movies to see what a perfect place it would be for Holly.

Our next big step is obtaining a new visa. Our working holiday visas expire on the 27th of February. We have to submit a new application by the expiry date of our current visas or we might be deported! Now that I have my scholarship we will definitely be able to get a student visa, but we would much rather apply for permanent residency. (With residency we would be able to take full advantage of the health care system in New Zealand.) We have already started the process for residency, so if our preliminary application goes through the pipe fast enough we won't have to bother with a student visa at all.
It's all incredibly complicated. After spending so much time dealing with it I feel like I almost understand the process, but I am a native english speaker. We have friends here that are from Chile who had to have all of their home country documents translated into english by an approved translator. Can you imagine how much that would cost?!?

Once we have sorted our visas we can just sit back and enjoy the fruits of our labors...well as much as a doctoral student really gets to sit back... We'll be saving up for a trip home and trying to convince a few of you back home to come visit us.

It seems like only a year ago that we were all gathered in Virginia Beach celebrating a wedding and wishing the happy couple bon voyage...