Finally!

Fellow friends and relatives,

My spouse visa's finally been granted! I got a call from the immigration office on Tuesday morning, the same morning that hubbii was leaving to go back to Australia. We were still sleeping at about 10.40am (hey, it was like my last day on leave after having 5 days break so I'm entitled for it!) when my handphone rang with the good news.

Just went to the Aust High Comm this morning to get the visa letter - it's slowly coming to me that I am moving really soon. I think I'm still pretty much in a daze right now, coz I'm not doing any much besides working.

So many things to blog about. I guess you'll hear from me very soon about my move. Right now I just can't put into words on my feelings but well, just a matter of time....

Gonna pen off with a photo of Kimi, my hero :)

It's all about the hair

I had different shades of brown highlights for the past 10 years of my life and most of the time, not many people seemed to notice. But since last week when I colored my hair blackish, few people were surprised and said they couldn’t recognise me! *puzzled*

Me: *waving on the escalator to a colleague, F, who was waiting below the escalator for his friends for lunch*
F: *looked through me and looked away and then looked back, puzzled*
Me: *wave more aggresively and at this moment, was about 5 footsteps away from him*
F: OMG! I couldn’t recognise you! I thought you were waving to someone behind me! You colored your hair black!!
Me: Err.. Yeah...
F: Why??
Me: For a change I guess? Haven’t had black hair since secondary school!
F: *look at me funnily*

Okay.. I don’t know if that means good or bad, I guess some liked it, some didn’t. But weirdly, I love it! I think that I definitely look more innocent now, maybe cause it brings me back to my school days. Not to say that I was that innocent then, but well, I just forgot how I looked like with black hair. My natural hair color’s not this black, but well, I seriously like it.
Not only it makes my hair look healthier, I think I look kinda fierce and asianese.

Haha.. Asianese! Yes. I am Asian afterall and I am proud of it!
I was just telling another colleague that it’s weird how people find me weird with black hair while I thought asians were supposed to look ‘natural’ with black hair!

Few colleagues told me I look like a chinese doll. To top it up, I accidently cut my fringe abit too short, so err.. Yeah, it helped with the chinese doll look! Hubby wasn’t as estatic with my decision of going black. I don’t know if it has anything to do with the fact that his mum has pure black hair. But these days he tend to greet me in sms "how’s my asian wifey" or "how’s my chinese wifey".

Hubbii has always liked me with brownish hair, probably because that was how I looked like when he first saw me where he fell head over heels. Love at first sight. Now, I’ve taken away that image from him and he’s not exactly happy about it!
He said my black hair reminds him of his mum, since his mum had black hair her whole life.

Errr... not sure if it's a good sign for your husband to tell you that you remind him of his mum?? Should I be worried? Hmm.
Anyway, hubbii will be here this Thursday for 5 days, guess I'll know whether I should be worried or not then... *grin*

Happy Easter, everyone!

Weekend full of food and surprises!

1. I finally took the decision to nurse my hair back to good health - colored it blackish last friday. I'm so not used to my hair being blackish with a hint of dark brown under the sun. The last time I had black hair was probably during secondary school days before I decided to un-asianize my hair color!


Which do you prefer?

2. Was granduncle's 80th birthday on Saturday nite. Buffet as usual since there were probably 50 guests that nite. Too much food!

3. Was also voting day on Saturday. Everyone was amazed with news coming in during the dinner esp when they found out few ministers lost their seat to oppositions. Amazed and excited.
And then scared for riots, so we all left around 9.45pm.

4. Yongy's wedding on Sunday. I was 1 of his honoured 'heng tai' (chinese term for a relation similar to brother) - He had a team of 'unisex' 'heng tais' to take torture from the chee muis (chinese term for a relation similar to sister).

No other photos for now.. Think Yongy's photographers took quite alot of shots, so will share with u guys once I have the photos.

Time to go home....

Status of my move

My most seeked-after answer these days: "So when are you moving to Australia?"

Ah, the question that I wished I could have everyone who asked me to ask the Immigration officer who's processing my visa right now. She would then realise that she has the power to change someone's life forever. And the power to stop me from saying the same thing over and over again.

So what’s been happening to me lately? Well, since Chinese new year, nothing much! I’m now at a position of tasting the feeling of being ‘stranded’ – my visa’s been pending for 2 months now. 2 months and no good news at all. Not good given that I paid a bomb for my visa agent and all he advised me is to ‘wait’. He told me that the immigration office might be agitated and might place my submission at the end of the pile if we do make enquiries about it.


My hse's chinese new year deco

My reaction: What a load of crap! Firstly, I’ve heard that lately, 2 cases of Malaysians applying for the spouse visa in Australia got approved within a month from 2 different sources. Secondly, if I’m the immigration officer and if my ‘client’ don’t really show any signs of interest in getting their visas quickly, I’ll definitely take my time in looking and processing the case if I’ve got 101 cases to look through. I don’t know what is their attitude in processing visas, but their actions are definitely affecting relationships by just dragging it longer. Our lives are just put on hold for now – I can’t plan my job and hubbii can’t start looking around for apartments as we plan to rent wherever that’s close to my job location for the moment before we get a house. Also, 2 weekends ago was the MAS travel fair and I missed the opportunity to get my flight ticket since I had no news at all.

I voiced out my frustrations to hubbii and he decided to call the immigration lady up.
She mentioned that she was waiting for Scotland Yard to confirm on my police-check and just received it lately. Plus their system was down for a week or 2 blah blah. And in summary, she just said 'soon'.

When hubbii told me that, I had more regrets on my visa agent. It is because of my UK police-check that I had postponed my whole submission as it took them 2 months to reach me. I waited for that before I lodged my application as THAT WAS WHAT MY VISA AGENT TOLD ME TO DO!
And here they are, checking on it again from their end. What the???
I wouldn't have wasted time if I knew the immigration office was going to check on it as well.

*double SIGH*


Unfortunately, that cute baby's not mine :P
Family lunch during chinese new year..

This waiting game with the immigration centre is a real torture. Really :(
I can’t just go over to Australia without having my visa approved as I have to be here once they grant the approval. So now, the only way for us to see each other is for hubbii to come here.

Lately I had a proposal from a future employer that they are willing to fly me to Australia for transition in March/April, before I go over for good. But they are only willing to do that if I can promise that I WILL be there in May. What a tempting offer but hell, I can’t take it as I really do not have control over the visa approval. What if the immigration officer decided to reject due to whatever reasons, or what if the person handling my case had 500 applications to deal with and she fell sick or etc etc. Millions of ‘what ifs’ can just happen and I can’t be selfish to commit to my future employer when I seriously don’t know what’s going to happen.

Sigh.


Reunion with some Assuntarians during CNY

Sometimes I don’t know if honesty pays but I guess my guilty conscience just wouldn’t leave me if I do lie about the position that I am in today. I was offered a promotion mid of last year but I turned it down as I thought I would be leaving the country right after the wedding in Dec. I didn’t want to put my boss in a difficult mode as they would need to look for another person after 6 mths or so (give my assumption then) and I know it’s going to be tough on the company.

But look at me now – still here, and still doing the same jobrole although I know that I can do better than where I am today. If not for my conscience, I would have just taken the job as it would at least give me a jump in my salary. Darn my conscience!