Daily Annoyance, The Eternal

[Datepalm]

Sadly, the old thread reached 20 pages. 

I need to briefly process, in writing, apparently, the experience of getting a US visa. I went through the whole thing in India (and am not Indian) so perhaps that complicated things slightly and Indian bureaucratic practices (a national sport, as far as I can tell) have their own part of the blame, but to the best of my recollection, applying for it in Israel would have entailed more or less the same process, so I think it's mainly the US process.

It's not just the expense, the time and the incovenience. The Congo has a more expensive visa, and requires more hoops and documentation and a six page form and a business card. The Ukrainian visa application is exceptionally lackadaisical, requiring 5AM registration with a neighbouring hummus place. The Indian visa itself was kind of a pain with annoyingly timed opening hours and multiple visits required. Getting a visa renewed in Burundi is something Kafka never would have dreamed of (and that's when they issue it correctly, leading to an episode of my being what I assume was like the only illegal immigrant in the country for a week.) I once got a Chinese visa in Laos, which was actually really convenient and pleasant, now that I think of it. Huh. You know, it can be done, even if you're a big, important country with loads of bureacracy. 

But i've never been through anything quite like the experience of the US visa, with it's weeks of psychological barrage of...supplication, caging, delimitation. Layers and layers of applications, each with a myriad of potential pitfalls and pyramid structures of things to accomplish. I've never been through a process that seemed to so intensely geared to make you feel like a beggar at the door, dependent on the whims of others, corralled from line to line, location to location, meeting with ever more stringent and seemingly petty incoveniences and restrictions - what you can carry, where you can stand, what to bring, where to look, checks and re-checks of every comma and number, all building up to a sense of helplessness.  

Again, all visa regimes are basically like this. I mean, I'm biased, being loosely opposed to all limitation on the movement of labour anyway, but I don't think i've ever been through an application or a border crossing that has revealed those structures quite so much. The American mannerdness probably just made it worse. It's nobody's fault, I suspect - everyone I interacted with seemed to be doing their best and the process does tick along. In a sense, I might feel less...uneasy...if something had gone wrong, if something had gotten misplaced or i'd run into some bleak incompetence, but of course I didn't. Everything worked exactly how it was supposed to, it's just that this is the node in the global order that seems to very starkly reveal the whole damn discriminatory thing. Sigh. Workers of the world, unite. Etc. 

[polishgenius]

I've never applied for a US visa, but from everything I hear about it from those who do, it seems amlost like the process is deliberatly designed to psychologically condition people into being thankful that the great nation of America has deigned to let you in.

My annoyance is of a much smaller and more practical sort- I sliced my finger with a breadknife at the weekend, and while it has now stopped bleeding, the laceration, right on the joint of my index finger, is large and flappy enough that I keep catching it on things and it fucking smarts.


(My other annoyance is the German tax system, but that is partly my fault. And my German lessons, but that is entirely my fault).

[Theda Baratheon]

Getting up in the morning...why is it so difficult -wish I could just out of bed, idk sometimes I can! But lately nope 

[Raja]

Double post

[Raja]

6 hours ago, Datepalm said:

Sadly, the old thread reached 20 pages. 

I need to briefly process, in writing, apparently, the experience of getting a US visa.

Yikes! Were you in Bombay to get the Visa? I've heard that's it's fairly taxing. What kind of visa were you applying for? I applied for a B1/B2 visa a few years ago from Bahrain, and it was relatively okay? There was a bit of documentation & a perfunctory 5 minute interview with the embassy, but that was it. I had my visa the next day. Then again, Bahrain is relatively small, I imagine the office in Bombay is quite full with applicants and possibly a longer process. Yours sounds like a longer ordeal than that. 

5 hours ago, polishgenius said:

My annoyance is of a much smaller and more practical sort- I sliced my finger with a breadknife at the weekend, and while it has now stopped bleeding, the laceration, right on the joint of my index finger, is large and flappy enough that I keep catching it on things and it fucking smarts.

Might need to get that stitched up, my friend! 

[Datepalm]

Yeah, parts of the process have been farmed out to a travel agency of some kind, so the way the process goes is (after an extensive amount of reading and puzzling it all out, because just getting started and figuring out where the hell you're supposed to apply and in what order took a solid couple of hours of research,)

• Fill out form at the US immigration site (15 page form, intensely finicky, network has tendency to kick you off regularly, if your internet connection is even a little wonky - mine was - will take multiple tries of starting the whole things over. Saving is said to be an option, but discovered not to work.)
• Take the code at the end of this form to the Local Agency Website
• Fill out six more forms on a confusing website with that information. Get another code. 
• Take code to the bank. Pay 160 dollars, in rupees. (If you have an indian bank account it may be possible to pay online.) Get another code. 
• Take code back to the site. Use it to fill out more forms and schedule two separate appointments, which can only be done in one of six cities across India (fortunately I'm only a three hour train/bus from Mumbai) or only one in Israel (fortunately, all of Israel is three hours by bus/train from Tel Aviv.) Appointments must be scheduled on separate days. Most days for the next two months are already unavailable. I managed a 9-day gap, over three weeks away.
• Get another code. 
• Get an email. Print it out. Print out original form. Go to Mumbai. Find somewhere to stay. Find somewhere to deposit your stuff, including phone, bag and anything else that doesn't fit in your pockets or paper in a clear folder. 
• Go inside visa agency (not consulate), nearly get turned away because form says you were born in Ukraine but passport says USSR. Explain, at surprising length, that USSR does not appear as an option on the form and they're the same place and USSR went the way of the dodo, so what can you do? They seem unconvinced and look at you as if you're a fool to risk such an obvious offence on your precious form.
• Be allowed in, after standing in a bunch of long lines. Get scanned, patted, scanned again, put in more lines. Get fingerprinted. Get photo taken. Be made to feel that there's something wrong with your ears. 
• Go home. 
• Come back nine days later to consulate. Find somewhere to stay, deposit all stuff, etc. 
• Stand in a line to get in. 
• Get in. 
• Stand in a line to get to security. Get scanned, patted down, scanned again, etc. 
• Stand in a line to get out of security.
• Enter caged compound where you are placed in another line.
• Get whisked out of that line because you have a non-indian passport. (I think I skipped between one and three lines this way.)
• Stand in some other line. 
• Enter a building. Stand in a line.
• Get fingerprinted again.
• Stand in another line.
• Get a passport stamp.
• Stand in another line. 
• Get interviewed by a person talking to you through glass. This lasts sixty seconds. Cheerful, polite, American joviality. A feeling that all is well with the world if it contain souls like this one. Have non of the documents you pestered university, workplace, parents, landlords and conference organizers to recieve even looked at. Suspect this may be due to your blondness and good english. 
• Pick up passport three days later after some more tedious patting down and being sent between offices for documents and standing in line and whatever. Too tired of the whole thing to care at that point. Sigh with relief that you got a 10 year one and won't have to do this again.
• Realize with a chill you may want to be applying for a student visa in a year.

 

[polishgenius]

1 hour ago, Raja said:

Might need to get that stitched up, my friend! 

 

Nah, it's tiny really - it's just right on the point where even a tiny cut sticks out. Not helped that the serration on the knife carved a little half-moon out.

[Buckwheat]

My faculty wants me to present my 70+-page thesis in 6 (six!) minutes. I have no idea how to do that and I feel it is more than slightly rude from the department that they think our work is worth so little time and attention. I realise there are plenty of presentations to be held on that day, but I am wondering if anybody cares about whatever we write at all. I am not saying my thesis is the absolute best thing ever that should deserve a presentation in whole, but what is a MA worth if even the three professors whose job it is to listen to it do not seem to want to hear any of it? Because lets be real, 6 minutes is nothing.

Speaking of bureaucracy, the Austrian one. I do not need a visa, just a paper that I am allowed to stay in the country once I am already there, but I can find no answer anywhere if I actually need to have a new one made this time round or is the one from last year valid still ... Well, compared to Datepalm's paperwork problems, this is nothing.

[Theda Baratheon]

FUCK 

[Dr. Pepper]

I was on a hike recently and at the summit I met this couple.  We were catching our breath and chatting.  As they were getting ready to leave I asked if they'd snap my photo real quick.  Instead they gave me a god damned selfie stick.  Ugh.  Is this the new thing?  Instead of taking 5 seconds to press a button, people walk around with contraptions to give to people who don't want them?  

Now these people have tried to friend me on facebook.  I forgot I exchanged contact info with them.  I'm tempted to accept the request and then passive aggressively discuss the assholes who wouldn't just say no to snapping a photo.  

[Theda Baratheon]

they might have thought they were being nice and helpful tbh...some people are picky about their own photos ...

[Targarien21]

1 hour ago, Theda Baratheon said:

they might have thought they were being nice and helpful tbh...some people are picky about their own photos ...

I agree with you. In fact I see anything bad in that selfie sticks, they're cool in some cases

[Theda Baratheon]

1 minute ago, Targarien21 said:

I agree with you. In fact I see anything bad in that selfie sticks, they're cool in some cases

i have one...

[Theda Baratheon]

though ive only ever used it once actually, the day i bought it, put it in a drawer somewhere and havent used it in a year...

[Targarien21]

My the biggest annoyence at the current time consists of:

- my neighbours because they like to be rather loud during my time for sleeping
- my spine because I have scoliosis and it's very hard to get a right posture after all that teenage years with the wrong one
- the problems with central heating in my appartmnet, it's autumn already and the winter comes and there are always problems with this... Rather often it's very cold in my appartment during these seasons, I really wish I had a separate house, in that case I could buy smth like this stuff http://jonsguide.org/best-whole-house-generators/ and the problem would be solved
- some repairmnets in my appartmnets which I need to do but they cost rather expensive and when it's not your appartmnet in fact the motivation to spend so much money isn't cool at all

[Arch-MaesterPhilip]

Everything seems to annoy me these days, work, family life.  

[Theda Baratheon]

my sleeping is fucked and im slipping back into depression (or the precursor to it...bad sleep, negative thinking, intrusive thoughts, lack of motivation) which sucks  it's all creeping back in

[Dr. Pepper]

4 hours ago, Theda Baratheon said:

they might have thought they were being nice and helpful tbh...some people are picky about their own photos ...

I'm sure they thought so.  Doesn't make it any less asshole-ish.  These are the type of people who are all, "Oh, you would like this radio turned up a bit so you can hear it?  Here's a guitar, make your own music."  or "Oh, you're hungry?  Here's a seed, grow your own food."

[KiDisaster]

1 hour ago, Theda Baratheon said:

my sleeping is fucked and im slipping back into depression (or the precursor to it...bad sleep, negative thinking, intrusive thoughts, lack of motivation) which sucks  it's all creeping back in

Was experiencing this a few weeks ago. Insomnia is a killer. 

[DreamSongs]

Stress annoys me.  Which makes me more stressed.  Which makes me sick and I miss work.  Which causes stress.

And stress annoys me.