International Finance Comes Through!

The folks at International Finance at Brunel have “certified me” as being eligible for loans sufficient for Maria and me to go to London this fall! Woo Hoo! Although we still need to raise approximately $20,000.00 to pay the bills back home, with luck -- and if we can rent the house – we are definitely going!

Needless to say, we are very excited. We are probably going to wait until we get there to find a place to live, because we will rely on our friend Nigel, a retired London police officer and now a Blue Badge tour guide for advice. If anybody knows the good neighborhoods of London – and the bad ones! – it’s Nigel! We’re very lucky to know this generous and knowledgeable gentleman, indeed!

For those of you in the area, we are having two yard sales: On Saturday, August 6, at 848 Dabney Drive in Henderson, and on August 20, at 114 Wilcox Street in Warrenton. We are also contemplating a private art sale for liquidating some of our 50-piece art collection: if anybody is interested in any art, please contact us immediately. This collection includes mostly signed, numbered lithographs and serigraphs, many by our favorite artist, Phillipe Noyer.  Most are professionally framed, double-matted, and quite beautiful. We also have an original Winslow Homer woodcut and works from many other artists, including Terry Redlin, Carlos Impaglia, and Michael Ward. For you history buffs, we have a beautifully framed scarf and (an unframed) catalogue from the 1876 Philadelphia World Exposition. And if you’re into music, we have a beautiful Carl Dorr (Austrian) baby grand piano (early 1900’s) that has the most beautiful low tones I have ever heard, a museum piece valued at over $40,000.00 that can be yours for a lot less than that.

Still waiting for our visas, but I am told that’s a formality now that we have had our biometrics done. We fly out September 11, arriving at Heathrow September 12 ready to start our new adventure! Classes begin for me on September 23, so we’ll have time to get acclimated before the real work starts for me. Speaking of work, Maria cannot have a UK job, but she is an accomplished genealogist, and has several clients she will be working with while we’re in London, using the resources of the British Library and various other sources readily available to her there. Anybody want to know more about their family tree? Her rates are cheaper than subscribing to all the family history sites, and she does all the work for you! Contact her on Facebook at Maria Hurst if you’re interested!

Anybody have any old Oyster cards left over? Donations are always welcome! Thanks to all our friends and former “London trippers” who have already donated their left-over British Pounds and Oyster Cards. We really appreciate it! More later, and cheers!

Biometrics, Visas, and Government Waste

Today we gave our biometric information for our visa applications: fingerprints and a digital photograph at the US Citizenship and Immigration Office near RDU. I knew it was a government office as soon as we opened the door, though: there was a line. We also had to go through a full airport style security check, which surprised us. Is it this way for all government buildings now? This is a “paperwork building”, not a courthouse or a major outpost of any kind, just a single-purpose visa office: I am not sure that all that extra expense is really necessary, nor was the two-receptionist system: they had you report to the main receptionist (after standing in line), who looked at your paperwork and told you where to go. There was a choice of two places to go – and one of those places was an information station. And you wonder why we’re in a deficit situation? That place needed at least 8 less employees/contractors in it…!

On the plus side, the folks were very pleasant and helpful, and even with the security check and the lines we had to stand in, we were out of there in about 30 minutes or so. Not bad for a government office! Still waiting to hear from Brunel University’s Financial Aid Office to see if I can actually use the visas we have applied for -- and paid almost $1,000 for the privilege to do so. The situation should be resolved – or “sorted” as the British say – pretty soon. We'll see!

A Round Peg In A Square Hole: (Or, How I learned to love and hate the financial aid system!)

Well, here I am, sitting around waiting for the Brunel University Financial Aid Office to tell me whether or not I can go to school this fall. You ask why this is so. The answer is as perplexing as it is complicated.

To begin with, I have already secured a direct (Stafford) educational loan to pay my tuition at Brunel, and this leaves a small amount for books and supplies: the total amount after tuition is paid is a little over $4,000.00 total. And here’s where the complicated stuff starts.

You see, although I have a separate $35,000.00 in guaranteed pre-approved “direct-plus” (indirect) loans from Sallie Mae that would let me pay for a place to live and be able to eat while we’re in London (while also paying bills here at home), it is not up to me or Sallie Mae to determine if I actually receive the money. That decision rests with the folks in Brunel’s Financial Aid Office, who have a system and a formula I must fit into, because all students are evidently the same to them.

Instead of being who I am, a 50-something man with a wife (who is forbidden to work while in the UK because of immigration law changes), a mortgage and bills at a house back home to pay while I pursue my life-long dream of finding “the real Shakespeare”, I am forced into becoming a 20-something student with no worries, no cares, and no bills at home to worry about as I blithely sail over to the UK and put off the real world for another year or so and study for some useless degree or other that I may never use.

So there you are. I have absolutely no idea what will happen next, but I believe that all of us are trying in good faith to resolve the situation, including the folks at Brunel. We'll see how it turns out, but at this point I am not very hopeful, to be honest.

That siad, we are still going to try and go, no matter what. We are still planning to sell my vintage Firebird and see if we can get rid of some art and our museum-quality piano if we don’t get the money. That and a really all-out yard sale on August 6 should make a difference. How much of a difference? We still don’t know how much we’ll need at this point, so for now we play the waiting game. Thanks for reading!

Visas, and Records and Money, Oh My!

This past week was very frustrating, but it may be getting resolved soon.

For those who may not know, Great Britain changed its immigration laws regarding student visas and spouses. In effect, Maria and I both had to apply by July 4 -- me as a student, she as my dependent -- or she would not have been able to accompany me unless she somehow got a work permit prior to September 9 -- unlikely given the economic situation in England at present.

So, this week was a blur of activity as we secured a CAS (Confirmation of Acceptance of Studies) number from Brunel and applied for our visas on line Saturday.

The UK wanted to know about my two speeding tickets, so that was exciting as we tried to figure out how to get those records on a holiday weekend. Thanks to our fabulous and ingenious daughteer-in-law Aimee, who is even now keeping us safe at Homeland Security. we found the records and finished off both applications, paying almost $900.00 for the privilege of staying in England 27 days longer than we could have stayed on a regular passport (6-month maximum stay).

Next up is finance. I have been approved for student loans direct and indirect in an amount actually sufficient to live on in London for 7 months, but my loan amount is evidently subject to the Britsh Council guidelines for students, and Brunel's finance office may be bound by these guidelines, which do not allow us sufficient funds to find a place and eat while we're there. I simply do not understand how a college in the UK can tell a private loan foundation how much they can lend me for school. Are they going to pay the loan back? They acknowledge the guidelines are totally unrealistic, but their hands may be tied. I even called Sallie Mae to ask them -- they said they were bound by what Brunel told them.

Amazing. We'll work this out in the coming weeks, I think. In the meantime, we will be looking forward to handing over our biometric data in Durham on Monday, July 25th at 11:00 AM. I need to look up what biometric data is, and then I'll decide whether I should be frightened or not...!

In the meantime, we're packing up our first package of stuff to ship to ourselves in late August. We'll have more later. Thanks for reading!