Home again soon

Its really snuck up on me. I tried to ignore the whole thing so that I wouldn't get excited prematurely, but now its right on top of me. I'm going home for three weeks to see my family. I'm really excited about all of this. I'll get to see people who I haven't seen for more than a year. It'll be weird taking a break from my work for awhile, but I think it will be well worth it. I really don't know what else to say. I'm definitely excited by it but not really looking forward to the actual travel part. Oh well.

I gotta get home and get the dinner going for Crystal. Hopefully I'll remember to talk a bit more about this soon.

Tasty Food

Not a lot of news to report really. Went to a wedding for some church members this weekend. They'd asked me to play my guitar a bit with some others for the ceremony. It was pretty good. Nice ceremony and a really pretty setting.

Finally made some tuna noodle casserole last night. For those who don't know me too well, this is one of my favorite home style meals. My favorite comfort food so to speak. My mom had given me the recipe a while back, but it took a long time of me needling Crystal about it before she was willing to give it a try. She has some sort of prejudice against casseroles. Anyways it turned out great. I adapted my mom's recipe, I think I made it really tasty. I added some fresh mushrooms and some frozen veggies (carrots, peas, and corn). It turned out really good. I'm looking forward to the leftovers tonight. I'll need to cook it a little hotter next time though. I didn't brown on the top that well. But the veggies and mushrooms made it really tasty. Normally the dish just has some cream of mushroom soup added. But Crystal and I are both crazy about mushrooms, so more it always better for us.

Research is going alright. I've been stuck in the lab doing that contract work most of the time, though I should be finished with it relatively soon. And I might have some news about a grant in the next couple of weeks. Hopefully. Things are sounding promising, but I don't want to say anything more.

Immigration news

So, after several weeks of waiting, we have finally heard something about Crystal's visa/permit application. Looks like she has been approved. I can finally stop being worried about things. Looks like life will get more boring again, but better that than worries about being a criminal.

New Visa

I've finally gotten my new student visa and permit. After several weeks of annoying set backs and spending about two hours waiting in line, I'm legal to be in NZ for another year. Now, I just have to jump through a few hoops to get Crystal's permit renewed and everything will be ducky. I still think the fees that are charged for this process are pretty exorbitant. $130 for mine and $280 for Crystal's. Assuming a billing rate of about $30 per hour, that would mean that someone is looking at my permit application for about 4 hours. Crystal's gets over 9 hours of inspection. Somehow, I really doubt this is actually the case. Besides that, if you apply from within the US, there is no fee. I would assume that there would be less of a fee when you are involved with the main branch rather than an international office. But since when has reason or logic ever permeated into any form of government, let alone immigration.

We are supplying to INZ a copy of our marriage certificate and proof of our address, which should be sufficient to prove both "living together" and "in a genuine partnership". I think what annoys me, is that in principal, my permit is easier to get than Crystal's, when I think that the opposite should be the case. I.E, I feel that once I have proven myself here for legitimate reasons, Crystal should pretty much just be allowed to be here. After all, that's what the law states. Partners (not necessarily spouses) are guaranteed a work permit for the period of the main applicants student permit. After my experiences last year, I've decided that INZ requires an annoying amount of proving of a partnership, especially when marriage is not enough to satisfy them.

In any case, I no longer feel nervous about not having my passport in my possession. Since it is the only ID that I have that everyone in NZ will accept for everything (especially the procurement of alcohol) I don't like being without it.

Anyway, study is still going well. I have an abstract and article due at the end of this week, though I am primarily waiting for feedback from Colin before I send them off. In fact, I'm just waiting for a final ok from John before I send the abstract off. I think it all looks pretty good and am excited at the prospect of presenting at these conferences. Crystal wants to come along to the one in Egypt, and I can't blame her for that.

Plane tickets

Well, I've been bad about updating for the last few weeks. Christmas is over, and life is pretty much back to routine for both Crystal and me.

We are however, finally seriously looking at purchasing plane tickets for a trip home. The plan is to spend three weeks at the end of May back home. We are just organizing to make sure that we have all the money stuff figured out.

I've been doing a lot of field and lab work lately, and I'll be in the field again next week. I'm also getting a short article ready for a conference in September. Thankfully, this conference is in Auckland so that I won't have to do any sort of travel to go there.