Interview Day

Interview Day

My interview time was at 11:30 am. I was not sure of where the school was and arrived in the area at 10:30 am. Ron went with me, so we stopped for coffee while my nerves rattled. The interview lasted a half hour after some basic questions. They explained that they usually only have one student to one teacher or groups of two students at a time. They primarily contract with businesses for their employees who are not necessarily willing students. It was explained that this is a slow time of the year, since many are recouping from the holidays and are not interested in starting lessons, but they do want to get me started for when things get moving.

The first bit of business is getting my work permit. They will handle this, but I have to have my original diploma. Of course, I have photocopies with me as well as officially sealed transcripts, but that does not meet the needs of the government. They will only accept the original diploma, which then needs to go to an official translator of which there is only one agency for the entire country. After the diploma is translated and we are talking three weeks time, it goes to some other agency for more bureaucratic shuffling.

I e-mailed USF to see about getting a second diploma as mine is in storage in New Jersey. This is becoming a repetitive theme. They will only accept a mailed letter or a faxed letter with my credit card number for the $20.00 fee. My chances of finding somewhere that will do an international fax here are about as good as finding a Hard Rock Café. It ain’t going to happen. With great hope, I e-mailed my friend Beverly who lives near the university and teaches there part-time to see if she could fill out the form, have her son forge my signature, and put in the request that will take them two weeks to respond to and then three weeks for the mail to reach me. Beverly has just moved right before Christmas, so I hesitated asking, but was desperate to save the two weeks it would take for the mail to go from here to there if I had done it via snail mail.

Once again, we received mail and again we were thrilled to see it. Not only were there Christmas cards, but also birthday cards. That was great fun and proves that it pays to advertise your birthday. Of course, there were none from my brother or my father, but getting them from friends more than made up for it. I also received about a dozen e-greeting cards. That was a pleasant surprise also.

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