Very Important Stuff to Assemble
Posted on 1:58 pm in Artsy | 13 Comments »
15 September 2008
That is the date of my departure. 
It was a slight cause of panic, when I heard the date, because University of Kent’s registration is on the 20th/21st, and so … 15 seemed a bit early. 
I’ve had more than a few reasons for panic attacks lately (although my “panic attacks” were more like “HAH?! 
OMG omg no way seriously eeeeeeeeeeekkkkk!!” and then half an hour later I’ll be lazing around the house like nothing happened 
); one of them you already know — the problem with getting my passport.
Which, I’d like to announce, is now all settled and fine and dandy. 
Alhamdulillah. It wasn’t smooth sailing, by any means, though. For one; trying to have a polite, civilised conversation with most some government officers on the phone has always been a challenge. To me anyways. And when things started to look up (ie. “Yes, your case is done. You can come and do your passport anytime.” ), I was reminded of the importance of patience in every day life again (ie. after enduring morning KL traffic jams and tolls and the usual hassle of traveling, we were greeted at the landing of the elevator at the Passport Department by a smiling officer — yeah. Something must be wrong, right? — who sheepishly told us that the whole computer system was “down” for nobody-knows-how-long and we could either wait, or come again later. Yeah, thanks a lot. 
And we couldn’t go to any of the other Immigration branches because my file and documents were already with that particular place. 
)
So we had to come the next day. And it was all okay. 
I have to say, I must’ve received a few stares after I left the counter and headed out because I … er, was probably grinning a little too much compared to the average passport applicant 
, and was clutching the passport like it was made of gold. 
But hey, one can’t help but be grateful to receive a passport after such problems, albeit one that took 20 days to process instead of 2 hours. 