Hell hath no fury like the temperament of a bureaucrat designing immigration forms. I cannot think of anything other than a vengeful spirit, possibly brought on by a thwarted love affair, that could have led anyone to compose the sentence I’ve put I boldface below:<\/p>\n
\n\u201cSince [first entering the UK] have you had any absences from the UK? If yes, give the dates of and reason(s) for the absences in the spaces below. List all absences, however short, including all of 3 months or more<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n \n(I have yet to find anyone who can tell me, grammatically or otherwise, whether I am actually meant to try to list my forty or so absences of less<\/em> than three months in the eight small spaces provided.) <\/p>\n \nHaving lived continuously in the United Kingdom for nearly five years, my visa is due to expire in October. So I am in the process of applying for Indefinite Leave to Remain via the ominously-acronymed, multi-pag\u00e9d SET0<\/a><\/sup> application. Not only do I have to complete fields packed with sentences as abstruse as the above specimen, provide originals of hundreds of documents (such as every payslip I have ever received here) and surrender \u00a3750, but I must prove my allegiance to this fair land by passing the infamous ‘Life in the UK’ Test. (I’ve trialled some of the sample questions on my British colleagues and have determined that most of them would probably fail it outright.)<\/p>\n \nWhy, you might ask, is an American putting herself through all this? The short answer is that I am weary of travel and anxious to put down roots. And Britain has come to feel more like home than anywhere else I’ve ever lived, the US included. When I resided in Amsterdam, it was London I felt homesick for. I travel quite a bit, but whenever I land at Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton or Stansted, I feel a little flutter of happiness in my heart that my journey has ended in this place above all others.<\/p>\n \nOne of the hallmarks of the scientific profession is, of course, its transient nature. When you are younger this feature is exciting, and there is no doubt that I have benefited from experiencing so many other cultures at close range. But gradually, the lack of a solid foundation starts to take its toll. You begin to suspect that your soul has been spread a bit too thin. Sometimes, walking down a familiar-seeming street, I’ve had to suddenly stop in my tracks and actively remember what city I’m in. I’ve done research now in three different countries, and I have lived in eighteen different residences since leaving home in 1986. But even when you’re ensconced in one laboratory for a good few years, people come and go around you in a bewildering blur. I have lost track of the number of times I’ve met a new colleague and shared a instant jolt of connection with them, only to see a flyer for their leaving party put up a week later. The pang of loss, it seems, gets worse with age. <\/p>\n \nAlthough settling down won’t stop everyone else from leaving, at least you are a stationary object and the relative velocity feels a bit dampened. Some friends will still slip through your fingers, but I fervently hope that given time, I can eventually accumulate a small community of warmth and stability around me.<\/p>\n \nOf course no one knows what the future will bring. Maybe the winds will change and I’ll be blown off again one day like dandelion fluff on the breeze. But for now, I am feeling the pull of solid British soil beneath my feet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hell hath no fury like the temperament of a bureaucrat designing immigration forms. I cannot think of anything other than a vengeful spirit, possibly brought on by a thwarted love affair, that could have led anyone to compose the sentence … Continue reading