A Turn for the Better, A Turn for the Worst

And so the story of Australia has taken a familiar turn.  A turn that Chad and I know all too well.

Things have been looking up in this department lately – We collected all of our materials for the Visa, and contacted the hospital to verify their status on things.  The news back was that they are “still very keen” on the idea, and were getting things wrapped up on their end. They were ready to sign the contract.  Our coordinator here had everything arranged, and we were sending the contract over.  Chad and I were starting to feel good about things; it finally seemed like things were starting to fall into place and we could see the light at the end of the tunnel.
With our coordinator being back on campus this week, we eagerly searched her out, and to our incredible dissapointment, received some devastating news.

Things seem to have gone awry with the hierarchy on OUR end of things. Someone, it seems, has a bone to pick with so-and-so, and is fluffing their feathers.  An issue that has come up before, and was “cleared” as far as we knew,  has renewed it’s little head. 

Over the course of the last two and a half years, Chad and I have put in the effort to research hundreds of Australian hospitals, to compose and send out hundreds (OK, 27) letters to the best of those hospitals asking for their “sponsorship” to accept us as externs. We contacted the ARRT to verify that our training overseas would be acceptable to sit for the Board exams and allow us to graduate. We checked and re-checked and then checked again that our insurance would still be valid. We met with our Financial Aid advisors to go over our funding for our final year, not to mention our countless meetings with our coordinator.  We dug through boxes to gather every document that they want for Visa’s, contacting the AU Embassy so many times that they will probably recognize our names on the applications! Everyone was on board – both here, and at our site in Australia.  Even the Dean had given the go-ahead.  But it seems somewhere along the line, someone in the “chain of command” has felt left out, and has decided to fight against us.

I know that my rant here can do nothing to soothe the frustration that I, Chad, and our coordinator are now experiencing.  I must remind myself that that “good-feeling” I have had about this thing from the get-go cannot be shaken by hiccups just because deadlines are hanging by the wire.  For, not too long ago, a guy and a gal had these same little hiccups when they were trying to make their way to Australia the first time. 

When Chad and I first signed up for our study abroad program, the roller coaster ride of “It’s a go!” “Oh no, it’s been cancelled” was nauseating and nail-biting.  We even received the dreaded e-mail that said we were being sent a refund-check for the money we had put down – and this was a month before we left.  It came down to the wire at that time too, yet 3 weeks or so before the date on our plane tickets, things fell into place, and we were celebrating Christmas by packing our bags for a 3 month trip.  A fairy-tale, I know, but it happened.  Who’s to say that it cannot happen again?  No one said that it would be easy, No one promised low levels of cortisol, and No one said it would be a quick process.  But then again, no one has called it ‘off’ yet, either.

Keep your positive thoughts flowing for us, everyone.