Visa: Submitted!

This past Friday, I felt probably the greatest amount of relief I have since I finished and turned in my last paper of my Stanford education two months ago: I completed and submitted my UK visa application! This was a necessary logistical and bureaucratic hoop to jump through, but I felt particularly gratified to have sifted through the mountainous and mind-numbing requirements on the UKBA (UK Border Agency) website without missing any details or fudging any paperwork, or so I hope. Besides, judging from some of the close-call experiences of friends and even members of my family who have studied or traveled abroad, the visa application package wasn't something I wanted to mess up. Even if a mumbling, indecipherable U.S. Post Office employee made the last stage before submission a difficult one (why are USPS employees always impossible to lipread?), I'm once again that much closer to commencing my time in the UK! And am looking forward to meeting my fellow "Rhodies" and Oxford people very much indeed... this is almost like the summer before freshman year all over again. Luckily, the key word being "almost."