Not only to the United States, to this website as well! Since August I’ve been working on a complete rework of this blog and a launch this weekend seems possible. I made huge progress in the last 3 weeks and the changes will be massive. You can look forward to a new design and new functionality, some parts like the picture gallery will get a complete rework. The new website will allow me to post more pictures, posting will be easier for me especially from my iPhone (the current design has some limitations), so you can expect a lot more posts with a lot more pictures, simply because it will be less complicated and thus more fun to me. I also plan to buy a new camera soon and bought a wonderful book titled ‘100 walks in Tasmania’ today. I hope I can do as many of these walks as possible, but I don’t want to head off without a proper camera, I need to get a new one this month, definitly.
The whole design part of the website is finished, I only need to finish some Ajax/PHP development like for the new gallery, and then I have to test everything in Internet Explorer ;). Hopefully the disappointment won’t be too big and I can get it to run. It already works flawlessly in WebKit and Mozilla.
There will be so many things to change that it might not be possible to do everything on one day, so if you visit this website and it looks like garbage, please come back 1-2 days later. Hopefully the new version will have a longer lifetime than the previous ones, it’s already the third design in one year. I spend too much time on my own sites… it would be better for my bank account to spend this time on paid projects instead of fun projects.
Paid projects is a good point. A lot of interesting job opportunities are currently popping up around me, but at this point I don’t want to reveal details until things are getting official. But this is another reason why I’m trying to finish this blog rework asap.
What I can tell is that I passed my IELTS English test with 8 out of 9 points, I needed at least 6 or 7, so it all went good. With the test results I was finally able to apply for a state nomination for migration, and even though it’s not official yet, they sent me a quick message that they’re happy to give me a nomination. That means I will probably submit my visa application in the next couple of days or weeks. After six months of preparation and countless forms, fees and paperwork I reached the final step and everything looks positive so far.
The only thing that is still missing is the medical examination. Last week I went to the hospital in Hobart and got a chest x-ray. According to official documents Germany’s health standards might not be as high as Australia’s (huh?), so I was required to bring a chest x-ray, just in case I might have tuberculosis. Citizens of Sweden, Iceland or Monaco are not required to bring a chest x-ray, I really don’t know what is so different in Iceland or Sweden compared to Germany, but I guess it’s all based on statistics of the World Health Organisation. Funny though, according to this document health risks in Australia are less high than in Germany, maybe that might be worth a discussion with 50% of the population being overweight according to statistics that were published not long ago… But in the end I can fully understand that there are a lot of checks for migrants. It only makes sense that a government wants to make sure immigrants are not a burden to the social security systems and that they don’t bring any diseases to Australia. It’s a benefit for everyone. Sometimes the details of these checks are a bit funny though.
Anyway, after the x-ray I needed to go to a general medical examination, but unfortunately it was cancelled and moved to next week. I hope this examination won’t be too embarrassing for me, I’ve already seen the form that the doctor needs to fill out during the examination, and checklists like ‘nose: normal/abnormal’, ‘ears: normal/abnormal’ and ‘intelligence: normal/abnormal’ raise some eyebrows… Fortunately according to the website of the DIAC tuberculosis is the only disease that is mentioned in migration laws as a reason for not granting a visa due to health issues. So as long as I don’t have tuberculosis (which I cannot find out because I’m not allowed to open the x-ray documents…) my chances for a new visa look great, even in case the funny doctor marks my ears or nose as abnormal… ;)
