I must say, I did not see that coming. I was definitely challenged over the past 4 months. I would venture to say that in comparison to graduate school, it was more challenging. Especially the finals! Whoa, that was mentally frustrating. I am pretty confident that I have my study tactics down to succeed in future classes. I hope that in a few semesters I could possibly take on a research project? Ambitious? I tend to get overexcited about these things, RJ says I take on too much.. he may be right in this respect but don’t tell him that.
My long journey to finish 1st (4 out of the 36 months I still have left) was filled with many pumps in the road. Some much larger than others…I would like to share my “lost my passport” story as it was one of the larger bumps.
I moved into a new apartment in the beginning of this semester, and my parents also came for a visit. So somewhere in between my moving and traveling in-between my parents’ condo and my new apartment this passport was lost. At first this was not stressful. I casually looked for it completely confident that I would find it. Well, that feeling left after mid-semester break when I realized that it was truly lost. So, again, not stressed out, I thought that many Americans travel to the Caribbean and St. Kitts and some of them are bound to lose their passport or have it stolen so there is probably some sort of process I will have to go through, but nothing too bad. I was sadly mistaken….
My first thought was to approach Ross University (I am not the 1st student this has happened to right?...). They had no protocol or anything for me to follow. The secretary at administration, we’ll call her St. Cindy, was very helpful. She got on the phone with immigration and said I needed an emergency travelers form.. no problem, I can go get a form and fill it out, really is that all???
No, that was not all I had to do! This magical form needed to be filled out in order to take me to Antigua or Barbadoes so I could go to the US consular or embassy there and fill out paperwork for a new passport! Now, you may be asking yourself, why can’t you just use the emergency travelers form to get into the U.S.? Well you just can’t! You may also be asking yourself why don’t you just call the U.S. and ask them to help you…well I did, I practically called Obama himself. No one could help me because I am currently not on U.S. soil. OOOrrr you may be asking yourself, do all this by mail silly! NO, you have to be there in person in order to apply for a US passport.
So now I am starting to panic. Do I really need to fly to a different country and do this while studying and taking midterms?? Not cool man. So I composed myself and thought I will just call Barbadoes and get this figured out. It turns out because I am a student that technically lives in St. Kitts and not a “traveler” I needed to get another passport. If I was on “holiday” then I would not need such a stringent document and Obama would give the O.K. to let me back in the US, or something like that.
REALITY sets in… alright I need to go to Antigua to give the US consular there my paperwork. Alright, relax Sara, this isn’t that bad, you can pick up a souveneir or something while you are there. So I call the lovely US consulor, we’ll call her St. Arthur, and she informs me of what I need to bring with me. Amongst other forms I needed a police report. Alright, no big deal, I will just call the police department in downtown baseterre and give a statement and go pick it up during lunch and have time to pain my nails right? NO, while on the phone with the police department, I was informed I needed to sign an affidavit which could only be provided by a lawyer, and then they would take my statement and the report would be ready 3 Thursdays from next year! I comply with the nice policeman on the phone, hang up, and walk right into the administration office and burst into tears in front of St. Cindy. That poor woman did not see that coming. I had NO idea how to go about getting a lawyer in St. Kitts. I could not afford it either. So St. Cindy stayed true to her name and pulled through for me. Ross security drove me to a lawyers office downtown where I met with a lawyer, held up my hand and pledged my passport was truly lost and then signed my affidavit. Which was no cost to me, but we will hush hush about that.
Wow, I am getting things done. Things are looking up, right? Not entirely. With affidavit in hand I then have security take me to the police station. I walk into an old stone building that feels like a mixture between the movie dangerous minds and braveheart. So I am told to give my statement with a police woman down the hall. I walk into a gym with one small chalkboard that reads “police learning meeting on Friday.” Some windows were broken and there was one busted up wooden table in the middle of the room amongst over overturned chairs and trash. Let’s just say I didn’t feel the safest in the police station, which is contradictory to say the least. I gave my statement about how I simply lost my passport. It took 2.5 hours and me giving her where I lived in the states, how to spell veterinary school, and also what color my pajamas are…very thorough for a lost item.
So I am done right! NO, I still need the emergency travelers form from immigration. So I go there and no one is in. I go the next day, no one is in. I go the next day…does anyone freakin work in immigration! So let us take a step back and take a peek at my emotional roller coaster, I have gone from calm, trying to stay calm, frustrated, broken and crying, and now I am at anger…I walk into the police inspectors office, with no appointment, and declare that I need this immigration form, and I needed it yesterday! With that, I had a form in my hand…the next day, but a form in my hand nonetheless! What a magical form it was, it got me to Antigua and back in one day and it was actually inaccurate. It said I had blue eyes, I have hazel eyes. Not one out of ~5 immigration officials picked up on that in my traveling.
Traveling to Antigua and back was much smoother. They needed to send my paperwork to Barbados, then from Barbados to the US, the US would then send my new passport to Barbados and then Barbados would send it to me! YAY! I got it within about 2 weeks. It all worked out for the better. I will disregard the fact that my roommate just found my “lost” passport in her room 2 nights ago…happy thoughts Sara, happy thoughts.
Compared to my “lost passport” experience I can now tackle the world… lol no, but really I tend not to get stressed about trivial things nowadays. That does, of course, not pertain to school. I feel like knowing every aspect of a cow digest tract down to the microscopic papillae will not help me much in small animal practice, but I enjoyed learning it all. The key work being enjoyed learning, as I do not enjoy being tested on it.
With a 9 months old puppy and a lax attitude towards non-school related stressful events, I feel I can enter 2nd semester with a pretty positive attitude that I will pass!
I am sorry I don't have a single picture of anything remotely interesting to show you as I did not take pictures of my adventures this break...however, I did take pictures of Arthur sleeping in various positions while I slaved away studying!
