What is Your Quest?

I have noticed there are some misconceptions circulating about my nationality. While it's true that I've been working on becoming a British citizen, I am sadly not at the end of my quest yet.

Over the past few months I've made certain steps towards that goal. First of which was passing the Life in The UK exam, followed by applying for a Permanent Residency Permit. Both of which required a lot of time. I've spent a month preparing for the exam, a week filling up a form for the permit and two months waiting for a decision to be made. It all went well enough. I expected to wait half a year for the permit but I got it in less than half the time which allowed me to visit my godson for his first communion ceremony. My main hurdle at the moment is money.

I've been saving money for it for the past year. Due to that trip I had to spend some of it so my plan to get it done by the holiday season didn't pan out. The fee going up by three times what I expected this year didn't help either. So a few weeks ago I sat down to make some calculations. Turns out that going by my usual rate I'll have enough money saved up for it in March.

As such, my main concern now is to cut down my expenses so I can get it over with as soon as possible. Currently, my plan is to cut down on my usual expenses so I can hit my target sooner than March. I've already made some decisions to achieve that.

- Reluctantly, I broke my promise to a good friend to visit her in Amsterdam this year.
- I won't be doing anything for my birthday in November nor for Christmas as in previous years.
- I'm suspending my dojo membership for the next three months.

All of the above should net me three months worth of savings and if I receive back the money I lent out to a friend, I'll have another month worth of savings to add to that.

It still won't let me reach my goal by October but my mum wanted to give me the money I'm missing. I refused to take any, obviously, but we talked about it some and reached an agreement where I would borrow money from her after the summer holidays. Hopefully, I'll manage to spend as much time at work as possible over the coming months, boosting my income in the process so I won't be forced to borrow as much from my mum as she's offering to give me.

A Vital Test

Shortly after my birthday celebrations were done, I started to focus more on studying for a test.

The test in question was called Life in The UK.

It's one of the requirements for obtaining a British passport as part of the naturalisation process. It's also a test that I've attempted once and failed by a few points so, naturally, I was horribly stressed while going over questions for it every day for two weeks.

I would have tried sitting through it last year but the problems I have had in the past two years depleted my funds in their entirety. I wasn't in any financial nor mental shape to go through the whole application process at the time. However, with this year's news of the UK leaving the EU, I decided it was as good a time as any to try once more.

Yes, this book...

There's a book you're supposed to go through to prepare for the test. I read through it all, cover to cover, a few years back as preparation for my first attempt and, as mentioned before, it wasn't enough. Despite assurances from friends and family, I didn't manage to pass. So this time I approached it in a different manner, I started doing practice tests.

Every day I would sat down in front of the computer screen, click on a link to the practice tests and go through them time and time again. Of course, a lot of times I would be one point short of passing. A fact I found most infuriating but I redid them until my scores improved. I mainly took note of the terms and facts I wasn't familiar with and looked them up, while reading too much into them, as is my way.

I was stressed throughout half of November. There were nights I couldn't sleep. I'd go to bed and wake up a few hours later unable to shut my eyes for the remainder of the night. I even turned down opportunities to play games because I had to study!

I didn't think much of it when the day finally came. I made sure I packed all my documents the day before, had a day of rest, woke up and went off. With trains being as they are, I took an early one. Fortunately, my way to Croydon had only one problem in that the automatic doors at my destination's station refused to read my ticket. I was let out without a fuss though and headed off to the test centre. I passed a music shop with violins on display, always a good sign.

When I entered the centre, I was informed that I don't have to wait for my specified time and may do the test straight away. I presented my documents, they checked my ears for bluetooth devices and asked me to roll up my sleeves before I was allowed to enter the examination room.

It was a fairly simple design with desks and computers all around it with one in the middle where an observer was situated. I sat down and answered all the questions I could. I was baffled to see so many of them having been from the practice tests I took. Of course, they were not exactly the same questions. Often, the questions and answers were reversed but I had a very good idea what they would be. I even had a plethora of the exact same questions I was telling of my parents over the phone the other day.

Surely enough, after all was said and done. I was told I passed, they printed out a certificate with my name on it and congratulated me. I went home and that night I roleplayed first and then went to have a drink. I had way too much to drink and stayed up way too long but I could hardly contain myself.

Suffice to say, after all that, I was positively shattered at the end of November.

PS: If anyone is interested in what sort of questions are there on the test, here's a useful link.

Brexit

It's been well over a week since the UK held a referendum on whether or not to leave the EU.

Normally, I avoid talking about current events here because they don't affect me on a personal level. This, however, had a very strong impact on me.

British politics is going crazy at the moment. People are coming out of the woodwork claiming they regret their Leave vote, while it turns out a lot of people didn't go vote Remain because the weather wasn't nice. Farage is insulting EU politicians while The Guardian proclaims him as some kind of Messiah. Seemingly everyone is pushing for Corbyn to resign. Everyone and their mum is running for Prime Minister. Brexit promises are denied, like they never happened. There are protests on the streets of London. There's a petition for another referendum.

There's probably a lot of other nonsense going on too amid all this chaos.

As for me, I'm not sure what to think. I'm more worried about others and what this will mean for the economy of the British Isle than myself personally. When the results came in, a lot of my friends started talking about getting passports of other EU countries and figuring out ways to move out of the UK.

It saddens me to hear that. This whole referendum saddens me in general. When I first voiced my emotions, I was met with reassurances that no one is going to be kicking out EU-nationals. Whether that's the case or not isn't an issue for me. I would ideally prefer to keep my life the way it is and work on improving it rather than be forced to start over, obviously, but my gripes are mainly ideological.

I moved to England because at the time I thought of it as a progressive and cosmopolitan country. Precisely the kind of place I wanted to live in. I was tired of living among people who'd judge others based on arbitrary qualities like where they were born, who they were attracted to or what their interests were.

I've met some great people over here in Brighton who helped me through some harsh times. Although I haven't been subject to any 'racist' attacks, which are on the rise since the referendum, I can't help but wonder. If all the people I care about were to leave and I'm left in a country of nationalistic bigots, what's the point of staying here at all?

The Weirdness of Public Transportation

On one of the many fateful days that were more like a night if one is to account for the lack of light and prevalence of darkness on the streets and the cold wind blowing for the ephemeral space where the dead dwell... I got on a bus. As it often happens from some time now, I was reading a book and then the unexpected happen.

"Can you move somewhere else so I can sit here?" a woman who was failing the fight against gravity asked while I magnificently dodged the few drops of an alcoholic beverage filling her can. I have considered the request over letting this woman sit down in a place that clearly belonged to her from the dawn of mankind. For, as I recall, the great prophets have said that the public transportation seat of the second floor at the very front to the very left is the property of any inebriated female species of the human race. Unfortunately, we decided the Neanderthals are better whacked than listened to so our ancestors have recorded only a few tidbits of their wisdom... and even that must have been filled with propaganda. So in all my generosity, politeness and kindness I said the most simple of words.

"NO"

I am not sure how my answer was taken as an invitation to pointing out several seats all over the bus that were empty, of which there were at least 8 just in my peripheral vision... but it was amusing nonetheless.

"Ok, I asked nicely, now this guy over there will tell you to get another seat." The New Challenger appeared. The reader at this point should imagine the stereotypical tall guy who has more muscles than brains because it has been scientifically proven that the more people think people you've killed, the more likely they are to vote you governor of their state. The problem was that England has counties, so your mileage may vary in Europe.

"What is the problem?" he says while looking from me to her.
"He's not giving me my seat."
"Oh yeah?!" He was excited like a reject from a Superman film. "Give this lady the seat."

I have considered the request that he infused with a healthy dose of testosterone that would make even Dirty Harry look like a wimpy kid crying over his stolen candy stick.

"NO"

At this point the woman was getting furious but the man calmed her down by saying that they will get out of the bus at the same stop as me and teach me a lesson. Her guy left to go to the back of the bus. While she stood there being drunk a guy sitting on the other side of the bus attempted to placate her by giving away his own seat but she was not so easily taken by some other seat. She specifically wanted the one that my ass was currently enjoying. A moment later my stop came up so I stood up and gone out while the apparent couple was having a shouting match from the two ends of the bus... something about something she did while he was in prison or something...

The door closed and the bus disappeared into the night!

I'm back in England

After 15 hours of getting from one country to the next... which wasn't such a bad trip knowing my track record, it was actually quite an enjoyable one this time around... I have done a lot of things over the past few days...

1. Shopping = new laptop, new router, enough food to go by
2. Updated my RPoL games = making nearly half a dozen new threads is not easy, especially if you go through a time lapse
3. Cleaned my room = it's not that my room was untidy when I got here, but with the stuff that I brought back with me, I had to reorganize a lot of things, put away everything I won't need for this academic year and make room for all those papers I'll inevitably get from my tutors this year
4. Cleaned the refrigerator = because going by the amount of unclean dishes in the sink, how empty and frozen the fridge was and all those pizza boxes lying around I'm apparently the only using that thing
5. I informed my landlord of my return
6. I went through all the letters I got...

Here's the thing, aside from the bills that I'll split up with one other room-mate, I received a very peculiar letter. Apparently, everyone who was living here the previous year must pay council tax!

See, in England you pay this thing called council tax by which your money goes to the city council, police and fire brigade... it's all cool if not for the simple fact that we are all full-time students, thus exempt from this tax. What's even more annoying is that I'm apparently the only one living here from the previous year, so I have to go to the city council now and someone make it apparent I not only shouldn't have been required to pay but I'm also incapable of paying 1,514.18 pounds...

on top of that, I still have letters to write...

Nation

One of my new classes this semester is Identity and Culture. On our last class we watched fragments of a BBC documentary called 100% English, where people who considered themselves 100% English explained what they think about their national identity and allowed their DNA to be tested for traces of other races.

It was interesting to watch, since I always considered myself 100% Polish, but in a much different way. The people we saw cared greatly about their purity, to the extent that they didn't seem to be too happy about scientists finding traces of other races in their genome. Which was mostly seen by their sentence build. I on the other hand, would find it cool to have some "impurities".

Then we went to the subject of integration and what is the difference between emigrant and immigrant. It's been said that the difference is that the latter tries to adjust themselves to the culture they immigrated to. What's interesting, I think of myself as an immigrant, but according to others' point of view I am an emigrant due to the fact that I don't change the way I act depending on the environment I find myself in. Then again, I don't think this is the case. As I don't suddenly start to bitch, whine and moan on everything that is English specifically because it is English. I even do that when I'm in Poland. I like some parts of one country over the other, and that doesn't change with the place I am in.

However, this specific lecture made me think about whether I really want to stay in England for good. I like it here, but I don't want to be seen as a foreign invader. I know that people want to have a distinct feel to their communities and cultures. For some reason, although I am an individualist, I like to learn about customs and traditions of others, yet, I see cultural integration as a means to enhance a culture instead of destroying it.

I still think myself a Pole, but I'd rather see European under my nationality on the passport. Just because I don't believe nationality can be described as the place of birth. Lets take this hypothetical question: If a Spanish and Ukrainian pair has a child in Scotland and moves to Lithuania after 3 years, and moves countries of residence approximately every 3 years. What is the child's nationality? Since it was raised by members of different nations and in various nations, the easiest answer would be Scottish... but can such a child be truly described as British?

Thinking

Today I talked to one other Pole working at the same factory as I did. He asked me an interesting question 'Do you feel safe living here?' I felt surprised and asked for some explanation behind this question. Thus he told me what's been happening in the neighbourhood he lives in. How his brother-in-law got his car smacked and everything taken out of it because he had Polish plates and how he once found a burning bed in front of his house while watching the TV. He said that this country is screwed and messed up. The only thing I could say was that it's not the fault of this country nor it's people, he just happened to live in a bad neighbourhood where people are lousy and the teenagers have nothing to do with their lives so they look for scapegoats... in this case us, Poles who came to this country to steal their money by working here.

That was said by me. A person who for nearly two months now was called dickface, Polish bastard, Pedro, gay (off the top of my head), who has been threatened with beating, pushed off the road while riding a bike, laughed at, pointed fingers at. Who works while others sit down and do nothing. Who comes to work and is greeted by the 'My name is Chris and I fucking stink' written where I work in the morning. Who everyone tells what he has to do when receiving a job that he, himself, doesn't want to do. This makes me wonder... should I throw away the English flag that I have in my room? But I still have too much faith in this country... I just pray it isn't a blind one...

Work isn't bad, I like it, although I despise the people I work with. Sadly, I'm used to it all. I remembered the words of my father today, I heard him saying them to me, although it was so long ago, I can never forget them, but I'll try to put a bit of a context behind them.

About 10 years ago, we moved from the city I was born in into another. I did not know the true reason behind this then, but my parents tried to change how I always came home crying... either bruised, my things stolen or spit at and laughed at... more in the neighbourhood I lived in than at school... I could run at school, but I had to come back home, and walk through the only door to the building no matter what route I took. And so we moved, it wasn't any better... my dad took me to the psychologist in order to help me fit in with the environment. I don't remember what we talked about, I only remember that when we walked out, and the door closed, my dad told me that wherever we go, it's always the same. He told me what he thought: 'It's not the environment's fault, there's something wrong with you.'

Now, looking back... at the schools I went to, and the workplace I am at currently... I guess he was more right than I might have suspected...

Wings

A week from now, I won't be here any more.

I shall fly to England, seeking a job so that I shall be able to save money for higher education. Luckily, I won't have any internet access so you won't have to deal with my constant rambling.

I talked about the job, I have it, I will know the details when I arrive, the ticket is bought, so now the only thing remaining is to say goodbye to old friends, get back what's mine, and give back what I borrowed. I probably won't see any of my friends in a long time... not that I consider any of them my friends, mind you.

I'm actually looking forward to that experience, but am a bit worried about leaving everything here. I still wait for those email replies from uni, and my results are still not here.

This Sunday, I shall fly to my favourite country.