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3:48 am EDT 55°F (13°C) in Dearborn, MI
Calendar of Updates | I got home this past Sunday afternoon, and almost immediately headed out to Ann Arbor. Since Sunday is my friend Marc’s primary day off every week, we did the usual dinner, poker, and NCAA Football 2005; for once, I was finally able to kick his ass in both poker and football. (Of course, the football ass-kicking again required him to play as Division I-AA Grambling (La.) State University, while I took the #3 team in the nation, Louisiana State University.) I spent the night at his place because I had a couple of medical appointments on Monday afternoon out there. I’m really starting to wonder if the resident internal-medicine doctors at the University of Michigan Hospital have even the slightest clue of what the fuck they’re doing; the one I had Monday, like all the rest of them I’ve had in the past, bullshitted around and didn’t want to do any tests on the stomach issues I have been having on-and-off for a month now. Other than a couple more trips to and from Ann Arbor in the last few days, the big news is that I’ve found out my plans to move to Canada aren’t going to come anywhere near as easily as I had hoped. I spoke with a consultant at a law firm across the river in Windsor, Ontario by phone the other day to ask a bunch of questions. Basically, it looks like there are only two paths I can follow to obtaining Canadian citizenship: (1) get some Canadian guy to fall for me, marry him, and have him sponsor me for immigration, or (2) finish a degree and obtain at least two years’ work experience in one of their preferred fields here in the States before even beginning the process. (I don’t exactly have access to $400,000 in capital, so the “business class” immigration program is out of the question. Also, it looks like the provincial nomination methods have requirements similar to the federal program.) Another big consideration, aside from the high employment- and education-related barriers to entry, is the cost. There are a number of fees imposed by Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) at various points in the process that, according to this consultant, total roughly $1,100 Canadian (or about $985 U.S. at yesterday’s exchange rate of 89.6¢ U.S. on the Canadian dollar). Retaining the law firm I contacted to handle the case would run another $3,500 Canadian ($3,136 U.S.) in legal fees — and they want one-third of that up front before they will even fill out the paperwork and submit it to CIC, meaning you’re out a grand before you even find out if CIC will let you in! (That, by the way, may take up to two years.) If I am going to move to Canada, obviously at this point it looks like that’s a much longer-term undertaking. I had been wondering if I should even try to obtain the rest of my education in Canada, and just say the hell with the U.S. when I finally decide to hang up the truck keys in a couple years, but now I know that’s not going to work. I’m going to have to stay here in the States for a while, it seems, although if our nascent fascist regime keeps on ignoring the Constitution, I will do everything in my power to get the hell out. It’s possible that this country and everything it stands for may yet be saved, but His Fraudulency King Chimpy the 43rd has truly brought us to the same precipice upon which Germany found itself in 1934. All right, Larry needs his sleep for the night, so that’s it. |
