The Stench of Desperation

I spent all day yesterday running around trying to get a pastille an apostille from the Secretary of State.

A process..

Prior, I had my fingerprints taken in one of the approved electronic scanning outlets near my house. These are sent to State Capirol and then the DOJ sends back a report on criminality. In my case, a clear one.

Then, I have to get this thing notarized.. which is really just me walking over to a notary and signing a thing saying.. "oh.. this is the piece of paper I received from the DOJ). This part of the thing is idiotic.. you could game it with the willingness to lie to the notary public and a computer and a printer. Thank GOD no one in the US has that lethal combination of technology.

If you do this.. the notary places a single stamp that leaves some ink on both pieces of paper to indicate that the thing you printed out on your dot-matrix printer your report from the DOJ and the form containing the lie you told to the notary the evidence of your honesty.

Then, you have to go to to the City Hall of the area in which your notary was licensed, and get a a "verification of the notary." Whaaa?

And after that you get your lovely apostille.

Which I now have. I did hie myself hence all over the Big City and that is my desperation.

But this process is now required and anyone from my state, currently in Korea, would have to fly back here to do it or start the process about 6 months ahead of time. So one might guess that Korean Uni's aren't getting the kind of retention rate they have had in the past.

Which is why I am now getting calls from Korean Unis who disdained my application (hey, I'm fat and old, which are problems in Korea). Who knows what the woman who called me tonight thought? If people haven't been able to navigate all this crap up to this point? How was I gonna do it in the few weeks remaining?

Anyway.. it's funny.

I seem in at Woosong.. and even if not, I will enter in leisurely fashion somewhere.

I love the stench of desperation in the morning.