noizZze

Since 15 October 2007, if you apply for visa, you need to sign the Australian Values Statement to acknowledge that you understand and appreciate the values, way of life and laws of Australia. It’s mandatory now and you can’t get an approval without it.

To give you all necessary facts and figures, they issued a 40-page book called Life in Australia. On its colorful and well-designed pages you learn many curious geographical and lifestyle facts. I only quickly skimmed through it, but my immediate impression was that it is a great and entertaining read.

Here you can learn more about the statement, the procedure and download the book itself. You can also order a printed version on some languages, and they promise to release an audio version soon.

Interesting, hah!

On Saturday, as we landed in Kiev on a way back from the vacation in Egypt, my cell buzzed with a message. A second later my heart broke out the chest — a note from my mother said that they had received the letter from ACS with my skill assessment results. Oh my God!

The next day I paid a visit to my parents, opened the letter to learn that I was approved and granted the highest category of IT specialist. On top of that, they certified me suitable for additional points for excessive knowledge in J2EE, and attached the form for a discounted membership. As you may or may not know, ACS is an organization gathering and training IT specialists under its umbrella, which helps immensely when looking for new job opportunities.

The next step would be to collect all documents necessary for the main visa application and proceed with it online. It will probably take another year to process it to immigration office, but still it’s already half way up to success.

Great news, hah!

Now this is really crazy (in a positive sense, certainly). I knew Australian Government to be liberal and modern and up-to-date (relatively to some other places on this planet), but this news caught me by an absolute surprise.

Check out Thinking Home Business and this post where Des Walsh says:

The Australian Government Consultation Blog Discussion Paper is, as the name implies, an invitation to public discussion about the potential value for government and the community in having a government “consultation blog”, what such a blog might contain, how it would be managed and so on.

The paper is available as a downloadable PDF and you can also read it on the Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO) website.

The paper provides some background on “the new internet environment”, covering the evolution in the way people communicate online and spelling out some challenges for government in seeking to participate more fully in this environment.

(from: Government Consultation Blog Discussion Paper)

This provokes some ideas. Definitely. Here in Ukraine I don’t feel myself as a part of the country. They do something on their own, we do something on our. This innovation AU authorities are planning makes me want to get there badly. It’s not that I fancy going to the blog every day to speak to the governors, but to me it shows that they are open, and most importantly, open to innovation — new ideas, new approaches.

Just another illustration I was holding up for a special occasion is an upgraded process of visa applications processing. In the past there was an option to lodge applications through the form on the immi.gov.au site and send electronic copies of documents, and it was available only for the onshore applicants. This month I discovered that it has become available to offshore people (not all types of visas yet). Today people can scan their documents, fill the online form and upload it altogether in hour instead of waiting days for the regular mail delivery and waiting in huge queues for the officer to be assigned.

Moreover, there’s one further step taken. If you send a color copy of a document, it doesn’t need to be certified, yet if you send a black & white — it needs. Isn’t it beautiful!

As the result of this improvement, the processing time decreased substantially. I’m not sure about exact times for the whole process before and after, but I do know that it took almost 6-10 months only to get an officer assigned to you before; now it’s only 2-3 days.

Well, let’s see what’s next!

Yesterday after a 10 days of waiting for all necessary documents to be signed and delivered, I finally sent them to ACS. It’s an additional package they requested consisting of the certified copy of my birth certificate, and certified copies of reference letters from the previous and present employers and partners.

The story with the birth certificate is crazy. Here, in Ukraine, it’s prohibited by the law to certify any copies of passports either local or international. So initially, I sent a simple photocopy of the document. After four weeks of processing an ACS officer contacted me with the request to send a certified copy even though I clearly stated it’s against the rules here and can’t be done. I realize they have their own regulations that I need to obey, but how on earth I am supposed to get these documents without breaking a law. Is this what they want from me? To start a new life by breaking two or three laws in my previous?

Fortunately, when I was mulling it over it conjured up that they accept birth certificates as an alternative way of identification. That worked. I translated the copy and certified it all over. One other funny thing to notice is that one notary, when asked for an advice with certifying the passport, suggested having a quick journey to a neighboring Belarus where they can certify my passport and papers without a question. Odd, isn’t it?

Another, no less amusing, story is with my reference letters. The originals are all in English, inasmuch as all my partners are English-speaking. Local laws state that a notary can’t certify a document in a foreign language. It means that even though the document flies to another English-speaking country, it has to be translated into Russian, the signature of the translator should be certified and only then the copy of the document itself can be certified. Now this is weird. Is it harder for them to place a stamp on the paper if it’s not a government document? I don’t know, but it seems to me that all notaries can’t see farther than their own noses and are extremely rigid thinking strictly inside their boxes.

On Tuesday the documents will arrive to Sydney. Let’s see how it goes now.

This morning I sent the complete package of documents to Australian Computer Society (ACS) for skill assessment procedure. It’s a lengthy process (3-4 months in the best case) that will confirm me as a specialist in IT. This confirmation is an essential part of the Independent Specialist Visa application.

I hope the letter will reach the institution on next Monday, and they successfully withdraw the payment from my credit card. Then I will start counting days and watch the progress they publish on their site.

Wish me good luck!

The long-awaited results of our IELTS test I was writing quite a bit about are finally on the table, unwrapped…

They look great with all these watermarks around, but what makes them really shine is the marks. Kate, and she was studying the language for only two years from ground zero, got 4.5 (Listening), 5.5 (Reading), 6 (Writing) and 5 (Speaking) which averages at 5.5. I got my fair 8.5 (Listening), 8.5 (Reading), 8 (Writing) and 7 (Speaking) with the average of 8.0.

The IELTS scale is from 0 (Did not attempt) to 9 (Expert user). Below is the detailed explanation of what each grade means.

9 Expert User

Has fully operational command of the language: appropriate, accurate and fluent with complete understanding.

8 Very Good User

Has fully operational command of the language with only occasional unsystematic inaccuracies and inappropriacies. Misunderstandings may occur in unfamiliar situations. Handles complex detailed argumentation well.

7 Good User

Has operational command of the language, though with occasional inaccuracies, inappropriacies and misunderstandings in some situations. Generally handles complex language well and understands detailed reasoning.

6 Competent User

Have generally effective command of the language despite some inaccuracies, inappropriacies and misunderstandings. Can use and understand fairly complex language, particularly in familiar situations.

5 Modest User

Has partial command of the language, coping with overall meaning in most situations, though is likely to make many mistakes. Should be able to handle basic communication in own field.

4 Limited User

Basic competence is limited to familiar situations. Has frequent problems in use of complex language.

3 Extremely Limited User

Conveys and understands only general meaning in very familiar situations. Frequent breakdowns in communication occur.

2 Intermittent User

No real communication is possible except for the most basic information using isolated words or short formulae in familiar situations and to meet immediate needs. Has great difficulty understanding spoken and written English.

1 Non User

Essentially has no ability to use the language beyond possibly a few isolated words.

0 Did not attempt

No assessable information provided. Candidate may have failed to sit for the test

I checked with current regulations, and it seems I need only 5/5/5/5 to be eligible for application, and for 6/6/6/6 I even get some little bonus. Kate still needs the average above 4.5. As we all see, the life is great and with our marks we can do two immigrations in a row. The marks are valid for a one-year period, so I have to keep a good pace not to expire them before the actual application.

Yesterday we visited the Linguist Center, where we were learning and polishing the language all this time before the test, to thank everybody with champagne and flowers. They did a terrific job there and should be proud of themselves! We all did, and especially Kate, who showed extreme determination and diligence. I’m truly proud of you, Kate!

Fine, the next move is skills assessment. I will be sending the recommendations I collected over the years to the ACS to confirm that I am an experienced programmer. They will be giving calls to all / some of the people I mention to have their opinion from first hands.

It’s a lengthy process, and I don’t really want to make it longer with my mistakes in documentation, that’s why I’m looking for a good immigration agent to take over the routine. So far, my focus is on Wib-immigration.com which is a Sydney-based MIA (Migration Institute of Australia) and MARA certified immigration agency that is very flexible with prices and the services package. I filled their free Skilled Immigration assessment form with all details and expecting the answer soon. We’ll see if it works out.

And by the way, the comments are open for congratulations. I’ll keep you posted!

We called British Council on Friday and I forgot to leave a note here for those who follow our little adventure. They promised to send the results to us on Monday, and put the special emphasis on that even though the marks will be ready, they won’t share them with us over the phone.

Well, as I think about it now, it’s quite a judicious move, isn’t it? Anyone could learn my results by simply calling them, and I don’t really like anyone to do this. So, let’s see what arrives. I wonder how long it is going to take, but it shouldn’t be more than a week for sure.

As you may know, we cherish the idea of immigration. Immigration to the sunny and sandy Australia. Last Friday (May 31, 2007) we flew to Kiev to take our IELTS examination, which always takes place in the British Council.

IELTS test is an indispensable part of the process as we have to prove our language abilities along with technical skills and other stuff when applying to the Skilled Immigration Visa. According to the requirements, I need a pretty high score (somewhere around 7 of 10) and Kate’s needs to be at least 5. One interesting fact that puzzles everyone I speak to is that if your spouse (non-primary applicant) fails to get above the threshold, you are to pay approximately USD $2000 for him/her to study the language there in AU upon arrival. Interesting!

As usual, we were extremely careful with preparations and booked the tickets and the apartment long in advance. Kate managed to find the place to stay right across the road from the British Council building! It was so amazing to feel that under no circumstances we won’t be late for our exams as it takes only two minutes to get from our front door to theirs.

Booking the plane tickets was also somewhat fun. The air tourism is quite an expensive pleasure here in Ukraine, but those days the discount system was in full swing and they were giving the tickets out left and right for a miserable price, so that we managed to get our four tickets for under USD $100 in total. (Can you believe this!?) The funniest part though is that the plane was a healthy Boeing 737-300, and not some coffin with wings.

We came to Kiev one day in advance to look around and have some fun in the city, to relieve some stress and prepare for the important event. One thing I figured out immediately is that it was a great opportunity to drop in on a couple of book supermarkets to look up some English prose (mainly sci-fi and humorous stuff). Six ours later I was on the sofa in the silent coolness of a conditioner with the Stan Lee’s The Alien Factor. The other titles I picked up are The Songs of Distant Earth by Arthur Clarke, McNally’s Risk by Lawrence Sanders, and Stout Mama by Sibyl James. You know I’m a big fan of English language and sci-fi; enough to have some serious fun!

The examination day started with the power outage. We had a quick snack and rushed to the Council. After a quick registration they broke us into three groups which is quite reasonable considering there was about fifty participants on the list.

The examination usually consists of the four parts in this specific order: Listening, Reading, Writing and Speaking. All participants take it in the same groups without the level separation. As the complexity of the modules within the parts increases, the lower levels stop understanding what’s going on, while the stronger move on improving their marks. It’s quite fair and mature approach in my opinion.

The Listening consists of about four modules with increasing complexity. The module is an audio recording of a conversation with the questions in the booklet. It’s played once and you have to pick up the meaning and answer the questions either by filling the gaps or choosing the correct choice from the given.

The Reading test is the set of texts with the questions, where you show the level of comprehension. The time limit is very strict, so that you don’t have forever to answer all the questions. It has to take no more than an hour to run through everything, understand and give the right answers. The types of questions vary from “fill the gap” to “choose the right answer from the given” again.

The Writing module assesses your ability to put words together in meaningful sequences, but not just this. There are two absolutely different tasks to complete. In our case it was “write a letter to a friend who is coming to your place; tell him where is the key; describe the equipment; outline some entertainment options” and “speculate on the importance of the creative subjects (arts, music, drama etc) in the school program”. The first is clearly informal writing and it had to be at least 150 words, whereas the last is a formal 250-word essay. Truth be told, I started to jot down the ideas first, but quickly realized that as a programmer my handwriting is, to put it mildly, poor and I won’t have time to transfer my ideas to the answer sheet. As they give an hour for everything, I gave up sketching and streamed everything right on to the paper. To my surprise, it looked fun, was moving and quite impressive at the same time. I had a great time, indeed!

The Speaking part was scheduled after a short break. To the honor of the staff, foreigners were assigned to pass it first. In fact, Kate and I were in the head of the list. The interviewers are native language speakers — very professional: no interruptions, corrections, waiting patiently for us to finish our songs. The first “exercise” was to introduce ourselves by answering the questions, then they gave a topic to think a minute about and to express the opinion on it for a minute or two non-stop. The last part was a short discussion around the topic. I loved it! I wasn’t speaking much lately and it seemed my fountain was finally open wide. Now as I recall it, it might look like I showed him all of my eloquence.

To conclude, we are quite satisfied with how it went. The results aren’t known yet, and will arrive in about a week, but it feels like we had a great time. It wasn’t as scary as we imagined at all… well, at least as I imagined.

Let’s wait for the score list!