1. Overturn the monarch. Hello 21st century!
2. Renationalize rail.
3. Enforce separation of church and state.
4. Real freedom of speech.
5. Baseball and/or Thanksgiving

So .... I'm in!

And check this out: J and I get to do it at

"the once-annual ceremony that happens at London city hall with 1 person from each borough and certificate presented by the mayor hisself" (to quote J).

We get to bring a very few guests and I'm actually really sorry I can't bring wechsler (I mean, I could, but I don't think he'd say yes, or ( Read more... )

In part because of the fact we'd get to keep our passports, and in part because I didn't trust my ability to jump through the hoops correctly, I ponied up £90 for J and I to have our applications for citizenship checked today at Camden Town Hall. As it turns out, this was money well spent. First, it turns out the "must have been in the country ( Read more... )

Spent today at a conference and making sarcastic comments about software testing on my CthonicSoftware twitter feed. It wasn't a bad day but I was tired the whole time. I'm just worn out. I'm not getting any better and it's now a full month after when the doctor said I'd have this through my system. I think I may need to go back. I was hoping it ( Read more... )

J and I are now scheduled to have our paperwork checked for the citizenship apps on Thursday the 14th. His LIUK test is this Saturday. Scary! But application fees for couples are going up £250 in April, so it's time to get this show on the road!

On Friday night, J and I went to Stratford to see a play called Glasgow Girls. Who would have thought that I would ever be at a point in my life where I wanted to see a play about immigrants because it was now a play about people like me: but it is. I'm grateful I'm not a refugee, though; I wasn't chased out of my house by mobs with flaming torches ( Read more... )

I went back to take my citizenship exam Saturday, and they'd changed the registration requirements: middle names are now mandatory. The form did not say they were mandatory and if you had a question about it (the field was not starred) there was no one to ask as the whole thing has been outsourced and done poorly. The official guidance is to reject ( Read more... )

So when I get citizenship ,I'm going to form a political party, with the following planks in the platform:
1. A written constitution for the UK
2. Renationalizing the rail system
3. Instituting Thanksgiving, as people here love turkey and pie ,and almost everyone can be sold on the idea of a holiday that forces a delay to Christmas decorations.

( Read more... )

So I'm now at the midpoint for the Italian class I've been taking at the YMCA in Central London. Difficulties: there are about 8 different ways to say "the." Comedy: for what you do for a living, the Italian construction is "doing the waiter/programmer/teaching [thing]." It's like it's a role you put on and not something that's really about who you ( Read more... )

I have to remember that part of the reason I am not already divorced is because, last year, when I was finally free to do it (as I'd stuck it through the ILR), I held OFF doing it because (deep breath ( Read more... )