I am a Man of Power and Influence!

I like to pretend I am, sometimes. Most of the time this usually goes on in my own somewhat fevered imagination; one has to do something to keep out the wailing demons of one's manic insanity, after all. Seems like the decent thing to do; after all, as Carl Carlsen of The Simpsons fame said, "If I didn't have inner peace, I'd go completely psycho on you guys, like, all the time".

Sometimes, though, things happen that enable me to buttress these delusions with something more substantial. Like when I got a phone call from the Consulate asking me if I would care to dine with the Japanese Ambassador and a few select guests on Sunday, and take in the Heisei Nakamura-za Kabuki performance afterwards, currently completely sold out to the end of its run at Lincoln Centre. Not a JET thing - the Ambassador personally requested that I be invited. The other guests? The Indian Consul to New York, the head of the Japanese-American Association of New York, and two Indian professors of economics from Columbia, who are on the Council for Foreign Relations. And me and Kate. Spot the odd couple out. Heh.

Still, it was a very swish afternoon; washoku lunch and polite conversation in sumptuous surroundings at the Ambassador's pad on 5th Avenue, and the best (and most expensive seats in the house) for the Kabuki. Normally I stay the hell away from Japanese theatre - there's a reason one branch of it is called No in my opinion - but this was awesome. I strongly suspect that the play, Hokaibo, was deliberately reworked for an American audience and made considerably funnier than normal, but it was a delight to watch. Course, the fact that I had a headset doing simultaneous translation from the Japanese and thus didn't miss anything can only have helped.

So for a few hours at least, I got to hang around in the halls of the mighty of the land and pretend that I'm one of them. Now, of course, the next thing to do is reflect on the irony of this, as I hold my credit card bill in one hand and wonder how the hell I'm going to pay it...

I'm off back to the UK for a little while, so I may be on hiatus for a week or so. Cheers!

Blowing Hot and Cold

It was, of course, the 4th of July two days after I got back to these shores. Being educated sorts, my readers will know all about the 4th July and its significance in the American calendar. It is, after all, a date well worth celebrating; Americans all over the country, from Alaska to Texas, rejoice in what the date signifies. Nothing other than freedom, and the fact that from that day onwards they would no longer be ruled over by a guy named George who only got the job because his Dad had it. Well, theoretically, at least...

Of course, you can't be cynical in these parts, even if it did quite literally rain on our parade. It was a balmy 14℃ when I got back, and it didn't get much hotter for the day itself, which was mostly spent at the still-splendiferous American Museum of Natural History, taking in their exhibition of mythical animals and an IMAX film about hunting for dinosaurs in the Gobi desert. Much like another well-known academic usually domiciled in New York (left), as a kid I had a quite encyclopedic knowledge of paleontology, and it's probably just as well I never visited the US before 2002, because if I had set foot in the dinosaur section of the AMNH, I would probably be there to this day.

In the evening, Kate and I joined Isaac in Brooklyn for fish and chips - the only sensible option on the 4th, really - and didn't see the fireworks. You can see 'em from last year's entry, if you really want - given the rain this year, that's probably a much better bet. Isaac lives in a magnificent brownstone in a very nice part of Brooklyn, which, when I think about it, is actually the first house (as opposed to apartment) I've been in in New York City.

Nothing much else to report, really - I've been slaving away in the library, though not altogether unwillingly, because (a) despite my continuous whining, I do actually love what I do, and (b), it's air-conditioned, which is particularly nice as the temperature's soared to 36℃ in the last day or two.

And I heard back from the Japanese Embassy in London. I didn't get the scholarship, or at least I probably won't get it, as they've decided to place me on the reserve list. I'm disappointed, obviously, but not all that surprised, for reasons I touched on in my post a week or so ago. Still, it is the least lucrative of the available scholarships, and I wasn't sure I was going to take it anyway - but a downer nonetheless, on what was otherwise a productive and enjoyable day.

Turn and Turn About

I didn't do very much in what remained of the week once I'd done my two interviews down in London - I just sat around and read most of the time, mainly with a view to killing time and not spending any money while doing so. I suppose the car-bombing news spiced things up a bit, and, if I may be excused a little solipsism here, kept my very impressive record of flying across the Atlantic just as terror plots fail in the UK (I flew back to the UK the day of the failed tube bombings in 2005, went back to the US in 2006 at the time of the alleged liquid bomb plot, and now this).

The flight back was one of the smoothest I've had in recent times, and as the plane was half-empty I was able to get a bulkhead seat, which allowed me room to stretch my legs. All in all it would have been one of the more pleasant crossings, were it not for the fact that it took me the best part of two hours to clear Immigration. That was by far the worst experience I've ever had at JFK. I counted around 400 or so people in the line, snaking around seven or eight lines deep, and the Customs and Border Protection people, in their infinite wisdom, had decided to have only one-third of their windows open. As if this wasn't daft enough, one of the plane-load of Jamaicans who made up the group of 400 decided that they couldn't be bothered lugging their bag all the way back and forth as the line zig-zagged along, and would just leave it in the middle and pull it through when she reached that point on the other side of the ropeline. Obviously not familiar with what the words 'Unattended Bag' tend to signify right at the moment. Dumb in the extreme.

Anyway, I'm back now, and I think we're all caught up. Nice to have you up to speed. I'm still jetlagged, though...

Know What You Can Change

Back down in London the following day for interview at the Japanese Embassy in London. The Japanese Embassy is just off Green Park, not far from Piccadilly Circus and Buckingham Palace, so there was time to do a little sight-seeing in the lunch break.

For something like this, one obviously needs to wear a suit and look respectable - not so much of an imperative at the US Embassy for a visa app, but for any interview, dressing up had to be the way to go. I had left one of the suits I had worn in Japan back at home for just this purpose, so I fished it out of the wardrobe to make sure it was OK. It wasn't. Lots of small, raggedy holes in the suit trousers.

Moths.

What the fuck? Moths? How, in this day and age...It seemed increasingly at this point as if - pace Blackadder - the course of my life really was strewn with cowpats from the very Devil's own Satanic herd. I fished around and managed to find a suit belonging to my late grandfather, which just about fit - though the arms were too long, and it was very heavy wool. In the event the weight didn't prove a problem - it was almost chilly down in London.

Anyway, the Japanese Ministry of Education (Monbusho) offers a scholarship in the range of 170,000 yen per month for eighteen months or two years, designed to allow graduate students to do research in Japan. This also includes a round-trip air ticket to Japan, so it's fairly handy, but more of that later. This was what I was applying for - I have to go to Japan from the autumn of 2008 to do fieldwork with a view to compiling my final PhD dissertation, and the department does not fund this, which means that we are obliged to apply to various charitable and private foundations and bodies in order to get them to stump up the cash to allow us to study in Japan and, at least in theory, contribute to the betterment of humanity.

A number of the foundations to which I would otherwise apply only accept applications from US Citizen or permanent residents. I am - as yet - neither, and so have to take every opportunity that presents itself. The pain in the arse is that Monbusho requires me as a UK citizen to interview in the UK pool. This sucks not only because of the cost and time the flight requires, but also because I know so many people at the Japanese Consulate in New York as a result of JETAANY activities that I think I'd probably be a dead cert for landing it, were I permitted to apply. A certain irony there, perhaps.

Anyway, the interview itself came first, to be followed by language tests in the afternoon. I think I gave a very good account of myself in the interview, half of which was in Japanese with a guy from the Embassy and half in English with an academic from SOAS (and graduate students at SOAS seemed to make up the vast majority of applicants). What I gave them in the interview was about as good as it could have been, I think - lucid, concrete and well-argued - but I'm still not sure I'll get the scholarship, for reasons largely beyond my control.

From the direction of their questions, I think the interview panel had some concerns that, firstly, as a recipient of an undergrad Monbusho scholarship and later a JET, I'd already had around $100,000 from the Japanese Govt over the last 7 years or so. Fair enough - can't really deny that, though I would also argue that I worked my butt off and damn well earned my JET salary (I'd have been lying through my teeth, of course, but I'd still argue it), and in any case, I can hardly change the past or give the money back. Secondly, they wanted to know where I planned to teach after getting my PhD. As a UK citizen enrolled at a non-UK University, I got the impression that they felt - quite reasonably - that since the pool was dedicated to the UK, it would not be a reasonable use of funds to pay for someone to complete his PhD in the US and then remain there to teach ever after. Again, I can't really argue with the logic of this, so I basically was as non-committally positive as I could be. Told them that I didn't know what would happen 3 years down the line, that I was fed up with crossing the Atlantic (which is completely true - I'll have done it 6 times this year by December) and wanted to spend more time with my friends and family (also true - up to a point...).

So we will see. I would hope that they would consider each application purely on its individual merits - I would think I stand a strong chance - but it would not be a major surprise if they felt that for the reasons outlined above the money would be better used for other applicants. The thing is, though, that I'm not 100% sure I would accept even if offered - it's very marginal, a matter of exchange rates, in fact, as to whether the scholarship is worth any more than what I'm getting at Columbia right now, and - here's the rub - the other scholarships with later deadlines are considerably more lucrative, in some cases paying twice or even three times what Monbusho offers. In a city like Tokyo, that could prove to be a major issue, especially if I have to pay market rate rents - I might end up having to get by on even less than I do here and now.

I dunno. I guess we'll have to see what happens - I'm rather getting ahead of myself in any case. Baby steps, baby steps...

Are you, or have you ever been...

So then back to London, to the US Embassy on Monday, and down again the following day for what was ostensibly the purpose of my trip, to go the the Japanese Embassy to interview for the Monbusho scholarship.

The US Embassy in London is in very classy surroundings just off Grosvenor Square. It's a large if undistinguished building, somewhat redolent of 60s style architecture (the kind that, if rumour is to be believed, inspired one of my friends' fathers to write a book entitled Kiss my Arch). To my surprise, while guarded by armed police (and for USAians, I should point out that when UK police are armed, they don't mess around with poncy handguns like American cops - see above), it was nowhere near as heavily fortified as was the US Embassy in Tokyo. Mostly it was cordoned off by the same sort of barriers that construction sites use to keep people out, and several concrete blocks likely designed (somewhat presciently, as it turned out) to prevent car bombs.

Security was very tight, as one would expect, but once inside there is little to do but wait. The drill is much the same as it was in Tokyo - you are given a number and called up twice, firstly to ensure that all your documents are in order, and then again around an hour later to have your actual consular interview.

I'm pretty sure that this isn't how it's meant to be, but the second interview was shorter than the first. It went like this, and was over in less than 30 seconds:

Consular Guy: So, Mr. Tuck, what are you studying at Columbia?
Me: Modern Japanese Literature. I've got my transcript here if you want to see it...
CG: No, you're in grad school, it's going to be all As anyway.
Me: Well, there's an A minus in there somewhere...
CG: Right, you're approved. Off you go.

And that was about it. The only remaining concern was, again, a matter of time - I was supposed to be flying out on the 2nd July, a Monday, and the Embassy recommends around five working days to process and return your passport, visa (which is attached to the passport) and I-20. An anxious few days could lie ahead, though the people running the courier firm desk at the Embassy seemed fairly confident it would be delivered by Friday. In the event, it was back in my possession by 9:55 a.m. on Thursday, which is frankly phenomenal. I suppose there are certain advantages to living so close to London.

I met Karen for lunch before my interview, and joined Matt and Nina for drinks and dinner that evening. All in good health and as charming as ever.

I-20, therefore I'm not

As I've already explained here, the I-20 is a form issued by the US Department of Justice that confirms one's bona fides as a student. I was issued with one initially when I came to Columbia as an MA student, and given a new one here in the US when I was accepted into the PhD program. It's a very important document - without it, you can't be issued a student visa, or enter the US even if you do have a valid visa. It's perhaps even more important than a visa, since, as I explained a month or two back, it's the validity of your I-20 and not your actual visa that determines how long one may stay in the US as a student.

And what did Muggins here do? He only went and brought the wrong bloody I-20 back, that's all. Oxford and Columbia, old chap, a highly educated individual. My arse. I was scheduled for an appointment at the US Embassy in London on June 21st (I didn't realise this at the time, but that date was exactly 2 years to the day after my visit to the US Embassy in Tokyo), so, like the organised, together and generally awesome person you all know me to be, the day before I was checking to make sure that all my documents were in order and filling out some forms needed for the interview. I went to check the admissions number on the I-20, only to find a very unwelcome MASTER'S in the section marked Program.

Oh, shit.

I'm not normally given to panic. In most of the stressful situations in my life thus far - mercifully few, luckily - I've generally managed to keep my composure. Not this time. The I-20 I had in my hand was completely useless. I was screwed. I couldn't be interviewed for a visa, much less enter the US. I had no idea what I was going to do - could I reschedule in time? How much would it cost me? How far back would I have to move my flight - would I have to stay in the UK for six weeks or - God help me - even more? How could I get the right I-20 sent to me? Could I go into the US on a tourist visa and get the damn thing? Unfortunately, owing to the time difference, I couldn't get any US advice on this as it was 5 a.m. EST - so I was going to have to stew. And as luck would have it, it was a Wednesday, on which day the International Student's and Scholar's Office (ISSO) at Columbia didn't open until 10:30 a.m.

It was a combination of the ISSO and my Dad that managed to calm me down and save my bacon, really. The ISSO were brilliant - they told me that under no circumstances could I enter the US as a tourist if I wanted to remain a student, but that they could FedEx me a replacement I-20 which ought to arrive in 2-3 days, and that that would do the trick. They were even cheaper than paying for FedEx costs off my own bat. Less than 48 hours later (allowing for the time difference) I had my form. When I called the US Embassy to explain, they allowed me to reschedule for the following Monday 25th at no extra cost (beyond that of the phone call, which is an extortionate ￡1.20 per minute).

It was looking like I might get out of this alive after all.

There and back again

I'm back in New York now, after two weeks back in Blighty. I haven't blogged for nearly three weeks, something which is rather remiss of me, but I really cannot be bothered to blog on a dial-up connection. So I'm going to do a catchup of events in reverse order, and break it up a bit so it's a little easier to read.

Before heading off back to London, we had the JETAANY Pre-Departure Orientation at the Nippon Club on West 57th Street (it occurred to me only too late that the abbreviation we had been using amongst JETAANY members for this thing, PDO, could be read in a rather unfortunate way if the lector were so minded...). We rounded up around 20 volunteers in the end, all of whom strove manfully to get as much information into the newbies' heads as possible. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't - the rest is up to them, really. But for even the most cynical ex-JET there's always something charmingly innocent, even puppy-like, about the newbies. It's increasingly clear that many of 'em didn't really know what they were getting themselves into - one hopes they do now, otherwise things could get a little messy. Obviously some of the newbs haven't ever been abroad, so I think their preconceptions and naivety may not have very long to last. Best example, probably, was the person who asked if they could upgrade to a Business Class ticket if they paid the difference between the fares. They were told by the travel reps that indeed they could, and that would be a cool $8,000, or $13,000 if First Class would be preferable. I didn't catch the questioner's reaction.