pick up the receiver i'll make you a believer

Ah, drama, how I have missed you...and yet now that you have returned to my life, how I wish that you had stayed away. I'm currently grappling with a visa issue that will likely turn out to be nothing, but is just annoying enough to have me the slightest bit concerned. The matter at hand is that the application for an Indian visa requires proof of residence in the form of a driver's license or major utility bill. And the unfortunate truth is that while I changed my address with the DMV several months ago, they do not issue new licenses for change-of-address changes, and so I can't use my driver's license. And, since I moved in with Adit, absolutely none of the utilities are in my name. Theoretically they deal with this issue all the time since there are plenty of roommates, recently-moved people, etc. who apply for visas, and I do have three previous Indian visas with no history of bad behavior, so I'm hopeful that I can throw a whole bunch of other documents at them and they will have mercy upon me. The only other option is to lie about my address, which is fine in theory until I get caught and banned, so mercy will have to do.

I wasn't going to tell this story because my parents read this blog and if I were to not get an Indian visa it would spell disaster for the trip my dad and I are taking -- but, I have had drama before previous trips to India (the liquids plot was discovered the day before I left in 2006, which meant we had no liquids at all on the whole 24hr trip; when I moved to India in 2005, I lost my passport the week before I was supposed to go and had to run all over the whole city to replace it and get a visa), so I am relatively confident that this will all resolve itself. Luckily I can drop it off in San Francisco myself rather than mailing it in and hoping for the best, so it should be fine.

Beyond that, today was a busy day; I had a few meetings in the morning, and a checkup with my doctor regarding my crazy reaction to the tetanus shot. She was clearly annoyed at the nurse who gave me the vaccine, since the woman gave me tetanus and pneumonia less than half an inch apart, which is a) a no-no and b) means they don't know which shot I reacted to. But, she didn't think the arm was infected and determined that it will be fine if I keep applying heat to it (yum, cooked tetanus), so despite the 3+" knot in my arm, I am now cleared to start taking my typhoid vaccine ;)

I spent the rest of the day and night slogging; I have a lot to do before I go to India, and so it's going to be a busy couple of weeks. Now, though, I should really get some sleep so that I can start it all again tomorrow -- goodnight!