Get free stuff with coupons FTW!

I'm a grad student. With a family. Married to a man running a start-up.

Add that together and you realise why I'm loving living in a country where coupons rule.

In Australia we don't do coupons beyond the basics. One coupon per transaction only. No manufacturer coupons are redeemable in store (they seem to always be mail-in rebates instead). And there are regularly stacks of hoops to jump through. Loyalty cards exist, but you need to spend about a billion dollars before you can get a pack of Post-it notes as your 'gift'.

In the US, the experience is entirely different. I even have a coupon folder with all the coupons sorted into categories that I take everywhere with me. Just like lots of other mums do.

There are two great things with coupons here:

a. You can combine coupons from the manufacturer with specials in store to get things at next to nothing (sometimes even cheaper than nothing - and then the retailer takes the deficit and credits it against the rest of your shopping!)

b. Printable coupons are beginning to take over from newspaper inserts (due to the death of print) which means you can print out as many as you like.

Some sites which offer printable coupons are: Eversave, Red Plum, Coupon Cabin, and Cool Savings.

My biggest bargain at the moment is toilet paper. Yep. Toilet paper.

My local grocery store, King Soopers, at Table Mesa in Boulder has Cottonelle 4-packs of toilet paper for 99c. It's been that way for about 3 weeks, so I think they're going to keep it at that price. Lucky for me, there's a coupon here which gives $1 off. You have to fill in a few fields on it, but you get free loo paper!

If that's all too hard, then Eversave regularly features a coupon on this too. It gives you a 50c discount on exactly this product anywhere you go. 49c loo paper would have still been a good deal. But it gets better! King Soopers' policy (similar to other grocery stores) is to double coupons up to $1. That means I get $1 off the toilet paper anyway even with this coupon. Free!

I  have printed off four of these coupons at a time and bought four packs of toilet paper, and gotten the discount off every one. No single transaction... no one coupon on a product. It's awesome.

And yes, while I do get that it makes me a little bit sad to be excited over free loo paper, I'm glad I can spend the money I've saved on other, more important stuff... my kids. What other free stuff have readers scored with coupons?

Has Rosemeadow forgotten Dean?

Once upon a time, there was a big lake that crossed two suburbs, Ambarvale and Rosemeadow. Surrounded by ticky-tacky public housing, the murky lake was home to eels and ducks that those local residents who couldn't afford the cost of movies for entertainment would feed with stale bread. The children of the areas would group up with friends and hang out around the lake, playing in the marshes and poking random things found floating in the reeds with sticks.

Until one day a few kids found a suitcase floating in the lake.

They dug it out, opened it and discovered what they thought was a dead pig - but it wasn't. As time and months of police investigation would reveal, the kids had found a child. A 2-year-old named Dean Shillingsworth who had been beaten to death by his own mother.

If truth is stranger than fiction, then this news story was. However, what makes any story like this even more shocking is when it happens close to home. On one level, that means it could happen to you, or someone you directly know. On another level, it means it could happen where you live. And this happened at our local big park in Rosemeadow and Ambarvale, NSW, really close to my own home, just one suburb away.

Rosemeadow has a large amount of public housing. Small 1970s townhomes and condos, all the same, bunched up together, populated with people who cannot afford to buy or rent in a competitive marketplace. It's choc-a-block. And what makes it even more garish is the fact that it is bordered by what is sold by local realtors as the best housing estate in the Macarthur region - Glen Alpine. The estate where the Labor party's champion couldabeen Prime Minister, Mark Latham lived while he was pitching for the land's top job. Glen Alpine has 1200 houses and a small community shopping centre with tennis courts for hire - all in great condition. Instead of the McDonalds of Rosemeadow, Glen Alpine features McMansions. And the only real thing separating the two areas is one road, Englorie Park Drive. Oh, and quite a few thousand dollars.

The discovery of this poor neglected child saw media reports that ran the story into the ground. The locals began to refer to him as The Lake Angel. Local clergy attempted to bring peace to the area, and saw this as an opportunity to get the people of Rosemeadow to hold those dear to them, and create a sense of community sadly lacking from an area where people were basically living on top of each other. There were candlelight vigils around the lake for the child, attended by over 1000 people. Stuffed toys, flowers, memorials that stayed for many months after the discovery reminded the community of the type of tragedy that can happen in our own backyard.

But within a few short months, media reported the local bus company declared it would not run buses through parts of Rosemeadow due to people throwing rocks at the drivers. There have been regular incidences of fights in the streets, and today the Sydney Morning Herald reports on another massive escalation of violence.

It is clear to me that if Australia had the same gun laws prized by America there would be many more dead people in Rosemeadow to date. Anger appears to run through the veins of people living in this suburb full of public housing.

But with the same breath I would assert that the type of sense of community I have seen in Boulder could do much to assuage this anger and pain. This Christmas, the amount of goodwill shown by the community of Boulder to those in need was remarkable. The collections for charity in retail stores were overflowing with goods donated by the general public - I saw them everywhere. And many retaillers added an extra dollar to your purchase which went directly to charity over the season. And everyone was happy for it to happen.

I am left wondering if only Australia could combine this sense of community, of general concern and caring for other people, with its admirable gun control laws.... perhaps there'd be less tears.

Flapdoodle's pumpkin diet

Halloween is officially over. The only candy left is the real crud that nobody will eat so I'm about to chuck it out. That's not bad for an entire month!

The other great thing was the jack-o-lanterns. We had heaps of fun carving them with our US friends and they decorated the outside of the house with their scariness for a while. And the kids even had a jack-o-lantern competition at school which was amusing. (Though why so many parents feel they have to do the jack-o-lantern for their kid like some work of art, and then put the kid's name on it when it was obviously done by the parent is beyond me. Some people need to get a life.)

Anyway, back to the real story here. The jack-o-lanterns, if carved, go 'off' in about a week, so the kids painted and googly eyed etc two pumpkins for school. When they brought them back home we put them on the front verandah... and Flapdoodle decided it was his buffet time.

We have been highly amused by Flapdoodle's obsession with our pumpkins. (Yes, we are that desperate for entertainment.) Finally he has eaten both of them. And they were quite large! Luckily for him, he left the googly eyes and pipe cleaners, and he's still running about so they didn't kill him.

[caption id="attachment_142" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Flapdoodle, king of pumpkin one"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_143" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Attacking pumpkin two"][/caption]

The massive difference between A and B

I am swimming in the B pool and I'm not happy. (Don't try telling me getting a B is okay. It's not.)

I have some kick-ass papers to write. I have a great brain and a wealth of experience. But I'm not getting the grades I want.

Graduate school is difficult. This week I had what I'd describe as a 'crash and burn 24 hours'. There were lots of reasons to just go back to work. Lots. But in talking with my husband and friends I realised these 'reasons' were things that could be changed if I wanted to find a way to make that happen.

So I've made a plan to fix things. A better approach. I will be far more efficient at note-taking, writing (so that includes drafting, revising and final drafts... not just one draft), and research. I will talk to people I respect, and tie myself to my professors. I am not going to study myself to death. I am not going to be so fearful of writing the wrong thing that I leave it and end up writing it without checking. I'm going to write it anyway, and then check it up and rewrite it instead.

All this seems obvious. And it is. Unless you're living it.

So that's basically it. Oh, and the capstone is the kids and I have a deal. When I do pull myself out of the B pool, we are having a family party - complete with glow sticks from Dollar Tree, disco music and junk food.

It's time to kill Lynette, the post-feminist failure.

I was wondering which of the Desperate Housewives I am. I don't have a gardener, we're not rich, my kids are not dysfunctional, I'm not blonde in real estate and I'm not pretty and stupid. I guess some would say Lynette is the closest to me, because she has billions of children and was a great worker outside the home. But that couldn't be further from the truth.

I adore that I'm a mum of four children. Each of my kids is incredible and I've learned so much about myself and life's purpose with having each othem around. I've been a parent for 17 and a half years now. That's a really long time - nearly half my life. when I had my first child, I was about 10 years younger than any of the other mums in the parenting groups, and I was pretty much a fish out of water. But even though it was incredibly challenging, I did it, and did it really well.

I also worked outside the house. Because I wanted to. And that fantastic juggling act was about the most impressive thing I've ever done. It's not about being a 'superwoman', it's about being an individual. Someone who wants to try to do as much as possible and doesn't want to make "choices" that the women's movement and society says you should.

I gave birth to both my second child and my first magazine for ACP in the same year, without a nanny or cleaner or whatever. How did that work? I pitched a plan to my publisher, Nick Chan, that I would telecommute (the first ever at ACP) and guaranteed him that he would get the best editor for the job if he appointed me. Even though someone else wanted the job (who was also female, but not pregnant at the time), he gave it to me. Some would congratulate Nick for that - what a forward thinking guy he is. I find that pretty condescending and basically offensive to both Nick and me. I know Nick is an incredible professional and he appointed the person who was going to do the best job, all things considered. It was a business decision, not a 'socially courageous' one. He appointed me because I freaking well rock.

How did he know that?

I had put together an 8-page sample of what the magazine would look like, gathered a small team of potential staff, and done a budget. I made commitments to him about how the magazine would run and undertook my own market research with that team of potential staff. I approached it professionally.

And I followed through.

Far from the 'easy' road, it's had its challenges. My kids have grown up in a variety of different caregiving arrangements over the years, but never fulltime 8-6pm every day because that's never been what I wanted to have happen with them. I've paid more than I should have had to for childcare because I wanted a particular type, place, time. I have even taken time out from full-time employment a few times because I've wanted to take a bit of a break. But I've always ended up back in the workforce, in jobs I've loved.

I am the sort of person who looks for reasons how to make things work, not reasons why they can't. I don't care about social norms, about what's 'acceptable'. I'm not post-feminist. I'm not Lynette from Desperate Housewives. I'm not full of aching resentment and confusion about what my role is. I'm loving my life. I mix it up.

I'm sick of people wanting to do one of two things: first, make me some poster girl for women everywhere. While I appreciate you may admire my ability on some levels and I admire women too, I think it's about taking responsibility for yourself and making things happen for you. Don't point to me as an 'example'. You should do whatever you want, and feel empowered to do it. If you don't feel empowered, then get to the point where you do. It's YOUR responsibility to find your motivation. I don't look elsewhere for empowerment, but I do for affirmation. I find affirmation in women who are doing those little tough things that don't get recognised. I will never forget dropping my kids at daycare at 8am, meeting up with another mum doing the same; however she was actually a shift worker who had started work at 4am, and was on a break from work. She had picked her child up from one carer to take him to the other one at 8am. She was a woman who needed to do something, adored her family and did what it took to make it work.

In both our cases it wasn't going to last forever. It probably wasn't going to last even 12 months. Kids grow up, jobs change. But for a period of time you sit up and say this is how it needs to be, and I'm going to make it happen. Don't look to the spouse, the grandparents, whomever to 'help out'. If you want it to go a certain way, then you find a way to make it happen.

Secondly, I don't like people who look at what I do and then find either excuses as to why it is easier for me (oh you must have lots of help at home), or even evidence about why I'm not succeeding as well as I should be (oh you must be a bad mother, or you're cutting corners). None of that is true - my kids are not only fantastic, well adjusted people, they have the benefit of seeing their mum achieve some pretty amazing stuff while they're there to share it with me. The boys recognise that women can do anything, at any stage of their lives. And my daughter, at 17, is recognising that she can make choices that suit her in life, not some social norm.

Unlike the women's movement of the 80s, I don't tell my daughter she can have choices. I want to be a mum who lives her choices - just as any individual can, male or female. I want her to see that working inside the home is just as important as outside, and women can and should be empowered to feel fulfilled doing whatever it is they choose to do, in whatever mix. And that there is a balance that can be achieved, and that balance is different for everyone. And she has to be personally empowered to make a balance for herself. She doesn't have to thank anyone other than herself for taking it on and making it happen.

Take control. Make your own way. Stop finding excuses for whatever is on the backburner. Find reasons to cook it all up now. Empower yourself and be your own inspiration. Get rid of Lynette.

Why you shouldn't read print

Since moving to Boulder I've actually started picking up the local free newspaper each day, but I'm over it. Why? I read it online and believe it's the cheapest, easiest way of helping the environment - even easier than all that other recycling we do.

In Australia to get a paper you need to visit a newsagent, or the train station - basically have a human interaction. But here in the US, there are a plethora of newsboxes (I dunno what they're actually called) all around the place - everywhere - carrying an assortment of daily newspapers, catalogues, classifieds. Almost anything! Many of them are free, and those that aren't are cheap to buy. The Daily Camera is only 50c (the Sunday edition is $1). You put the money in the slot and it lets you pull the handle open to grab your paper. While in Sydney we have about 4 generally available mass media newspapers, here there are at least twice that.



This seems great - it's so convenient, there's never a line for the paper, and it's so cheap it's easy to pick it up to read on the bus or whatever. And on a Sunday morning, you don't have to make conversation.

That's the big difference. The quality of news in these papers is shocking. The Colorado Daily is really crap. The writing is complete drivel. The topics are ridiculous. There is no real news. The best part is the comics. And even then, whomever is editing it sometimes runs the same comic two days or more straight. The Boulder Weekly, another free paper, is a bit better, but really - it's a good thing they're free. Nobody in their right mind would pay for this crap. The writing is grammatically incorrect, badly edited - it looks like a 4th grade paper. It's simply not professional in any sense of the word, let alone 'journalism'. Sort of like a cut down, free version of Sydney's Daily Telegraph.

But that gets me on to 'good quality' print - you know, the stuff you expect to pay for. The real journalism.

The Daily Camera and The Rocky Mountain News, which are like Sydney's Daily Telegraph in the 'real' sense, have been running subscription campaigns. Get it cheaper and you'll save! Big frigging deal. I can read both of them online... for free!

And there's nothing left of it when I'm done. No papers laying around to put in the recycling.

That's the biggest deal of all - the environmental cost. The New York Times, one of the most respected newspapers in the world, is also available online. Consider this: 314 acres of trees are cut down for every single edition of the Sunday New York Times.

314 acres. Gone. Because people like something tangible to hold with their coffee on Sundays; and then they chuck it out come Monday morning.

For a world of people who are becoming more aware of global warming and all the associated issues of environmental catastrophes, surely we owe ourselves and our kids those 314 acres.

Join me. Demand great journalism from your traditional mastheads, but demand it online. Leave the paper on the trees where it belongs.

It's the little things

Living in the USA is really similar to living in Australia. You know, there are schools, public transport, etc. But some things, little things, can make it seem really freaky. And that's really fun.

For example, the mail. In Australia you have a home letterbox where mail is delivered to monday to friday. If you want to send snail mail, you go to the post office. Rarely do you get stamps anywhere else. There are postboxes in the streets, etc, and when you've stamped your letter (it's 50 cents to anywhere in Australia for standard mail) then it's good to go. It takes about a day or two to get wherever you send it to. Unless you've put money in it, then it might never arrive.

In Boulder you can buy stamps at the supermarket, and heaps of other places. There are nowhere near the plethora of post offices, but there are quite a number of shipping places that specialise in packages.



The really great part is that when you have a standard letter to post, you simply put it in your own letterbox and the mail carrier (the US version of the mail man) picks it up when they drop off your mail. All you need to do is raise the little red flag next to your letterbox.

Super cool. I'm pretty convinced this is why NetFlix, the movie rental service that works by sending the movies out to you via mail, has taken off in a big way here. It's all so simple.

Breastfed is best fed. The End.

Yes, I breastfed all four of my children.

Yes, I did for at least three years for every one of them.

And no, I make no apologies for it.

If you're uncomfortable with my headline, then as the Queen of Spain says, #suckit. (Yes, I do finally get that.)

I've spouted for a long time that breast fed is best fed. I think it's a great line and it describes my feelings well. All four of my kids deserved the best, and still do. I have sacrificed a lot for my kids.

After walking the talk for 18 years on natural birthing and breastfeeding, I am very familiar with the reasons why people don't do one or both of the above.

Some are valid reasons - and I recognise that. But the World Health Organisation's statistics are not possibly wrong. How can Western Nations suddenly need vast numbers of c-sections and women worldwide continue to *choose* to formula feed over breastfeeding for reasons that are non-medical?

Doesn't your child deserve the best?

No, not that 'change of life'

Living here couldn't be more different than what we've been used to. And it's pretty much all good. It's a 1 minute walk to the bus stop, and the bus comes every 10 minutes. And this is the view I have while I wait:

We have at least one squirrel in the tree which overhangs our condo's back patio. Of course there are squirrels everywhere here. But this one is in our tree.

He's cute. Fast. Brown. And yet...

I'm sure he's a ninja. As are all squirrels here in Boulder. (You heard it here first.) Why? Nothing that moves that fast is all good.

In any case, this little guy is very cool. I see him every day. Mostly in the morning or evening, when I'm actually sitting still long enough for him to whip past. I took a pic of him this morning and the flash made him stop and look at me as if to say "paparazzi."

Additionally, we have a gorgeous family of deer who also hang out in the backyard. (We call it the backyard. It's actually open space and a park). The mum has a radio collar on her neck, the dad has only been seen a couple of times (he must work a lot), and the kids bounce around like the Disney Bambi. They like the grass and don't mind it when people bike past or walk down the path. Sorry I don't have a pic of them at the moment, but will add it when I do.[gallery]

All these guys could do with names. Suggestions most welcome.

Click your heels together three times. We're not in Mulletville any more, Toto!

Moving to Colorado in 5 Easy Steps

We jumped. We are now in Colorado. The suitcases are in the cupboard under the stairs. The kids are at school and I am at the SJMC (School of Journalism and Mass Communication) at the Uni of Colorado at Boulder. I thought I'd take you through what was an extremely tiring and exciting 8 weeks to share the joy, and thank those who helped us get here.

Step One - Getting Ready to Jump

Packing up our life. Four simple words that took an incredible amount of time. It's pretty straightforward to book the shipping and storage people, and organise the garage sale.

[caption id="attachment_82" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Kid1 helps out at the garage sale"][/caption]

We have a whole heap of stuff kept in storage in Sydney, and we've brought with us the essentials. We're also shipping 1 cubic metre of crap I've decided I can't live without. Tips for garage sales? Only have it on a Saturday because Sunday is pointless, and make sure you tag everything. We had the sale about three weeks before leaving, and had my friends come over to help at various points to distract me from potential emotional overload (yay Kathy and Jacqui). We gave leftover stuff to charity or freecycle. However, what we found most successful and amusing - put all of it on the front lawn with a big free sign on it. It went in a flash! We had quite a few laughs.

[caption id="attachment_81" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Ship or store?"][/caption]

My pal Kathy also helped a lot when I had a crisis of "what do I do?" She turned up and spent literally days putting her own life on hold while she helped the kids pack their stuff, aided my crisis over helping my two eldest kids move out of the house into their dad's, and told me lots of funny stories about her own moves. There is a special sort of woman in the world. She's the mum of more than three kids. I'm lucky to count some of my best pals in the world in that category. Kathy will forever have a special place in my heart for her help with this stage. And her skim mocha is the best I've ever had. Ever.

Tip: Get the kids involved and video bits of the process. Between Jacqui, Kathy and I we have 13 kids, who were all very keen to whack the dead furniture into pieces to put in the mini skip. We got some great, funny videos of kids with hammers. And miraculously avoided injuries!

[caption id="attachment_83" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="All our tech ready to go"][/caption]

Also, great tip was to have the lawnmower, whipper snipper and lounge suite we are keeping all professionally cleaned out, ready for storage. Of course, these were each done differently, but the cost was worth it knowing we'd be opening the storage crates in a few years to things that were pristine when they went in. We stored the fridge, washing machine and dryer quite easily, with small preparation. We have an incredible amount of Ikea furniture too, and we got a great guy out who dismantled everything back to IKEA flat pack with his helper dude, and saved us heaps of space in storage. They were nice guys too.

Step 2 - Organise and separate.

I really could have done this better. I separated the stuff I really needed in Colorado, but didn't put it in a suitcase to be sure it didn't get shipped - or worse still, stored. Things like the latest bills that you can't afford to pay yet, your PIN number stuff, personal documentation, etc. To cut this long story a bit shorter, I am pretty sure they're in shipping. Maybe I'll see them sometime before Christmas. If not, the electricity gets cut off in the old house and I'm not there so I really don't care that much. So ner.

Step 3 - Book good quality people, and use your friends.

Thank goodness we booked Allied Pickfords to handle all our storage. They were great (well so far, they still have all our stuff of course). When you're talking about all your worldly posessions, going with the quote based solely on price is dumb. Instead I went on gut. We're happy I did. These guys were efficient, hard-working and best of all, happy blokes to be around. They really deserved the crates of beer we got them at the end.

[caption id="attachment_84" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="The bloody big truck"][/caption]

And my friends were key to success. I love my friends. I'm so lucky to have them. They made me feel like I'm a pathetic loser of a friend, given all they were willing, ready and able to do to ensure we got this move done. We are so grateful to all our friends for the ongoing help, love, assistance, moral support, advice that they continue to provide. Whether we've known you for a long time or short time, you are so important to us. We can't wait to have you all stay with us here in Boulder. (Please stagger your visits. The condo is small.)

The old school friend, Cherie, who I hadn't seen in ages, my fabulous work friends (yes, TAFE sucks), our Twitter pals who braved the horrid weather to say bye, and all the kids school friends. Visit us soon!

Step 4 - Triple check how much you can take on your flight.

We had three different estimates of how much we could take on board our flight to the USA. Syd-LA with Qantas said 32kg each bag was fine. What most of the Qantas people didn't tell us was that for our connecting domestic flight from LA to Denver, the limit is just 23kg. It sucked to find that out two days before leaving. We ended up taking 13 bags, all weighing at least 20kg, with Jed's three bags (super duper flyer allowance) topping the 32kg. It was a heap of luggage, but well worth taking it rather than shipping or paying air freight for it, which would have been far more. (On our stopover in LA we saw Ringo Starr in the Admiral's lounge. That was cool.)

[caption id="attachment_85" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="This is just for the weekend? Um ... no."][/caption]

Step 5 - Take mum.

Big bonus. Taking my mum meant that we had three adults trying to maneuvre all that luggage. She has also been here in Colorado helping me settle in. She goes back to Sydney next week. I am ready to hire her to others. She's great. She's my mum. We've had a lot of fun working out what the US equivalence is to many products in the supermarket, driving around Boulder, hitting the stores, looking at ninja squirrels etc.

So here we are. That's the basics of getting here. I'll be getting the video camera up and running soon. I'm getting used to classes here and the amount of reading I'm having to do as a grad student is staggering. I'm sure the squirrels are out to kill when I'm not looking. That's scary. More posts soon, including video, asap.

Love and hugs to all.

A visa you can't buy stuff with

Yesterday was a big day. I was approved for the F-1 student visa, which will give me 3 years in the USA. Please note a visa in your passport doesn't guarantee entry to the USA, that decision is made by immigration when you enter the country. But without the visa there's no way you can get in for business or tourism beyond the 90 days which the current Waiver Programme appreciates. (In January 09 this changes again.)

The process for getting a visa has been covered by @bck in the past on his Pantsland blog, and I read that a couple of times as part of my own preparation. As we both note, none of what we say is necessarily going to be relevant to everyone - you need to do your own research to ensure you have the right documentation etc for your own visa and situation. That all said, here's what I went through.

Step 1: Get your documentation right

There are numerous forms and fees to go through to get a student visa. Everyone needs a DS-156 which is the general entry form, and you have to attach to that form a passport pic taken within the last 6 months, as well as pay (in cash or money order only) the $AUD150-odd fee for the non-immigrant visa at Australia Post. When you go to Aust. Post, ensure you know exactly how much you have to pay for the non-immigrant visa because they will not have any idea, but will happily take your money as long as it's cash. Then you need to staple the receipt for that to the front of the D-156. Men will also need to fill out a DS-157 (I don't know what is in that form because last time I checked, I am not a man). I also had to complete a DS-158 (which is like a resume).

Because I was after the F-1 visa, I needed to pay the SEVIS fee ($100) which is standard for all students entering the USA. As for all these fees, it's non-refundable, so if you don't get approved for a visa you can wave bye-bye to the cash. The SEVIS fee is payable online with a credit card.

Finally, I also had to be able to prove I had access to plentiful funds to support myself in the US (in my case, $US40, 200) as well as hold an Form I-20 which had been sent to me by the University, saying I'd been offered a place. Luckily for me (and key for me obtaining this visa), the University of Colorado saw fit to give me a full teacher assistantship appointment, which basically waived my need to demonstrate the $40,200.

I also took along to the appointment the actual letter of offer from the University and my academic credentials just in case.

You must also take your current passport, any prior passports of yours if you have them, a self-addressed platinum Australia Post courier satchel for the return of your documents, and other supporting documents in case they ask you for them. Ensure you've booked your appointment through the online VisaPoint system. To book an appointment you need a PIN Number, which costs another $14 (ka-ching) payable with a credit card. Even though the appointments are booked in half-hour increments, you're advised to block out 4 hours (I took 2.45hrs from beginning to end).

Step 2: Turn up on time

The Sydney consulate is in the MLC Building. While the consulate is on the 59th floor, you first report to the 10th floor and go through a security checkpoint. Prepare to take off your shoes! You have to leave all electronics at this point. The security guard will then allow you to go in the lift up to the actual consulate, where you go through another checkpoint (shoes off again), and take a ticket like you're in the motor registry. That's when the real waiting begins.

Step 3: Talk to people

When you're called for the first window, you hand over all the basic forms and receipts from what you prepared prior to the interview. You're then told to take a seat and wait to be called again. When you're called the 2nd time, you need to do the fingerprint thing on the scanner - both hands. Then you take another seat and wait to be called the 3rd time.

Step 4: The interview

This stage is the final part of what was a lengthy process. Rather than take you to a cubicle or something, you simply get called to a teller window and all the people behind you can hear what you discuss with the interviewer (the guy who had a record for posession of marijuana who went before me was most interesting :)). The interview itself only went for a couple of minutes and seemed more of a checking process of what was in the documentation I'd already supplied. I had more supporting evidence, but the man didn't ask for it, and he was a very polite nice person to talk with.

Step five: Paying the final fee

When I was approved for a visa I was informed I needed to pay the final fee of about $120 at the cashier. Once again this had to be in cash (no EFTPOS and even though the consulate website actually says they take credit cards). They hold on to your documentation and send it back to you in the platinum bag you supply.

And that's it! I was surprised they didn't ask me why my husband and children weren't on the same visa, or indeed what their plans were. (They plan to travel under the E-3 visa. I needed my own student visa because of the TA appointment and needing to work as soon as I arrive. As a spouse under the E-3 it takes about 2-3mths for an Employment Authorisation Document to be processed, which would have prevented me taking up my TA in the Fall semester.) While the interview itself only took a couple of minutes, I'm sure that if anything 'hinkey' in my application cropped up in the earlier stages then it would have been flagged before I approached for my actual interview. So I don't believe I was completely judged from beginning to end in that two minutes - I spoke with about 8 consular staff in the day, and any one of them would have been able to 'flag' my documents if necessary.

Essentials:

Go to the loo before going in. There is no bathroom beyond the 10th floor reception.

Take a magazine or book. It's B.o.r.i.n.g.

Wear shoes that are easy to get on and off.

Wear your best smile, and dress as if going for a job interview. Many people don't dress in business attire, but I'm old school and believe you might as well do all the easy things to make a good impression.

Finally, don't take your kids. You don't need to have them with you. Beg borrow or steal a babysitter for the day. It was not fun watching a couple of parents with little tykes struggling to keep them under control, and even less fun for the parents themselves.