Wenx’ World: I ehm soarrie.

Guys, I am sorry I put this on to you every now and then. Through my blog I torture you not only with my life stories, but apparently also with insufficient English skills and bad writing.

I am currently trying to get residency. To qualify for a residency application in Australia, my Master degrees (yes, that’s plural!) or my 4 years of PhD study will not matter.  I won’t bore you with the details here, but it comes down to me having to pass an English test. Of course, only certain English tests. Of course, quite expensive English tests. And of course with nothing less than 89%.

So I signed up. For 5 hours, I wrote, I read, I listened, I spoke. My head buzzed when I left… 13 days to wait until results came out. And then: FAIL. My writing skills were judged to be only 83%. No explanation, no comment, just 83%.

83% is a good result – usually. I felt like a failure. 5 pathetic little per cents keeping me from a future in Australia. I was sad. And then upset. I consider myself a young, well-educated women who has successfully been Australianised. I won a sports trophy at the National Championships and I am teaching the next generation at uni. Apparently I have superior listening and speaking skills. But, Australia, really, you reject me because my literate coherence might have been slightly off?

Whinging didn’t help. Wine didn’t help. I leveled my crown, stood back up, dug tearfully into my savings – and signed up again for another test. It’s on tomorrow and friends have helped me to improve my writing. Now fingers crossed!

See you out there – Wenx