As part of my nostalgic reflections on the completion of my PhD, and the formal celebration of that a few weeks ago at my graduation, I’ve been thinking about the various trends and themes that characterized my time in Scotland. In particular, I was thinking about the bookends of my studies: how the beginning and end of my time had some clear parallels.
Last time I wrote about a stressful travel story at the start of my PhD program. This time I’m going to tell the story of the stressful travel experience that I had at the end of my PhD program. This story comes a few months after I had finished my thesis and turned it in. After I officially submitted my thesis I went home to Las Vegas and then I had to travel back to Scotland for my viva. In the British academic system a viva is when two scholars, one internal to your home institution and one external, read through your thesis and grill you on your arguments for a few hours. The outcome of your PhD is ultimately dependent on how you do during this oral defense. So as you can imagine this is a very stressful event. I spent all of my time in the months leading up to it prepping and prepping. And then once it came time to head back in December, I had overlooked something, which almost made me miss my viva! So here’s what happened.
My departing flight for Scotland was early Friday morning on the 11th of December. My viva was scheduled for early Monday morning (the 14th) and I was intending to meet NT Wright and my friend Keith, one of his other students who would also be having his viva on Monday, for lunch at a local deli in St Andrews.
So Thursday night before my flight I was out for dinner with my Dad. I hadn’t packed yet, but I wasn’t really worried about this because I wasn’t going to be gone for too long and I tend to pack at the last moment just in case I end up needing something that I’ve packed away. We get back home and I casually begin collecting my things for the trip. Everything is right where it should be expect for my passport. Panic didn’t settle in just yet; I checked each of my bags thoroughly, though it strangely wasn’t anywhere it should have been. Then I became a bit creative. I checked every possible nook and cranny. I checked pant pockets and jacket pockets. I searched throughout the seat cushions of the couches. It was absolutely nowhere to be found.
Now I’m freaking out.
And by this point it was around midnight and my flight was at 7 something in the morning. I started checking frantically online for replacement passport services. I found one in particular and I decided to bite the bullet. In order to proceed I had to officially make my current passport inactive. This was frightening; what if it magically turned up at the last second?! So I went ahead with it. I printed out all of the paperwork and filled everything out. I tried calling the offices but they weren’t open. So I knew this meant that I was going to be missing my flight. However, I had paid for the quickest possible service available, which could get me a new passport within 24 hours. So my goal was to send off my documents first thing Friday morning, receive my new passport on early Saturday morning, and then head off to Scotland later that day, and then make it for the viva in just the nick of time. All I cared about was making it to St Andrews by Monday morning.
Once the offices were finally open early Friday morning, I made a call and told the person on the other end of the line that I had lost my passport, filled out the necessary paperwork, paid the fee, and that I was all ready to go. They then explained how I was supposed to go about sending off my documents, which was all fine, and then they told me that I would receive my new passport on Monday.
MONDAY?!?!
I freaked out and told the person that I had paid for a special 24 hour service, and all this stuff about the importance of the situation, and they responded by saying that weekends didn’t apply. WONDERFUL! They said my best option would be to go straight to an official passport facility. So then I quickly ended that conversation and frantically began looking for options. I made a phone call and found out that there were no facilities in Las Vegas. This really freaked me out. They also told me that this is the sort of thing that you have to schedule weeks in advance. They had me connect to the facility in Tuscon, Arizona to see if there were any possible openings, but they had none. And then they had me connect to one in San Diego and I was just hoping and praying that they’d have an opening. The person said, “Okay we can fit you in at 1:30pm.” My heart stopped, I was excited to know that I had an opening, but I quickly did the math I realized how that gave me very little leeway to make it on time. I had to leave right that second and I had to have everything on the trip go absolutely right in order to make it on time. So I quickly agreed and just hopped in the car. I didn’t even bother to tell my parents, who were still asleep. I was frantic. And when I plugged in the address of this place into my phone on google maps, my phone told me that I had just under 30 minutes of wiggle room. But I have to tell you that 30 minutes really freaked me out. I knew it was a Friday, and traffic is always tight on Fridays going to California. I also figured that there would be no time to stop for food, to get gas, or even to stop and use the restroom (these are all things one typically does once or twice on any road trip from Las Vegas to San Diego). While on the road I was determined to increase that 30 minutes as much as I could. I figured too that once I got into San Diego I’d have trouble finding the place, and then I’d have trouble finding a place to park, etc. I knew I needed more time.
Well goodness gracious I was flying down the freeway. At a few different points there was completely stalled bumper to bumper traffic. My heart was racing in those moments. When I finally made it to San Diego I couldn’t figure out where it was, like I thought, and I had a hard time finding a spot to park, as anticipated. I finally just ditched the car and made it to the right building, but then I didn’t know which floor it was on. I raced up the elevator to the entrance of the facility and the officer asked me if I have my photo for the passport handy. I about lost it. I had everything I could possibly need, much of the paperwork for the other company overlapped, thankfully, but I did not have a new passport photo! I just assumed I could take care of this at the facility. So I almost lost it to the officer and relayed my plight and how I just arrived from Vegas and that I needed to make it to Scotland. He quickly calmed me down and told me to just go to the post office three blocks down. But then that made me super nervous because I was only a few minutes early at this point and I didn’t want to be late and lose my spot. The cop assured me that I was fine so I went and got it and came back. My troubles weren’t over though because there’s no real guarantee that they would give me the passport that day. So I was just so nervous that they’d deny me after all of this. Well thankfully the rest of my time in San Diego went smoothly. I got my new passport! Then I was able to relax and book my flight, which was departing early the next Morning (Saturday). So I drove back to Las Vegas and went straight to bed.
Looking closely at my tickets at the airport, I’m a little stressed to see that my layover in London (Heathrow) is only for an hour and fifteen minutes. I’m relieved to have made it this far and I’m just happy that I’ve got my flight and that I’ll be able to make it to the viva, but that layover really concerned me. I hate Heathrow. Worst airport ever. So I started to feel a bit like my problems weren’t over. When I got off the plane in London on Sunday morning I quickly made it through the airport to the passport check. I was feeling pretty comfortable at this stage, although I still had security to go through upstairs. I get to the passport check and the officer asks me what I’m doing in the UK. I casually say that I’m a PhD student and I’ve just come back for my viva and I’ll be leaving on Wednesday. The officer flips through my passport to find my visa and sees that everything is empty. “Where’s your visa?” he asks. I casually dismiss the question, “Oh yea, I had to get a new one yesterday because I lost my passport, so my visa is in the lost one.” The officer just kinda nods to signify that he understands and then he fills out some paperwork and hands it to me and asks me to take a seat. I quickly glance down and I see the header on the paper say, “subject to detaining.”
DETAINING?!
I was like, “Wait, what is this? I’m just here for a few days I can be here for a few days!” And the officer said, “Yea, but you didn’t tell me you were visiting for a few days you told me you were a student, and you don’t have a visa.” I just could not believe my luck at that moment. After all this I was gonna get detained in London! I told the officer that I have a quick layover and I really need to head out and that my viva is just tomorrow morning. And he just said, “I don’t care, have a seat!” And then he walked off to his office. I just sat there feeling miserable. After what seemed like forever he comes out and stamps the sheet and just says “who’s next?” without even bothering to look at me. Goodness. It’s crazy to think that if I had just lied and said I was on holiday there would have been no trouble at all. But then I realized… Later on the plane I was playing through that interaction with the official again and again and it occurred to me that I did in fact lie to the officer! Technically, when I submitted my thesis back in September, I stopped being a student of the University. Even my student ID card states that my status as a student expired September 2015. So I went through all of that because I lied to the UK border official! Anyways…
Well then I made it through security alright, flew to Edinburgh, and then took the train to St Andrews. I literally arrived in town just after the time set for lunch with Prof. Wright and Keith. I was so exhausted and so thankful and just could not believe what the last few days had looked like. And on top of all of this stress I still had to pass my viva the next morning!
Thankfully, I did. And I’m grateful to God that despite my silliness at the beginning and the end of my PhD program I still made it through alright.
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