Paperwork
This last week of holidays has been dedicated to taking care of paperwork. Living in a variety of countries I have had the opportunity to experience bureaucracy in all of its glorious forms from ridiculous to incredibly efficient.
Leaving Malaysia has an enormous amount of paperwork to be done that luckily our human resources department takes care of for the most part. But I have had to be sure to meet the deadlines for filling out and turning in documents. The largest and most important process is to get the EPF fund money back that I have been contributing a large portion of my salary to monthly - a forced savings that will make the move to Thailand affordable and give me a bit of leeway in spending and buying a car once we arrive there. The second most important part is to clear your tax obligations and then get the visa cancelled in the passport. Without this, we cannot leave Malaysia. It should all be taken care of by mid July, but there is always the risk that it might take up until the end of July. My new job starts on August 1, and I fly out on the 31st. Hopefully it will all fall into place as it should.
There has also been a lot of paperwork to prepare for Thailand. I have had to request degree certifications from all of my unitiverisites, and supply scanned in copies of almost every other possible document. I had to request a certificate of good conduct from Malaysia which took a month to receive - although it can sometimes take up to two months! This week I also got a translation of my drivers license. After finally finding the correct office, I was surprised that I was treated very politely by two helpful employees and left within fifteen minutes of entering the office. Then of course the visa process from the Thai Embassy was interesting. We had to go on Monday in the morning to turn in the documents, and then return on Tuesday to receive the passports with visas glued in. We are not able to travel to Thailand. The final document that I took care of for school was my new teaching certificate. I just needed to notarize and get that signature legalized. That was a bit of a ridiculous process in that I had to get it signed my Australian Embassy, then a local notary, and finally by the Foreign Ministry.
I did the same thing with documents that I had to send to Latvia, so I took care of two things at the same time. Yet all in all I have never experienced issues with bureaucracy anywhere in the world quite the same way as Latvia. After three times of trying to deal with the Latvian documents I hope we have them right. If not, I will have to fly there in July also. I am holding my thumbs and crossing my fingers...
Leaving Malaysia has an enormous amount of paperwork to be done that luckily our human resources department takes care of for the most part. But I have had to be sure to meet the deadlines for filling out and turning in documents. The largest and most important process is to get the EPF fund money back that I have been contributing a large portion of my salary to monthly - a forced savings that will make the move to Thailand affordable and give me a bit of leeway in spending and buying a car once we arrive there. The second most important part is to clear your tax obligations and then get the visa cancelled in the passport. Without this, we cannot leave Malaysia. It should all be taken care of by mid July, but there is always the risk that it might take up until the end of July. My new job starts on August 1, and I fly out on the 31st. Hopefully it will all fall into place as it should.
There has also been a lot of paperwork to prepare for Thailand. I have had to request degree certifications from all of my unitiverisites, and supply scanned in copies of almost every other possible document. I had to request a certificate of good conduct from Malaysia which took a month to receive - although it can sometimes take up to two months! This week I also got a translation of my drivers license. After finally finding the correct office, I was surprised that I was treated very politely by two helpful employees and left within fifteen minutes of entering the office. Then of course the visa process from the Thai Embassy was interesting. We had to go on Monday in the morning to turn in the documents, and then return on Tuesday to receive the passports with visas glued in. We are not able to travel to Thailand. The final document that I took care of for school was my new teaching certificate. I just needed to notarize and get that signature legalized. That was a bit of a ridiculous process in that I had to get it signed my Australian Embassy, then a local notary, and finally by the Foreign Ministry.
I did the same thing with documents that I had to send to Latvia, so I took care of two things at the same time. Yet all in all I have never experienced issues with bureaucracy anywhere in the world quite the same way as Latvia. After three times of trying to deal with the Latvian documents I hope we have them right. If not, I will have to fly there in July also. I am holding my thumbs and crossing my fingers...
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