The long version

In 2005 I was sitting at my desk at Tooele High School and had a personal revelation where Heavenly Father said, "It's time to get your PhD." Now the search for a school to go to. The top contenders were University of North Carolina at Greensboro and Indiana University. Both good school, but the biggest problem is that my GRE scores were expired and the last time I took a math class was in 1993. I kept pondering and almost went to UNCG, but again another personal revelation said, don't go there. So I was at the IADMS conference in Ohio in 2008 when I met Dr. Matt Wyon from the University of Wolverhampton. I had been reading his research over the years and thought he was doing good things in dance research. I told him I wanted to continue my research in a neck injury in female ballroom dancers, and he said come to England.
In England for a PhD you do 3-5 projects instead of 1 dissertation. And you have to put your project proposals in your application. I decided on two surveys and two biomechanical analyses (I won't bore you with the details, unless you ask for them). I had originally turned in my application last June, but it was too heavy with ballroom terminology, so the application committee made me redo it. I fixed it and it was accepted in September. Now to get a visa.

So here is the story I was told, a bunch of students from India had been accepted to universities in the UK, showed up, and then disappeared. If you have been to Europe you know that once you are in you can go anywhere, so this is a security problem. Now the UK is making a bunch of new rules about getting student visas. I was originally going to pay for school with a student loan, but I found out that the University of Wolverhampton does not have a current federal school code and is not going to fill out the paperwork to get a federal school code. (It took the school three months to tell me that sentence.) A week later I was told about the studentships (which is the UK term for graduate assistantship) I could apply for but then I would have to wait a month for an interview, this was December/January.
Well I got the studentship, so now I have to have the equivalent of £5400 in my bank account for 28 days. Yeah there is always a but. But there is a rule change starting February 22nd that I have to have a CaS# instead of a visa letter. By this time it just feels like the UK government is making new rules just to mess with my head. So I did the 28 days and got my CaS#, then filled out the visa application and waited...I think it is the waiting that kills me.
Sure enough my visa came this morning and I bought my plane ticket. I'm leaving on Sunday and start school on Tuesday (Monday is a bank holiday in England). After 8 months of dealing with all the visa obstacles I am grateful to be starting the hard work of a PhD. Grateful that I finally get to do what the Lord has asked me to do. Everyone is welcome to come visit, just let me know when you are coming. Hope you have a good weekend like I will!