*I finished this post yesterday, so it’s still ‘today’ as follows – don’t be confused
The New Zealand Working Holiday Visa for Malaysians opened for a 2nd time today at 5am (GMT+8).
The first time (sometime in January, also 5am here as well):
I didn’t manage to sign up immediately because I did not know that it was that bloody competitive. I was complacent yes, and I even went for a driving lesson which ended at 12pm. Tried to desperately sign in then, only managed to get as far as creating an account.
But turns out – there were technical issues! There was going to be a further update on the 25th January 2017! Maybe the quota’s not up yet! (rubs hand gleefully)
There was hope.
I stayed up on the 25th waiting for the update to be posted (the time wasn’t stated) and turns out it was posted really late in the day, and it said that it was going to open again on the 10th of February, 2017 (aka 5am this morning).
I was PUMPED.
I literally spent days thinking about this and I could even feel my adrenaline rushing during the few hours leading up to it. (not kidding lol i’m melodramatic like that) I was SO ready. (I have since, the first attempt, became more educated on the scheme – I went to check out the FB group someone created for Malaysians, yadayada – but that is not to say that I DIDN’T DO my research before the first attempt, I just wasn’t 200% ready)
I knew EXACTLY what to fill in if I saw the form.
I had my credit card, my IC, my passport ready. I had my laptop ready (2 browsers) – my desktop ready – and eventually I used 2 phones with data to try to get in.
I started refreshing the pages at 4.45ish am because I was really nervous, and the refreshing started to slow down and it was getting harder to load the site due to the traffic.
At 5, the site was showing “closed” for the visa status.
It remained so until 5.08ish am, and afterwards I simply could not reach the webpage anymore. All it would show was “Sorry! We’re experiencing technical problems now.. Please refresh or click here to return to the home page”
GREAT.
I went onto the FB group and I actually saw people commenting that they were having trouble paying.
What? I couldn’t even get in the website, but some people have already reached the last step (aka paying)?
I decided to go straight to login and try to reach the working visas page from there (because I created an account previously).
The pages were loading so so so slowly. (at this point I’ve already used 2 phones to refresh the pages as well)
And by 5.40ish am I guess (until now, I still couldn’t get into the main page/any of the pages that led me to the form – other than being able to select ‘Malaysian’ from the drop down list), people started updating on the FB group that the scheme was full.
I didn’t want to give up just then, and when my page finally loaded (5.55am+), it said that the scheme was already full. 😦
I am not ashamed to admit that I cried thrice over this because this has been something I’ve been looking forward to for very long. I wanted this so badly. (Milford sound, yes?) I wanted to visit & stay in NZ IN WINTER. When sandflies are less active! I wanted to get away from a toxic environment for a while (aka home). I was looking forward to living alone again. I was looking forward to all the travelling and the illusion of being independent, even just for 6 months.
Oh well it’s really not happening anyway so
Thoughts:
– The process is getting increasingly competitive each year, because more and more people now know about this. And the quote remains (relatively?) unchanged at 1150.
– Malaysians are as kiasu as they can get – and yes I belong in that category too.
– The visa form takes too little time to complete – so it becomes some sort of competition for a concert ticket (super intense ya’know). Only thing unfortunate is that yes, one can potentially buy tickets from another party if they can’t get into the damn site. *coughs* Not for this.
– My plans for this gap year will have to change 😦 (perhaps I’ll update on that)
I guess I just have to remember that sometimes we don’t always get what we want – especially when certain situations are beyond our control. And I hope I come to terms with that. (I will however still try again in 2018)
At an instant I was convinced that maybe the Universe has better plans in store for me. It seemed bleak, sure, but maybe sometime exciting was potentially going to happen. I mean contextually If I was religious – does that mean that “it’s God’s will”? (In no way am I trying to liken this to something tremendously bad (ie. having a chronic illness that can’t be managed/ not getting into my Uni & course of choice – but the thought just occurred)
For now, I’ll just try not to think about it so much. Because I just might cry again
– steph
best of steph 