Letters from the Equator

I’ve just managed to get wireless working with the home broadband over here, after hours of messing around with Vista, the TalkTalk modem, and my Dlink wireless router.

Things haven’t been going all too smoothly, and being unable to connect to the internet via my laptop has been too irritating. Now that I finally have it up, I have to remind myself that I must avoid procrastination and focus on what’s important.

Blogging is important, so here I am punching keys and telling you what’s been happening over the last few days.

Newbie bank account woes

Bank account - Apparently Barclays requires more documentation to open a bank account than any other bank in the world. One Barclays representative says she has no evidence of having received my application. Another Barclays representative told my RHB bank officer that more documentation was required, so obviously this representative doesn’t talk to the other one very much. My RHB bank officer promptly told the rep not to waste time and to proceed with opening the account anyhoo. And if my mom didn’t call her, she probably wouldn’t have bothered.

Getting a bank account is important if you’re starting out in the UK, because it’s almost impossible to subscribe to anything ongoing without a debit or credit card. For example, mobile broadband for £15 a month, and they need a debit card for that. The alternative is to head to internet cafes which charge a bomb. Forget free public wi-fi. It’s unstable.

Also, it’s important to have bank statements when you want to rent a room or a flat. Otherwise, you’d need a guarantor to do this. If you don’t have a guarantor (most likely a relative), then you’re screwed.

This is why I’m so frustrated with Barclays. I want to point the finger at RHB, but I think they haven’t done anything wrong. Barclays just has way too many forms, for way too many reasons, and they will most certainly scold me for complaining about this… but I can’t hide my discontent.

Chicken and Egg UK

The other banks are worse, since HSBC charges international students for opening accounts (£6ish a month), and NatWest wants proof of address with our name on it, like a utility bill.

If we just got here, how in the world are we going to have a proof of address?!

And they won’t accept letters, nor will they accept tenancy agreements. So students in residence halls are screwed too. Maybe someone else who’s had a better experience can tell me otherwise.

So we end up waiting again - for the Barclays International Student account to be opened. Hopefully, this takes place BEFORE my enrolment next week, when I am required to pay at least half my school fees. Not much time left, and they don’t work on Saturdays.

This means that I will have to force myself to not worry during the weekend, and not worry when there are potentially more problems to face. There are no shortage of things to worry about in this world. Ironically, the solution is to avoid worrying at all. So, I just have to believe in this weird but true advice. Don’t worry about things that are apparently worrying.

Not so Cheap as Chips

Chips cost about a pound here. That’s not cheap if you convert it into Malaysian RM. There are some things I end up converting and some things I don’t.

Food is hard to convert, because they never match the sheer cost at which you can get a meal back home. Today I bought a medium-sized bottle of water from a low-cost grocery supermart at 53p, which is about RM3.50 back home. Cheap sandwich at 79p, although it was filled with good stuff in it, is worth RM5 after conversion.

No, I can’t convert for the price of food.

I can convert for other things, though. Electronics, electricals, and CARS. But heck, I shouldn’t even be thinking about cars. Sigh.

This is just the beginning

There’s so much going on in my mind I don’t know where to start. I probably shouldn’t try to blog about it all here. Right now I don’t have the energy to summarise my thoughts very well.

I should go to bed.

Categorized as life