The entire wagon to one star

So we had a weekend-long discussion this last weekend about our plans - needless to say I didn't get anything else done.  I brought up the idea of going to grad school in Scotland and I think Geoff realized that I was more serious than not about this whole thing (true) but he thought that I wanted to pack up everything right now and move there right now, for the rest of our lives (not true) and he was not so into that.  But once we got that all worked out, we were able to come up with a very tentative plan. 

We're going to add the University of Edinburgh to our list of grad schools to apply for.  It will take both of us getting in if we are to make it work because the only visa either of us could possibly work on right now is the student visa.  If that doesn't work, then we'll go to grad school here as initially planned, and build up our education and make higher earnings for a couple of years so that we can both qualify for the Tier 1 visa, which is the "highly skilled" visa and the one that doesn't require you to have a job before you move there.  This will take about 5 years minimum (1 yr until grad school starts, 2 yrs to complete both of our programs, and 2 yrs of hopefully higher earnings, as required by the visa).  The third option, is the Tier 2 visa which means you have to first get a job with a registered employer who is willing to sponsor you, and is very very difficult to get.  Tonight we plan to go extensively over the different visa requirements and see exactly where we stand and what we'd need to do.

If/When we eventually get over there, we're just going to stay for a few years (be it in work or school), and decide if we like it enough to stay for a long time.  If we fall in love with the place, then I'll apply for the Chartered Accountant training program, since it's not really of any use in the US.

I'm happy with this because we'll be doing everything we possibly can to get there, and if it doesn't work out, then at least we know we did everything we could.  Although I told Geoff I hope against hope that it works out because I want to go so so bad.  He said he can't really see any drawbacks to doing this, only benefits, with the exception that there's a chance we might not like it.  But he's very excited, as am I.  I'm glad we're on the same page.

Relatedly, Geoff gently suggested to me, through this process, that I might be depressed because I have no motivation any more for work, career, or life in general, and haven't really for some time.  And that this Scotland thing is my light at the end of the tunnel, and maybe I should go see someone.  I remember blogging about "to what end" is all of this for?  It's a plan but to what end.  Well, it's true that Scotland has become my "end" so to speak, pretty much a reason to do all of this.  Like the means finally have an end.  I don't know, maybe hitching my entire wagon to this one star is only asking for disappointment (which I do not handle well at all), but I'm still going to try.  And I'm not against therapy but I just don't know if what I'm experiencing is any different than with every other schmoe who gets sick of their routine.  I don't know if they'd be able to tell me anything other than to either suck it up or switch careers.

So anyway.  That's all for now.