Speechless

I'm in absolute shock! No, more than that, I'm totally flabbergasted!! When I opened my mailbox tonight, what should I see but an envelope from the U.S. Department of Justice. Now, at any other point in my life, such a sight would have turned my bowels to water. But, given the surreal situation I now find myself in, I instead found myself laughing with joy! Weird, huh?

So, why all the excitement? My FBI police clearance came in! After only 2 weeks!!! That's just almost inconceivable. Why am I so shocked? Well, the FBI website says the process takes 16-18 weeks! I was sure this was going to be the big hold up in the whole process. In my hope of finding some more reassuring information than that, I'd spent at least a couple of hours surfing various websites and discussion forums from all over the world. The best news I read was a single individual who said she'd gotten hers back in 3 weeks. I took that to be a futile hope. Most sites' predictions fell in the 6-8 week category, with a few saying 4-6 weeks if you made sure to request expedited processing. Well I did that, but the quickest I dared ask for was for a 4 week processing time. Well, for once a government bureaucracy has exceeded my expectations in a positive way!

Of course, as if to contradict this amazing news, I also got some not so happy news from the recruiter today. My application for Irish validation of my professional qualifications is going to take longer than I'd hoped. Apparently, I got the application in just a leetle too late to be reviewed at their March meeting, so it's going to have to wait till the April review date. Bummer.

Oh well, I'm still stoked about the FBI's shocking user friendliness. Plus, I got my pre-employment physical today and everything went well. Apparently, I'm "normal" in every way that counts and thus "fit for duty" :-)

So, what all this means is that I've done my piece. Now it's all up to the recruiter (to check my references) and the Irish government (professional validation and work visa). Sigh. I hate not having control.