Drowning in Paperwork

So far the theme of my December has been paperwork. (Actually this could also be said of my entire 2018, but never mind.) I'm starting to get confused and scattered about it all, so I thought I better write it down somewhere. Things I've been doing for the last two weeks:

1. Prepping for a 3-month trip to Sydney, because my thesis advisors think I need to take a course there that apparently isn't available in New Zealand. This requires:
a) approval from the University of Auckland (only one form! which my advisor filled out! yay, I didn't have to do that one)
b) an invitation letter from the University of Sydney (USyd), which takes 1-2 weeks after I submit:
- two USyd forms (that required input from my thesis advisors)
- my updated CV
- a color copy of my passport
c) an obscure Australian visa, which requires:
- a few hundred dollars
- the invitation letter from USyd (b)
- 24 pages of an online form that won't let you skip ahead to see what you need next (I only got to page 12 before I had to consult USyd, who haven't responded to my query)
- a health check which probably requires going in for an immigration exam (but at least the nearest approved doctor probably isn't 5 hours away in the next state)
- a character check which I'm not sure how that'll work because the NZ police surely aren't going to have anything on me and it might be inconvenient to submit my fingerprints to the FBI a second time from here
- who knows what's on pages 13-24...
d) Air travel, which I'm not planning to book until after I'm done with (c)
e) Lodging. I've applied for a Homestay, which requires:
- a very large sum of up front money
- the aforementioned invitation letter from USyd (b)
- my flight details (d)
f) a bank account in Australia. I've applied for one that has no fees for anything, and they now require:
- an approved visa (c)
- copy of my passport
g) a phone number in Australia. I haven't even started looking into that yet.

At the moment, I'm waiting for USyd to process through the invitation letter before I continue all the parts after it. Truly, I thought I was done with all that after I did it all six months ago to get from the U.S. to here. Dangit.

2. Meanwhile, NZ Customs objects to an item in my shipped stuff, and are holding up the whole shipment until I get a police permit for it. (It's a dagger.) I assume I'm paying for the port storage while I do that. The police required me to fill out and personally hand in a form to the nearest station, which fortunately is within walking distance. Then after a few days when nothing happened, I helpfully sent them an email with pictures of the item. This jogged things loose, and it seems to be waiting on a final decision through two police supervisors now. Order of paperwork going on here is, at the moment:
a) get police permission to import the dagger
...? I suspect there will be more steps between a) and b) that I don't know about yet.
b) get shipment delivered to my current address.
c) pay the final bill(s) to the shipping company and/or local movers.
d) FINALLY inspect it for the water damage that it took on while I was driving it from Alabama to California in the U-Haul trailer back in August. Make a claim to U-Haul insurance (I did actually buy that), and/or make a claim to Allstate (I still have renters insurance until ... March 2019 I think).
e) write reviews for the shipping company and possibly also the movers.

3. Also my brand new ebike is currently broken. (The bike works, but the "e" part doesn't.) It took a few weeks for the bike shop to work out a way to come over from Blenheim to look, and then it was more broken than they hoped and they had to take it back to Blenheim with them. That was three days ago. So far I haven't heard anything, so I guess I'll be pestering them next week.

4. Also meanwhile, my mother decided to change phone plans, and inadvertently deleted my US phone number altogether. So now I have to go around to everywhere I've still got accounts with my previous phone number on it, which I've had for at least the last ten years, so I can change it, so that security codes don't end up going to it anymore.
a) it turns out that Paypal can't handle phone numbers or addresses that aren't U.S. o.O This is bizarre to me, since they're supposed to be global. They advised that I should get a new Paypal account for New Zealand, so I suspect they are also bad at converting currency.
b) Neither of my US banks (both are credit unions) handle the changes very well, but one encounters international people much more often than the other, and handles it better. Eventually it'll be the one I fall back to when it's finally time to consolidate all my US money into one place. Which will be after my shipment gets here and I find out whether the final bill needs to be in USD or NZD.
c) My Amazon credit card handled it just fine. In fact, it has handled everything paperwork related just fine, ever, as far as I can recall, so I'm glad I'm doing business with them (also, free loot off of Amazon when I've amassed enough points).

5. I ordered some self-assembly furniture and other stuff on Monday from the local equivalent to Target, and they were supposed to deliver half of it yesterday. So far I haven't seen it, so I'm hoping it's at my front door when I get home. I finally heard about the other half today, saying they'd show up on Monday around lunchtime. I have both breakfast and dinner plans on Monday, so I guess it's a good thing they picked lunch.

Properly furnishing my apartment is an ongoing gradual task, as I have to wait for stipend money to come in every couple weeks before I can buy a few more moderately expensive things. The next step after this will be a bigger bed. My current one is a single that my flatmate has loaned me, which is why I even have a bed at all right now, but I want a bigger one...

6. It's taking an unexpectedly long time to get set up with the local orthodontist to finish off the Invisalign I've been doing for the last year and a half. Naturally, they needed me to fill out and return Super Important Forms - Do It Now Or Else ... this week. Meanwhile I'm on my last set of aligners, because the rest are stuck in that shipment that still isn't here yet. >.> (But my lower teeth are nicely straightened out now, which is what I was going for with all that.)

7. I don't know how to check my work email unless I'm actually at work. Also, the work-issued laptop can't find wifi. And its battery is nearly dead. I need all these to be fixed before I leave for Sydney, so now I'm playing phone tag with the IT dept, which appears to be outsourced in Christchurch. o.O

8. The reimbursement for my trip to Auckland last month inadvertently got deposited into another student's account. So, paperwork chaos ensuing about that, too. Luckily it wasn't a very large amount, and it did help me learn the process for getting reimbursements, which will help when I need to ask for much larger sums for the Sydney trip...

9. Speaking of reimbursed trips. I have no idea how I'm going to get to and from the US next May/June for the annual EarthCube meeting. :p It always takes them a month to send reimbursements, which means I somehow need to have thousands of dollars in USD available, while having a US income of $0. Plus they are probably going to want to send me a piece of paper through the physical mail instead of just electronically depositing it. (New Zealand banking is really technologically advanced compared to the U.S.)

10. Also I'm supposed to be doing scholarly scientific stuff toward my PhD. Umm. Right then...