The original paper chase was the one that says 'Bachelor's Degree', which most Singaporeans chase after for the good part of their youth. I got kicked out of that chase during my first try; played too hard during my university years. And now I'm chasing it for the second time, in a faraway land call Argentina.
But to be eligible for the original paper chase, I must first chase the paper called 'student visa'.
Unfortunately, to apply for studying in a country where no Singaporean has studied before, a little exploring needs to be done.
The idea first began in August 2006, I wanted to go somewhere far faraway from Singapore, to see the world, I wanted to continue to develop my interest in tango dancing, and most importantly I wanted to study, to explore my intellectual limits without breaking the bank.
Hence Argentina became quite a natural choice. Other side of the world; birthplace of tango; free education even for foreigners.
But there were difficulties that fraught the way. The most glaring are number one, everything is in Spanish; a language which I had no clue. Number two, the authorities where I can get the student visa; the Argentine Consulate, can only be found in Jakarta, Indonesia. The Singapore branch had been closed since year 2002.
With no idea where to start, I spent some time from last year August 2006 till March 2007. Trying first to learn the language, and then when my Spanish was halfway proficient, running around different universities asking, cajoling, and begging for them to take me in. Fortunately I got to know a wonderful girl by the name of Fabiana. She works as a lawyer and is extremely helpful to my cause.
Fabiana and I first went to Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA), the largest and most well known public university of Argentina, to ask for admission procedures. UBA is completely free for everyone and not difficult to get in. But we found out that I needed to complete a one year general course before I can start studying philosophy, the subject that I want to major in. And they require all foreigners to complete a three month Argentine history course before entering the one year general course.
So that hit a snag. After which I tried my luck with the private universities. I found one which was quite respectable and relatively inexpensive; 400 Ar pesos (SGD$200) monthly, called Universidad de Salvador.
Late February 2007, I went to Universidad de Salvador and asked for admission. They gave me a list of administrative requirements that I have to possess before they even consider my application. They were as follow;
1. Passport
2. Birth certificate
3. Identification card
4. Record of criminal history/ certificate of citizen conduct
5. Secondary school completion certificates
6. Pre college completion certificates
7. Pre college testimony (*non-essential)
8. Pre college extra curriculum activities records (*non-essential)
9. University results (*non-essential)
Sounds simple enough? But the twist comes as follows. The documents need to be in translated in Spanish if they are in English. And they need to be legalized (certified true copies and hence authorized to be used in Argentina) by the Argentine Consulate that is representing my nation country, which is not even in Singapore; in Indonesia! And I was then in Argentina! Although I contemplated Fedex-ing my passport to Jakarta, I dismissed the idea in the end. Lastly I had yet to apply for my certificate of citizen conduct from my police authorities in Singapore. So I needed to go back to Singapore and perhaps even Indonesia to obtain these documents.
April 2007, I came back to Singapore and in May 2007 I got my certificate of citizen conduct from the Cantonment department of Singapore Police Force. It costs SGD$45.
Getting the certificate of citizen conduct took a little bit of negotiation too. The authorities wanted me to show them prove of requirement of this certificate; they wanted to see my inscription with the Argentine University and a letter from them that says I need this certificate. This was a catch 22 situation because the university needs this certificate to let me enter and the police authorities need an inscription to give me this certificate.
In the end I showed them the list of requirements, which were in Spanish, given to me by the Argentine university. I highlighted the Spanish words 'certificado de buena conducta' and crossed my fingers that the police woman could understand at least the words 'certificado' and 'conducta'. Luckily, it worked.
Then I found out that in order for the Argentine Consulate to legalize my documents, first I need to let their Singaporean counterparts, Ministry of Foreign Affairs Singapore (MFA), to certify and legalize.
Fair enough. I got them legalized at MFA. I have nine sets of documents in total. Each stamp of legalization on each page of each document cost SGD$10. To be on the safe side I legalized 3 copies of each document. So there went SGD$270.
When I legalized the documents at MFA, what they did was compared my original documents and the photocopies and then they'll put a government stamp on the photocopies that says 'Certified True Copy'. I was a bit worried because that just means the photocopy was exactly the same as the original. It does not necessary say that my originals were authentic; it just proves that the HP photocopy machine I used was in perfect condition.
The lady putting the stamps assured me this was standard practice. They do not stamp on the originals; instead they put the stamp on the copies which infers that the originals are authentic and ready to be used in overseas businesses.
But she did mention that some embassies want a 'certified' original copy of the birth certificate. And the fact that my birth certificate is laminated means I actually have to get a 'true extract' of my birth certificate at the Immigration and Checkpoints Authorities; which I did and it costs SGD$30. I went back two weeks and got a SGD$10 MFA stamp on that 'true extract'.
So with all my original English documents ready, I turned my attention to getting them translated to Spanish. Then I got a call from the Argentine Consulate in Jakarta telling me that I needed legalize the Spanish documents too. Of course for them to legalize the documents, they must first be legalized by the Singapore Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA).
Again, that did not make sense to me. You would have thought that the best people to make sure the Spanish translations are correct are the people working in the consulate themselves. How would some notary public, Singaporean lawyer or clerk at the MFA be able to tell if the Spanish translations are accurate? How would they be in a position to legalize these documents?
It became less straightforward. First the argentine consulate told me they would only accept official translators. And the only official translator they knew was this guy called Eshramat who lives in Jakarta. I was thinking to myself it’s impossible that Singapore does not have recognized English to Spanish translators.
Hence I made some calls to MFA and asked them for a list of official translators. They told me they actually only have in-house official translators for the four major languages of Singapore; English, Chinese, Malay and Indian.
Then I did my own search on the internet and found Mr. Jonathan Koh from BridgeSA services ( www.bridgesa.net ). He is a certified translator and registered company with the government. With that I let him translate my documents at SGD$40 per document and it came up to $360.
MFA came back to me told me they cannot legalize these translated documents because they do not understand Spanish and Jonathan is not in-house translator. Fortunately, Jonathan had done the same thing for a Cuban who wanted to come to Singapore, what he did was he got lawyer, who was a registered notary public, to certify/ notarize his translations. So one July morning Jonathan and I went down to the lawyer's office and they both stamped and sign on all my translated documents, The lawyer bounded all the documents together and put a nice looking cover page that says "I, Mr. Adam, registered notary public, hereby legalize these papers." That cost about SGD$150. I was so impressed by neat and professional binding that I got one extra set of translated documents bounded and another set of my original English documents bounded.
Before I could get MFA to certify these bounded documents, I must first let Singapore Academy of Law to certify this particular notary public. So I took my three bounded sets of documents to Singapore Academy of Law and they certified them for me SGD$25 per set. They put another even more professional looking cover page, tied a ribbon bounding my documents and put a seal at the bottom of the ribbon, presumably so that no one can add or take away any pages.
With that I finally took my three sets of very professional looking documents, courteous of Singapore Academy of Law, back to MFA; one set of original English documents, two sets of translated Spanish documents.
They just stamped the front page of each set of the documents near the stamp of the Singapore Academy of Law. SGD$10 each stamp. I should have done that earlier and not blow $270 collecting all the individual stamps.
That being done, I faxed all my documents to the Argentine Consulate in Jakarta, for one last check by them, in case I missed anything. The fax, costing about SGD$2.50 per page came up to around SGD$150.
The Singapore leg of this paper chase is finally done. I bought a $200 Garuda Indonesia ticket to Jakarta. Stayed one night in a SGD$70 motel. Had a good chat with Senor Diego, the argentine ambassador representing Indonesia and Singapore, while they stamped and signed every single page of my documents.
At the last page of my three sets of documents, they added a beautiful blue piece of paper that says "Republica Argentina", and a big nice signature of Senor Diego. It cost USD$40 per set of document, around SGD$60. The entire process took one morning.
The last leg of this paper chase will happen when I finally go back to Buenos Aires. Fabiana would first take the scanned images of my documents to the university to check if everything is in order. After which I need to go to the university, get registered, then with a place in the university, go the immigration authorities in Argentina to finally get my student visa.
And you would think the actual studying would be the difficult and troublesome part. 
In the end I spent around SGD$2000 running around and getting everything done. I should have just taken up the offer of a black market illegal argentine work permit which costs SGD$350, offered to me six months ago by a milonguero.
