Journey towards 'carte de sejour'

When I first arrived in France, I did not have slight idea what the hell was carte de sejour. As far as I was concerned, we provided everything to the company to do necessary arrangement for our stay here. Before I came here, I had terrible experience with visa, somehow I managed to get it almost 1 month later than my colleagues. .

When I arrived here, we were told we needed endorsement from Prefecture for our stay here. Actually carte de sejour is a card almost like work permit so that we don't have to carry our passport around. Prefecture is almost like Bukit Aman Police who controlled everything including immigration. As experienced by many people (try google immigration in France, ANAEM, prefecture, work permit in France), the Prefecture was nothing but full of bureaucracy...The first day we went to 1 of the Prefecture, we were sent to other branch-Cite. When we went to the Cite branch, we were told for carte de sejour application, we needed to go to another Branch in Gaite. In the Gaite branch, after we queue for almost 3 hours, we were told we needed to bring some documents hahaha...I felt like Bangla or Indon queue in front of immigration office...

In our next trip to Prefecture office, we queue for 5 hours before we were told we needed to supply some documents, and do medical check up in ANAEM. The thing I hate the most at Prefecture was the office was full of 'colourful' people..Most of them were not professional...Imagine, queue in Malaysia surrounded by African, Nigerian, Indon, Bangladeshi and other immigrants hehehe...I just thought, well I could be easily infected by any disease soon..hmmm...how stressful the condition...... Oh ye, since we were guinea pigs, nobody really knew what to do. Then, after days of waiting, finally ANAEM asked us to do medical check up. The medical check up was ok, not that scary compared to at prefecture..

Once we got ANAEM clearance, we were told we must supply birth certificate in French...Any of you bring birth certificate everywhere??? Not me though. The last time I used my birth certificate was in primary school. Thanks to my friend that helped me to scan and later courier my birth certificate to Paris. I did the translation from Malay to French in Malaysian Embassy.

Yeah...I also thought everything was over when I had all documents. When I went to the Prefecture again, I was so surprised to see how they hired 'robot' instead of human beings..hahaha..How brainless French is..My passport stated my full name with binti. In my original bith certificate that was issued in 1977, it only stated my first name and my father's name was stated in Name of father. The robot at the Prefecture refused to accept me the 'daughter of Abdul Razak' is similar person with me 'binti Abdul Razak'...see...told you French are stupid...End up, I went to Malaysia embassy and they issued me with a letter saying that me in Birth cert and in the passport is similar person..hahahaha...I felt so stupid even to ask for such letter, but what choice did I have???

Today, we went again..Thank God, we were served by a very helpful person. Although I was asked to get new pictures, she was very helpful..And finally Prefecture accepted my application but the real card willonly be ready in the next 2 months...Still not over, we were told until we get the real carte de sejour, we were not allowed to leave France...hahaha...helloooo...I'm not that 'religious' to stay in France during Christmas break...

Next few days, we will go again to other Prefecture office to ask for multi entry visa...I hope journey towards carte de sejour will not repeating itself in journey towards multi entry visa hahaha...

yeah...how difficult life is over here..I thank God, finally I accomplished a difficult chapter of my life..also, I appreciate those who help me this far-jasa mu dikenang...