Earlier this year I thought I would finally go ahead and apply for New Zealand citizenship.  I've been living here for almost 13 years after all.  My main reason for doing so was to avoid buying a $25 year-long visa any time I want to go to Australia.  When I called to get my application form the man informed me that there was a $400 fee and the processing could take 2 years!  I decided I would rather just buy the visas, I don't go to Australia that much.
Anyway, Mummy Pigalina, fearing New Zealand civil war and deciding that she may one day want to live in the beautiful sunshine of our larger island cousin, decided that she and Daddy Pigalina would apply for citizenship and offered to pay for me and my sister too. 
Easy peasy, fill out a form, attend a ceremony and get a native tree and a certificate.  Then I am free to come and go from here as I please.  The form however is rather large and rather intrusive. 

In order to decide if I "ordinarily reside" in NZ I have to list any time spent out of the country, each address I have had and the dates and any jobs or benefits received and the dates.  This is actually quite a big task!  I have had many jobs and the dates are not well documented.  They want to know your eye colour and height, if you have ever been overpaid while on a beneift or had to pay a tax bill.  This will mean a long time on the phone to the tax department because I honestly can't remember.  They would also like to know about any fines you have had - this includes speeding so I have to look back through the mists of time to try and remember the date of a speeding ticket about 9 years ago (though luckily the photo was sent for at the time to determine who was driving so I should be able to put the exact date). 

My favourite questions on the form are numbers 20.6a and 20.7:
"Are you or have you ever been associated with a terrorist organisation or involved in acts of terrorism?"
"Are you or have you been involved in a war crime or a crime against humanity?"
Both have nice little tick boxes next to them so any terrorists and war criminals can tick "yes" and then post in their forms. 
After filling out my lovely 11 page form and sending in two passport photos and $400 (of mum's money) I have to sit back for up to 18 months and in the meantime I will be asked to provide a huge wealth of original personal documents including old passports.  It's a good job I am a hoarder.
Then I have to attend a ceremony (there is no getting out of it) and say an affirmation of allegiance.  What a faff.  My native tree better be a goodie.

Hurrah, hooray.  I am finally a permanent member of staff so I can now carry on doing exactly what I have been doing for the last 8 months indefinately.
My coaching paid off and my manager told me my interview was "10, no, 100 times better than last time."  Good, it couldn't really have got much worse than that last one.  I "wanked on" about myself as advised.  I must be good at wanking.

So, watch out unemployed of South D.