Victory

GUYS! GUYS! GUYSSSS!!!!!

I have no idea if I actually got it or not, but apparently, if your payment goes through and the status says "Received," you're like 90% in? Probably? Hopefully?

Honestly, I was so nervous and anxious last night that I could barely sleep. I woke up at 4 AM (yes, FOUR) and the first thing I did? I tested my internet speed. 

And guess what? My internet was blazing fast! Thank you, Singtel, for being more reliable than my own sanity at this point. 

Oh, and of course, I wasn’t taking any chances—I opened five tabs just in case one of them decided to crash on me. Gotta be prepared, right?

Then, at 4:55 AM, I started refreshing like a maniac. And boom—ERROR. The site basically went, "Yeah, nah. Too many people. Try again later." It was experiencing "high demand," which was just a fancy way of saying "Good luck fighting the digital crowd, sucker."

But I could feel the struggle. The page loaded so slowly, it was like thousands of people trying to squeeze into a tiny store with one cashier. Absolute chaos.

But guess what? I must be one of the chosen ones, because—by the grace of God—I actually got through! I landed on the first page and immediately started filling in my details like my life depended on it.

In the middle of all this chaos, I ran into another error—this time, a terrifying message that said, "This connection is not private." Excuse me, what?! I had never seen this before and had zero idea how to handle it. So, like any rational person in panic mode, I just kept refreshing and clicking back like my life depended on it.

When I finally made it back to the first page, I had to fill in everything again (because genius me didn’t set up autofill). But hey, I made it through smoothly—until the payment page.

Now, I was so confident that one debit card was enough. I got this. I had even activated overseas payments in advance. But guess what? Transaction failed.

Once? Failed.

Twice? FAILED.

At that moment, I was devastated. I had come this far just to be stopped by a stupid card?! I almost gave up.

And then—a divine thought flashed through my mind.

I suddenly remembered my Singapore debit card! I had activated overseas payments on it "just in case," but never actually planned to use it. In full desperation mode, I quickly entered the details... AND IT WENT THROUGH.

By then, it was just before 5:30 AM, and I finally saw in the system that my application and payment had been received. Victory! But now, I just pray that I didn’t mess up anything in the forms. (I did double-check, but you never know!)

So, this was my first time applying for a Working Holiday Visa (WHV) to New Zealand, and honestly, I have no clue what actually determined my success. I saw a lot of people on XHS saying they couldn't even get to the payment or final submission page. So clearly, it’s not just about internet speed—because even people with slow Wi-Fi managed to get through.

For those trying again next year: Do your research on all the possible errors that might pop up! Preparation is key. But honestly, I really believe God’s blessing carried me through this. I was so close to giving up, but something inside me just kept saying "Don’t quit!"

I kept refreshing, and I finally got it. Thank God!

Now, I just pray my visa gets granted and approved within the next 1 to 4 weeks so I can start planning everything ahead. Fingers crossed!