Fucking HELL. This business of getting to the moon is a bit nerve-wracking.
I didn't leave it all to the last minute, for once. Only it ended up being literally to the very last minute.
Been writing my application all week, but thought I'd leave sending it till this morning, just to have as much time as poss to make sure I was happy with it.
Checked and double-checked the submission deadline. 23:59 on 21 March. Then checked again. 21 March at 23:59 JST.
JST???!!!!!
So, 14:59, current UK time. Ok. No problem. I was still on track.
Finished writing and reviewing my two, 300-word answers to screening process part two this morning. Edited them both down to 300 words exactly.
Then spent the next SEVERAL HOURS trying to submit the fucking thing.
The text boxes didn't accept pasted in apostrophes, nor extra line spaces delineating paragraphs. Continual red text warning that the word limit was 300. I wasn't over it, having checked and checked again in Word, but tried deleting the odd word, anyway. 299 words; 298; 280, etc...
No joy.
Any time I tried again, it reloaded stage 1 (which I'd previously done and thought was saved, but apparently wasn't). So again, and again, each step.
I looked at Twitter. Lots of others having trouble submitting, too.
I tried every suggestion. Updated my browser; reduced the size of the pictures; left out the social media details; used a different browser altogether.
No joy.
Finally, almost in tears at 14:58, with less than a minute to go, I just deleted a semi-random sentence from each answer, clicked 'Confirm Selection2' for the millionth time, and lo: