MY I-751 INTERVIEW EXPERIENCE

We were scheduled for our I-751 interview on 10/23/08 at 8:30 am. We left our house early to give us enough time to find a parking space and be early for our interview. We are in the city of Hartford before 8:00 am but unfortunately we couldn't find the place. What a shame! we didn't have hard time finding the place when we applied for my AOS 3 years ago. It was 9:00 am and were still looking for the place and finally we found a gas station we stopped and asked for direction. After few turns we finally found the place and were more than an hour late. We still went inside and apologize to the receptionist for being late. He just told us " it's alright, no problem, please have a seat and somebody will call you." Two minutes later an officer called our name. She took us to her office and asked us to swear that we will tell the truth etc etc etc.

Our conversation:

Officer: I'm officer D. please let me know if you any have questions.

US: Thank you

Officer: May I see your passport?

Me: Sure and I handed my passport to her.

Officer: She was checking my passport and asked us for our IDs

US: We handed our photo ID to her.

Officer: Where are you from?

Me: I'm from the Philippines.

Officer: Are you still married?

Us: Yes.

Officer: Do you have any children?

Us: No.

Officer: How long you've been married?

Husband: More than 3 years

Officer: When did you get married?

Husband: Gave her the date

Officer: OK. Do you have proof of you relationship?

US: Yes, and I handed to her the copies of all our evidence.

Officer: Are you still working in _________?

Me: Yes

Officer: How about you Mr. _____ are you still employed in _________?

Husband: Yes and I am also a homeland security employee.

Officer: OK. Now Mrs. ______ Do you have any police charges against you? Felony or misdemeanor?

Me: No.

Officer: Was checking our papers again and told us that the papers are good and was asked me if I have my green card.

Me: I said Yes, it's already expired but I have an extension letter here with me. Do you still want it?

Officer: Yes, you don't need that anyway. I will stamped you passport and I will give you 6 months work authorization. It usually take six months before you get your actual card and if for some reason you will not get your green card within 6 months then you can come back here and request for an info pass and will stamp your passport again.

Me: I was listening to her but was really upset because it took them 11 months before they touched my case and on the top of it I have to wait six months for my actual card?grrr... but I kept my cool.

Officer: OK, I'll step out for a minute and make copy of these papers.

Me: You don't need to do that because those are copies I have the originals with me. Good thing I made copies of all the papers. It really helped us saved time because both me and hubby are still going to work.

Officer: Thank you for coming.

Us: Thank you so much officer...

We're thankful that the officer took us even though were more than an hour late. I hope I will get my actual green card soon.

IMMIGRATION 101 -- I751 INTERVIEW DATE

As stated in my previous post that I received an invitation letter from uscis last week 10/16/08 or 10/17/08. It basically says in the letter that me and my husband has to be there on 10/23/08 for our I-751 interview, great. I didn't see this coming at all. I thought for sure that they will not call me for an interview but unfortunately they did and I'm not very happy at all. I'm happy knowing that they finally look over my case but the interview portion really sucks. Lucky for those people who successfully removed the condition of their residency without going through an interview.

I made a copy of all the requirements needed on that day like...

1. Photos of me and hubby together and photos of me and hubby with friends.

2. Both 07 tax return, they actually ask for our tax return within the last 3 years.

3 . Receipt in both our names

4. Mails in both our names

5. Health/life insurance copy with my/his name as beneficiary

6. Joint account

7. Rent contract

8. Mortgage pre-approval letter

9. GC, B-cert, passport, appointment letter

I hope everything goes well for us this Thursday. I'm not nervous at all but I'm just annoyed with the situation.

Note: We already submitted the above mentioned papers but we'll bring them on Thursday, it's better safe than sorry.

I'll keep you posted on the outcome of this interview.. Keep us in your prayers.

LUST or LOVE

Alright everyone let's define Lust and Love. According to my friend WIKI, Lust is lecherousness a strong sexual desire and Love is any of a number of emotions and experiences related to a sense of strong affection..whatever.

I met this lady when I use to be a host and I like her because she's very open to me. I was on my way to the gym when I saw V_ and of course she gave me a hug and she was happy to see me and that she misses our conversation. I remember V, she goes to work with bruises on her forehead or on her arms and she told me that her bf hit her . To be honest her life is a big mess. Her and her bf was on and off, they've been called by the police few times because they fight like crazy. One time she filed a restraining order for her bf and she swore to me that she will never go back to him again but guess what? after a week they're together again, oh well what's new?

So like I said I saw her and we chit chat a little bit. I asked her how she's doing, and she told me " same old same old Mar, my ex bf ( same bf )want me back and he told me I still love you V_ _ _ in fact I want to make L_ _ _ with you tonight. " I was like No! that is not right, he just want to use you, he don't love you.

I told her to move on because I can tell that she still love the guy and it appears to me that the guy don't really love her. From listening to her stories before, the guy only need her if he wants to physically use her and when he needs money.

So I asked her, when was the last time he called you because he miss you without asking you to make L___ with him? She just told me never, every time he call me he was drunk and he wanted me to go to his apartment and you know what happen when she go there. I told her to open her big eyes and accept the fact that the guy only want her for pleasure, she's young and beautiful and that she will find a guy that will really love her not lust her. She just told me, I appreciate that you're concern about me Mar but I want to be honest with you I still love him and I don't really know what to do. It's so hard to say NO to a person you love. I told her I want to knock her down and hoping that she will forget the guy by the time she woke up. She just laugh at me as if I was joking when I wasn't.

HERE COMES WINTER

Winter is coming, It's getting chilly in our place. I'm getting ready for the winter, I have my extra moisturiser body lotion , my facial moisturiser, lip balm, heavy coat, winter boots, winter hat, gloves and what else uh! I have to buy an anti static lotion because I get a lot of static electricity when it's winter. I had tried our pharmacy here but they don't carry that type of lotion so I tried to search online and I found few but they always ask for my credit card number and I'm very reluctant to do that. If you get easily zap try to avoid clothing that are made of wool, knits and try to stay away from rugs...
Have you driven on snow? I haven't and that's one of my concern.

IMMIGRATION 101!

I filed my I-751 November of last year and to the people who doesn't know what that means, it's a process wherein you removed the condition of your residency. Anyway, I had a very bad morning to start with and became worst when I received a letter from USCIS. Like I said I filed November 07 and got a stupid response from the Immigration today October 15, 08. To be honest I am very upset of this whole immigration thing. The fee is so high and the processing is so slow! They gave immigrants such a hard time no wonder why there are millions of illegal alien in this country.

I didn't see this coming, I mean I thought it's the same bs you file for your I-751 then wait til they send you a biometric schedule and send you a 10 years gc. This is so stupid! I don't know if this is just a normal routine or there is a deeper reason why our attention was being called, wha! I don't really know.

They provide an 800 number and you will be lucky if you speak to a uscis representative who knows what they're doing. Guess what? I got the letter today 10/15/08 and our appointment is on 10/23/08 about a week from now, very incompetent people.

After reading my post you guys might say Kit get over it, that's how it is. And my say is that" I know but can there be a little changes? they change the fee every now an then it goes up and up so maybe it's time for them to improve their system and their performance for a change."

RENTING A TIME MACHINE

I checked my friendster account and I was viewing my sisters’ profile and I said to my self “ she is a grown up”. Eight years ago she was just a kid who don’t know how to put eye shadow, lipstick or lip gloss, eye browse and blush on. As I was looking at her photos I couldn’t resist but to sigh because I wasn’t there to watch her grow . Same feeling with my other siblings, when I went home last year to visit them I hardly recognize my only brother because he had changed a lot from a chubby boy to a masculine teen. There is not much changes with my other two sisters because they were grown up already when I left them. As I was typing this I couldn’t stop my tears “ God I miss family”.

After viewing the photos, I logged out and logged in again into my other account. When I was inside I was surprised seeing that I have pending invitation. So I clicked it and I found out it was one of my elementary classmates. I was so happy because she added me in her friendster account that means she still remember me. She was one of my close friends way back elementary. I viewed her photos and boy! she is still the sheddy, the cute little girl in 1987.


God! time goes by so fast, it feels like everything happened yesterday. I can still remember that I was sitting in row 1 grade 1 and was looking at the Grade six classrooms and said to my self I want to go inside that classroom but I still have 5 more years to go before that will happened , hey! that was 21 years ago.
If I could only rent a time machine I would be glad to go back to my past even for an hour. I want to see my little me, my cute little friends, and watch my siblings grow up. If I could only do that.

By the way I thought of sharing this photo, the VNCMCS 1993...

CROSSING THE ROAD

Ok, many people just take this for granted but how safe are you when you cross the road?

I took the employee bus right after work to go to the convention center for the job fair. Before we turn right I saw these two Chinese men trying to cross the road and then when it turns red the two Chinese guys ran to cross the road but the bus driver was turning and doesn't care if he will hit somebody or not and even yelled at them " look at the signal it's not blinking that means you can't cross the road yet!" To be honest, I feel bad for those 2 Chinese and I told the bus driver that they were in the pedestrian lane and even if the signal wasn't blinking for them to cross the road safely I think it's your initiative to let them pass because they were in the middle of the road anyway. He said " will they should have used the signal " then I told him not all people know how to use it," which is darn true. Yes, you can just press the red button and wait but not all people know how things work specially when you're new to the country. I know that those 2 guys are at fault too when something happen to them but what can you do?

Maybe the lesson to this situation is that, follow traffic rules, look around carefully before you cross the road. If you have computer at home you can search online what are the traffic rules, what should you know before going out or you can ask people whom you know. Remember traffic rules varies from state to state. I know most of the people here are afraid to hit somebody but hey there are some that don't care at all. You might think " yeah hit me and I will own your car and house" now my question is how can you own those things when you're dead ?