To live and to explore

Moving to a new culture

With the I-130 petition being approved and forwarded to the consulate, the immigrant visa interview will be coming up real soon. If nothing goes wrong and the case does not get caught in the dark hole a.k.a. infamous administrative processing (AP), the visa should be in hand before the end of August. So, I should be leaving for IL one or two weeks after that, depending on the availability of air ticket.

When we got married three years ago, the big boy agreed to live here for a couple of years before we move back to US. But, he changed his mind after being here for one and half year, he was afraid that he would not be able to get a job after being away for too long.

Moving to another country to start a new life in a new culture is not an easy thing. It was difficult for the big boy and I am sure they will be equal amount of challenges to overcome and adaptations to make. Learning about all the baseball lingo, going for baseball games with his family or even put on the Baseball Gloves to join them for a game or two might be just one of those cultural things that I have to get used to. :-)

The cold winter in IL is going to be a major challenge for a person who comes from the tropics. Need to get more warm clothings and insulate myself well to avoid the dragged  joint pain and frozen legs due to cold. Fortunately, the big boy likes Asian food and my cooking, no need to change my diet pattern or cooking habits to accommodate him.

Study cosmetology to be a hairdresser

The big boy told me nowadays the hairdressers also do nails in the small town we are going to live. He thinks they are more and more this kind of saloons everywhere in America and it seems they usually hire Vietnamese girls to work there.

I wonder why? Is it because not many American girls want to work in the saloons? In fact, one can learn how to do nails, blow, cut and dye hair at a beauty school. It’s not difficult to get a job considering the demand for workers is always very high. Though it’s hard work and a service oriented job, it’s a job that pays quite well!

NVC approved the expedite request

Good news ! National Visa Center (NVC) has approved the expedite request filed a week ago. The approved I-130 petition will be forwarded to KL shortly. The NVC rep confirmed on the phone that we are to pay the fees and submit the documents to the consulate for further processing. NVC will send the file with DHL express mail and it will take about 3-4 days to reach KL consulate.

The next step is to wait for the consulate to mail me a package of forms and a checklist for documents submission. At the same time, the big boy has to mail the Affidavit of Support package which will contain the I-864 AOS form, his tax transcripts, pay stubs and employment letter to me. He also needs to mail all the proofs of bone fide of marriage.

I have him mail me the letter that has my name on his health insurance plan, the statements of the checking account to show co-mingling of our finances, photos and affidavits from his parents.

See, all the hoops and loops we have to jump through in order to prove to Uncle Sam that we are a genuine couple, not of a sham marriage. All due to some black sheep who use sham marriages for green cards, honest people like us got stuck and scrutinized to no end.

De-stressing from the endless waiting

The slow expedite processing (what an oxymoron!) and a procrastinating husband are good stress inducer. But, stressing myself up doesn’t help to move things along any faster, why bother? Taking a step backward, went for a facial treatment today. It’s more rewarding to treat yourself nice!

Have been thinking about taking advantage of the airfare promotion to take a short trip to Hong Kong. It’s a sure distraction from all this endless waiting. Going on Caribbean cruises may be far fetched, but the air tickets to Hong Kong by AirAsia is quire low this days, should I?

Free medical applications for doctors

How many doctors you know are tech savvy? I think many of us don’t view the doctors as tech-geeks. However, you may be surprise in actual fact more than 50% of doctors own a PDA (personal digital assistant) or smart phone.

Nowadays, many doctors also have medical softwares installed on their PDAs. Epocrates, Inc., a software company even come out with free medical applications for iphone. Since Epocrates’ medical reference software is now used by over 500,000 healthcare professionals. Having a pocket-size device with medical software in the lab coat may just be part of the uniform one day.

**This announcement was paid for by Epocrates.

He couldn’t find online courses he wants

My brother just enrolled into a Engineering Masters degree program in a brick and mortal university. It’s a part time program, he has to attend classes from 9 a.m-5 p.m on every Saturday for the next two and half years!

It certainly takes a lot discipline and stamina for someone who is so busy at work and married with two children. He had considered taking classes with online colleges like Capella University. But, it’s not easy to find one that offers courses in engineering and has the specialization that he wants. He is a technical guy who doesn’t really like writing, I can foresee he needs much help making his dissertation process more manageable and enjoyable. Well, he certainly can benefit from checking out the writing handbook and all resources on academic writing that can be found on Capella’s Online Writing Center.

**This blog post is  based on information provided by Blogitive. For more information, please visit Blogitive.com.

Pigmentation shows through fairer skin

A few people have commented that my skin complexion is getting so much fairer this days. Well, hardly get out the house nor get in the sun ever since after the surgery three months ago. It’s also partly because the business is sold, no longer have to drive out for work and errands.

The afternoon sun is so hot and can do much damage to age your skin. Don’t know whether it’s the result of past damage or because it’s more obvious because of fairer complexion. A little patch of pigmentation actually started to appear on my face!

Though never really have serious acne problem, there were always some tiny freckles on my face. But, getting pigmentation before forty is scary. :-) The girls at the beauty saloon recommended me a “freckle cream” for the pigmentation patch, it’s to use together with sun protection for maximum effect, so they said. After using it for about 2 months, it works quite well so far, the patch seems to lighten up and blend in. I especially like the sun protection lotion, it’s not oily nor heavy like some that tried in the past.

Request for evidence hardcopy came in the mail

The notice dated 18 June finally came in the mail today! You wonder it either came in a bullock cart or it found its own way from CA to IL with the help of a GPS ! Men, the US immigration service and the US postal service are long lost twins.

The document they requested is the marriage certificate in original language. The big boy is to blame for not paying attention to details and omitted it. Damn. Other than the fact that it cost a freaking $18+ to mail this one piece of paper back, it would probably take another week or two for this piece of paper to find its way into the system. While that happens, the adjudication process is halted, thus slowing down the approval at least for a total 3-4 weeks! Great!

A request for further evidence is coming

The excitement of getting an expedite request approval notice was indeed short lived after we found out the receipt numbers do not match and there was a mail sent out requesting for further evidences(RFE).

The online system didn’t reflect, the  big boy called them and the online status changed to “Request for Further Evidence mailed” right after that. We wouldn’t know what did they request until the hard copy of the RFE arrives in the mail. Great! That will be a further delay of at least two more weeks!

Expedite request granted and the jokers at USCIS

The big boy has filed an expedite request based on medical emergency on June 5th to ask for faster processing of the I-130 petition, which is the initial filing of a spousal visa for me to eventually get a green card. After almost three weeks, he finally received a notice informing him that the expedite request is granted.

The irony is: it said “Please allow 60 days to process”. What kind of expedite processing is this? To add salt to wound, the notice doesn’t even have the right receipt numbers on it! Look like they have mixed up our case with another case, great! Now, we aren’t even sure we have gotten an expedite request approved or now!!!

Never mind about the typo and grammatical errors on the notice, but wrong receipt numbers? The online system hasn’t been updated to reflect the latest status too. It seems the archaic system they used is rely so much on manual work. They must be working at a production line condition and one without much quality control!

In this century and computer age, the most powerful country in the world and a lousy immigration department with outdated IT management is just so weird. Since they increased the fees three folds last year, they should have spent the money on hiring IT consultants to revamp the system. The IT consultants or any of the NY IT Services will be able to help to upgrade the archaic system. But guess they are spending more money in the Washington DC mud sling than actually do something to make the system more efficient.