Thanks to some Russian spam (which all my accounts in LJ have been suffering for a long time, without a fix, and it being the # 1 reason for me having moved to Wordpress a while ago. Well gee, mercolaubu, thank you for your spam comments, you have won an instaban here), I realized how long it has been since the last update.

It only took about 2 weeks to receive the green card. It's of the newer, actually green type. Green colored that is. A credit card sized card, crippled with RFID tags. At least the government spared no expense, and equipped with the 2 cents worth of RFID-blocking pocket with it.

When one has a green card in US, they are supposed to carry it with at all times. I don't have my passport with me when I don't need it - why risk losing ALL the documentation if something happens? The card is in its sleeve (and I will make an industrial strength RFID blocker for it. I'd love to hammer or microwave the card to just break the unneeded RFID, but I'd hate to be forced to spend another $ 400 for a reprint) in my wallet, and that's about it.

Getting the SSN (social security number) and everything else after the card had arrived was painless.

I've been comfortably watching the job market - not in a hurry. I concentrate in other things now - writing, gardening, detoxing of the past years stress at work.

In two years, I'll be applying for the citizenship. When one gets their green card with a marriage based visa, it's possible to get the citizenship in 3 years from when the green card was issued, and the citizenship application can be made 2 years 9 months after the green card approval. As long as still married to the same US citizen that is. The citizenship will make many things more comfortable, among then not needing to calculate extra hour or two for CBP and border every time entering the country.

I'm happy all the visa BS is behind, and I'm enjoying the life. The citizenship will feel like a nice completion of the process.

Until the next time

It took - still counting from the beginning, 1292 days to receive the EAD card - employment authorization that is. So now I could work.
Never mind that the SSN has still no ETA for fix.

On the day 1304 we'll have to go to the green card interview in San Antonio.
Kind of feels wrong and inefficient after being married for practically 5 years anyway...

I realize the last update is from nearly one year ago, so it is definitely time for an update.

I moved over and entered the US at the end of November 2009, as that was the earliest possible for me. The work needed 4 weeks of notice, and some other things needed to be concluded while in Ireland too.

We filed for the next stage of paperwork, AOS aka Adjustment Of Status, as soon as we could afford to.
This will give the actual green card, social security number, and work authorization on approval. Nearly one year since entering, I'd hope to be able to say that that was painless and was approved fast. But we're still waiting... the next step is an interview in San Antonio office at the end of this month, and that will hopefully be all that's required for now, so that no more hassle would be required until applying for citizenship in three years.

After the AOS was filed, 2 months later I got an invite for fingerprints and photos (or biometrics as they call them). Now I can't help but wonder WHY they still needed at least 16 photos of specific size with the applications, if the biometrics includes taking one too, as did the interview at the embassy, and will the next interview, as will all entries to US? I have spent over $ 100 for just the photos in the process. What will they do with the hundreds of thousands of photos they receive with the applications each year?

No work authorization yet either. The good news is we can survive with one salary, AND I can volunteer. So I will be volunteering at a local library for the time being.

Posted via m.livejournal.com.

Actual updates from the whole mess = the beginning = when I was supposed to go.

869 days to receive the first acknowledgement = 'packet' for the next steps from the embassy.
927 days for the medical.
934 days for the results of the medical.
936 days for k3 interview.
938 days until I actually received the passport with k3 visa added to it.

After 869 days I received a letter from the embassy suggesting we proceed with K-3.

Timeline: pay $ 500 for papers, $ 100 about for police certificates, 400 euros for medical, minimum 600 euros for flights TO the interview, prepare for 2 weeks forced non work (as cannot fly without my passport).
23rd Sep. I have a work related exam. Before then can't go - so if going after, we'd be talking about finishing it by mid-October + then the 30 days notice at work AFTER it's all done and ready for my passport. So by Thanksgiving maybe I'll finally be there.

It's been "a few weeks" indeed.

i-129 and i-130 approved yesterday - Finally.
818 days after I was supposed to have moved with spouse.

809 days and counting up, and no update.
This past week, also my other half has emailed, and mailed (paper versions) of letters crying for attention for our paperwork inferno to politicians, senators, even White House.
Guess what? No acknowledgment.
Meanwhile I am amazed I managed to get out of be in the mornings, to go to work, to try to look like I believe in anything any more.

Tomorrow it's 800 days, and there , and there is not an update in this whole time. I feel like crying, like crying really loud.

Senators and politicians all were eager to help, but it seems nothing can happen when it's on the "namecheck" that is taking its time. With no legal deadline. Beyond two years is beyond bullshit, and I and my spouse are still living in separate continents as they are taking their time.

Enough is enough. I'm ready to give up and go anywhere else as long as I can be with my spouse.

But one last try this weekend. 800 days with no updates is way beyond bullshit, and - hey, some senators cared but can't fix it - and my president's opinion was that "it is not in president's job description..." to care about her citizens. Michael Moore probably gets too many thousands of worse letters a week, so I don't expect he'd do any more than my president either. One last try - hoping to get some attention with PRINTED medias and in the net somewhere. Just this one try.

Hello. Welcome to my life. I've been married to a US citizen since February 2006, and I can't still live with my spouse as the paperwork is taking its time...

When the whole immigration mess, we getting incorrect and corrupt info from USCIS happened in 2007 and we acted trusting that information, and the whole delay of .. 770+ days and no updates since since the worst day of my life, I feel I've ranted and ranted and ranted.

Yet I never go to the details on what the daily life is. It feels repetitive, as it's been all inside my head since that day. And I feel it's enough to have said it once. But it keeps haunting day after day.

When I was supposed to go, I had quit at my job. So when I decided to stay instead of going to stay at parents, it was all idle, unreal, without much connection to the place. Others went to work in morning, and I (staying in same place) woke up, forced myself to get up, do something, force myself find a job...

Before I got the job (the second job - the first one ended up being so bad that I regret going there the second day at all) it was all bad. Get up from the bed becuse I didn't want to know what happens if I don't - it is like anorexia when you force yourself to eat one proper meal a day, as a deal with yourself to keep sane, except it is getting out of bed and trying to do the daily life. I wore sunglasses for months, as I didn't want to be seen, crying or not. And I could fall in my world, in the memory of being in that f-ing office... the past two days I've had again a headache, all body hurting and falling into pieces, I don't want to get up but I force myself to. And then the not crying gets the headache... today was close to walking out of work and leaving everything as it was, but even with headache that blocks half of the brain and makes my stomach turn upside down and makes me white and sick, I still stay.

It's a month until it's the longest days of the year again, and my brain is screaming it needs more light and more sun. My skin is as smooth as a baby elephant's bottom and itching as much. I've treated myself with nice scented soaps and the skin is so try and scaly that anything except pure vaseline to wash it hurts. And it's not just skin, it's stomach and whole digestive system not tasting anything any more, it's all stressed in either direction, overclocked or retentive. And fingers get so dry the touchpad of the laptop is not working.
Cry yourself to sleep, wake up tired and unrested, with a headache which even that isn't fresh from that morning... have a host shower hoping that will freshen your mind up and you get out of it smelling like pharmacy with all that vaseline and salty tears to puff the face. The hot shower isn't working. A book will, after you read page by page till the brain shuts down for a few hours of standby.
It's all "just body" but everything from digestion to sleep or being in constant jetlag is controlled by stress in the end. The weekends aren't exactly free either - standby for work, so all forced and all with the California smile on those days too. Get up, day after day, hoping it's one day when something happens, bringing you together. And it ends up being just sucked out of energy hour after hour...

Get up in the morning, act one more day... If I was a laptop my battery would need replacement. I'm failing when I shouldn't. I fall in my thoughts, I cry, I lose the hope, I fall in memories to the day I don't want to, I feel hopeless and know one day it's all going to be too much soon.

And when after a day of of bs at work and in daily life you are finally back home it's all crying alone. Shoulders and hugs in a chat are about as much a real thing as a smokers hotline is for getting your nicotine fix.

Soon 5 years here. I have never lived 5 years anywhere.

I'm used to having to go somewhere else, and being compact enough to move my stuff in a plane.
I'm not used to having a room full of stuff.
I'm not used to living for years in the same place, to feel even remotely like being home anywhere.
I used to feel at some point home in this house. And I never really felt home anywhere I've lived.
I feel trapped and nailed down, with things around.. I don't belong.

Yesterday at work there was a team lunch out. We went to a nice lunch place, all of us. Apart of me and an English lad, it's all Irish in the team. They started talking about normal people stuff - buying a house, who's getting married, how a lady at work sold her sports car as she's pregnant and so on.
And I fell out of my orbits. And when I got out of work and walked in town, I felt as misplaced as when I'm just tourist somewhere for a week but would like to blend in. I don't belong...
And that stuck. Going to work I still feel like when going to university, I maybe understand better why I still dress like a student.. why I feel idle.
Like a gypsy trying to live in a house.
And I suddenly want to go to airport and fly out, anywhere, somewhere out of my life, start it fresh somewhere else, leave everything here as it is, and disappear from it. A fresh start.
I can't have a normal life at the moment anyway - I can't commit to any other work than what I have now (and I hate "volunteering" my weekends that I can't unvolunteer). I can't commit to a house, or even a car, in the hopes that something moves on... and nothing happens, day after day, year after year.
And it all feels like when I first went away.
Wake up in a wrong place, vomit as the nerves don't take it and you just don't belong there. Do the daily life for a few months, without understanding a word of that language there, then go back to your second home.. do the life, go away, always have to go away, and when you much later want to stay it's all f-ed up, you still can't.
When you can't even be where your place is.

Just like relationships.
When being where you wanted to wasn't ever possible, the relationships ended up being long distance by force.
And when you finally meet someone that you want to be the rest of your life with, and get married to, it's still being all f-ed up, timewarped and still can't be together on the same continent. Still waking up every f-n morning hoping maybe something happens now, it's days and months and years forward, wake up in morning, go to work, go to sleep, rinse repeat, hope something happens finally..
And then you get timewarped again.. as if all life is a joke, as if you can't get past what life was before you met him, all being doomed never being home anywhere, and never having a present non-distance relationship.

Angry, tired, really tired, sad, beyond desperate in paperwork.. tired of not being able to commit in anything, in not believing in anything... I woke up as tired as I always go to sleep as, had a bad headache by midday - stuck at stupid calls, 4 customers needing me on the same exact time on phone, missing my breaks, and when I much later than my shift ended end up getting home it's so cold and windy, my muscles and head hurt from the cold and brain freezes on lack of sugars.. I want to curl up in bed in warm, read a nice book, and just one day wake up where I don't have to deal with any of this.

Is normality too much to ask?
Being able to feel home and safe anywhere, or at least somewhere.
Being able to live every day with the person you love, no more long distance BS. Going somewhere with the company you like for the holidays, instead of feeling trapped where you are now as you can't go anywhere.
Closing the eyes in the evening when falling asleep, and then waking up rested in the morning with no nightmares.
When I feel unrested I just want to go. And I no more know where to go next. Away. As if I ever belonged anywhere.