Wednesday, June 20, 2018

Green Card Interview

The Green card interview was around the corner, my birthday was coming up, taxes were quickly approaching as well. Good Lord! Time for me to calm all the way down and get my zen on! I needed to be very
focused! All these were very important events. Green card interview was first in line, tax period was already on, but deadline was going to be after the date of our interview. As we went along, I had been putting aside all the documents I thought would be important. This made it very easy for me to prepare for the interview. If you're interested in learning more about Green Card Application, click here. As mentioned in the previous blog, I knew our timeline by heart, but my main concern was Calvin and his poor memory. It's not easy to be begging someone to remember things they should remember anyway, considering, our relationship wasn't that long! Our wedding was  less than a year prior. Also! You don't want to be that nagging wife, talking about, honey, please can we practise our Q & As? (I know I spelt Practice with an s! British English! Oh and I wrote spelt instead of spelled! Same reason!)

While we're in the subject of digressing, I feel skinny today. Finally the scale budged after I introduced some changes in my diet. Subscribe to my Youtube Channel and watch for tips on how I lost more than 100 lbs (almost 50kg. More than 7stone) so far. Of course, there's more than just weight loss videos out there, so, even if, weight loss is not your thing, do check it out. 

Sometime, Calvin would be his Grumpy Gina self and boycott me when asked to prepare for the green card interview. Sometimes, he'd give it his all and freaking Ace it! He got better with time; just as well! We didn't have much of that! 

I had been visualisualiszing us in the Immigration's office, being cool, calm and collected and Calvin nailing it. I went and had printouts of our photos over the duration of our relationship, photos of us with other people, I think, carry even more weight. I'm not saying you should bulldoze other people to pose with yall, haha!

I looked at our paperwork and didn't have an amazing feeling. I felt like we needed more, especially to prove co-mingling of finances, stuff like that! That's important, right? I didn't want us to risk a chance of the interviewing or whoever makes these decision to think that our marriage wasn't legit enough. I had a great idea! Why don't we submit our taxes and use that as one of our financial / co-mingling proof? I was so excited about that idea! Calvin didn't seem to care or not care. He did agree to doing it. I helped with all his gazillions of receipts from his business etc. Sadly, he would keep not getting around to submitting the taxes. That gave me heart palpitations. Or was it the high potent green tea and or the matcha?

Night before the big day, I asked Calvin to have his mom something along the lines of witnessing that she was aware that I lived with Calvin. I did have mail addressed to both Calvin and I at the house but I wanted to add more weight to our paperwork. In more ways than one! Calvin mentioned that because his mom officiated our wedding, for her to be all over our paperwork may be suspicious. I get where he was coming from but the truth is, THAT WAS THE TRUTH! I wasn't asking her to lie and do some suspicious acts for us! What do you thing? Write me on the comments sections, I'd like to hear your thoughts on this.

I had previously asked Calvin to open up a join credit card account with me. I didn't care if he kept both credit cards, as long as we had that account for my adjustment of status application. I was also working on building my credit. Having this credit card would have helped my credit score. I don't feel comfortable asking for favors but because this was going to benefit our long term goals as a couple, I didn't feel weird bringing it up. Of course, it would've been nicer if Calvin had been the one to offer. However, I don't expect him to be that well versed in Citizenship things. He half-jokingly told me that he was uncomfortable opening up an account with me, in case, I max it out shopping for bags. I didn't ask again. At This point, we didn't have three of the most if not THE most important documents for proof of a bona fide relationship; Joint bank account, taxes, and joint lease.

We did have other things like joint insurance etc. All wasn't lost.

I told hubs our appointment was 30 minutes earlier than it was. He tends to never want to leave the house, haha! I wasn't going to be late for this! He drove. We found super expensive parking across the street from the Federal Building, where the Green card interviews are conducted. Just before we entered the building, I did what any self respecting Future American would, I posed for a photo! This was probably the only time I carried this bag from this shopping trip.

green card interview outfit, interview attire
Green Card Interview Attire
We went through security. Airport type security. This was a Federal Building after all! We then took the elevator to the waiting room where there were a lot of couples. Foreigners' galore! The room was dark. They have two windows. The lady checks your appointment letter, which, you have to take with you to this appointment. Don't leave anything behind! We sat and waited. No Cellphones. I think. 

Not long after arrival, someone came and called our names. My heard skipped a bit. Or six! Sht! It's here! It's happening! Everything I went through has led to this moment. I could hear Calvin's heart beat from out here! Great! I need to really take a deep breath! For both of us! The big bag in front in the above photo is full of documents, my actual handbag is on my shoulder. 

The gentleman, aka interviewing offier seemed nice. He had a nice disposition. That's important. I immediately noticed the camera to the side of the computer. Calvin's nose was sweating. Poor baby! Mine may not have been, but my heart was! It was sweating bullets of blood! Our guy had a flu or cold or something. Almost as soon as we sat down, he asked whether we had . . . wait for it! . . . tax documents, joint bank accounts or joint lease. CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS SHT! I was dying inside!  I KNEW IT!  It took everything I am not to turn around and give Calvin the stare of death! The interviewing officer, may have asked about 3 times for those documents during that interview.

My darling, Calv, did so well! He answered all questions correctly. He has a tendency of wanting to explain further because he was so impressed that he actually remembered the answers. In my head, I was telling him, just answer what you're asked. You're about to f*ck up! He didn't f*ck up. Thankfully. The officer made copies of my passport and my US ID cards. While he was out to make the copies, I had my fingers crossed that Calvin doesn't say anything weird unawares that the camera was rolling. He didn't. Whew! 

Guy came back and asked if we had any questions. I did. You bet your tight ass I did! I asked how things were looking. He told me, 'good'. For some reason, that didn't make me exhale. He game me a God forsaken piece of paper that states that our case was under review. We had to wait FOUR  F*CKING months for a response from immigrations. The interview didn't take longer than thirty minutes. It feels like a life sentence though! I walked out of there, definitely not my usual cheerful self! Good thing I took that photo before we went in! 

Calvin took us to lunch in Koreatown. He wanted to celebrate. I laugh as I type this. Celebrate what? I didn't want to confront him about all the stuff that we could have had that I felt like he sabotaged my interview by not getting us but what would that help? What's done, is done! 

Some people get their approval as soon as at the end of the interview. They will get a stamp or something to that effect and then withing two weeks, receive the Temporary residence card. I walked out of there with a letter than told me to wait a third of the year! I wasn't feeling very celebratory but I am always working on improving my reacting to things not working out the way I wanted. 

Calvin ordered grasshopper tacos. Yup! You read right! He wanted something exotic.It's a celebration, remember? 

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