APRIL '08 Vermont K-1 Filers

[Ferociter 0]

Hi all,

I'm new to this forum and have a quick question. My NOA1 notice was on 4/1/08 in Vermont. I hear people say their file got "touched". What does this mean and where did you get that informtion from?

Thanks all and good luck!

Tom

[GrahamandMegan 1]

This will answer your questions Tom

http://www.visajourney.com/wiki/index.php/Touch

[Susita 175]

Yep 3 weddings... one dress. I'm kind of broke... lol.

Peru is great, I love it there. There's a lot of great traditions, one of those traditions is to have a GINORMOUS wedding. So, uhmm, we're doing that. He may have to sedate me, but we're doing it, lol. I love family but I mean Luis has enough family to fill an entire town, haha.

The wedding up here will be like 100 or less people. That will be cool.

[KimandRuss 0]

Graham.. so sorry about your penguins.

At least Detroits not celebrating in the basketball world!

L.A.'s going down too!

[GrahamandMegan 1]

March has another 2 approvals today, towards the end of the month too

82 filers, 50 with NOA2 (61%), 1 RFE pending and 31 waiting.

Febraury 98 filers, 87 with NOA2 (89%), 5 RFEs pending and 6 waiting.

January 83 filers, 83 with NOA2 (100%).

December 62 Filers, 59 with NOA2 (95%), 2 with RFE pending and 1 who hasn't been online since 3rd February.

November 26 Filers, 24 with NOA2 (92%), 1 with no accessible profile and 1 who hasn't been online since 7th November.

[Chris and Janaina 0]

Sterling Girl ~ If your fiance flies into JFK then maybe he'll bump into my Luis and me. I'm going to get him. He's a scaredy cat and has never been on a plane. Plus that gives me an excuse to go to Peru, and I love it there.

Kim ~ I'm sure if anyone gives you any new info on the touch thing you'll let us all know ASAP, right? lol

I'm not my happy self today, summer classes just started and I'm taking my "science" requirement, astronomy 105. Uhmmm, it's 3 1/2 hours long 2x a week and we have a test already on Thurs. This means that I will be studying for the next two days and pulling my hair out because "sciences" are not my best subject, if you know what I mean. I mean, c'mon I'm gonna be a Spanish teacher. I haven't used exponents in like 10 years, so I kinda gotta brush up on that, LOL

wow, Luis has never been to the US?! It´d be quite a change for him to just move there, right!!

So you teach spanish, I´m studying spanish and trying to teach my fiance how to speak portuguese! Portuguese and spanish are kind of alike and I think they´re difficult to learn. I´m having trouble trying to teach him how to conjugate verbs and everything... Any tips?

Oi Fernanda,

I'm American, first picked up a few Portuguese words here and there starting November '04, and started seriously learning in July 2006. I'm not fluent yet, but I can already have a conversation about almost anything, and I did pretty well in Brazil all by myself last October!

I have half a shelf worth of books, but there are a few I especially recommend:

--Portuguese in 10 minutes a day. It looks like a children's book, but it's excellent. For example, it'll have a drawing of a dinner table, with all the words (plate, napkin, and so on), and they also write how to pronounce the words.

--Portuguese for Dummies. It does have a pretty good explanation about conjugating verbs. And it's written in a way that even someone who didn't pay much attention in high school (like me) can understand.

--Audio CDs from Pimsleur. Pimsleur is the only one around that doesn't come with any books. That's right, just play the CDs in the car as you drive. I found them very helpful, for not much money, and I didn't have to invest much time, since I'm on the road a lot anyway.

--Larousse concise dictionary. There are two versions, one with 80,000 translations, and one with 120,000. Spend the extra $5 on the bigger one. Ideally, if he has one in Orlando, and you have another copy there in Brazil, it'll make it much easier to explain things over the phone.

--Does Orlando have much of a Brazilian community? If so, he should start spending time with Brazilians. Ideally, he should have some Brazilian friends who speak a lot of English, who can explain things to him.........and some other friends who speak ZERO English, who will force him to learn faster because he'll be forced to converse with them in Portuguese.

--I can't remember the other person's name now, but the person who said that if he knows any Latin, that would surely help a lot. The Romance languages all have a lot of similarity.........I find that even with my very basic Portuguese, I can already understand a lot of Italian, Spanish, and even French.

[brian87 0]

The numbers keep looking better as Graham noted. Our total pool of numbers is a little different, but the trend is noticeable.

I have 70 March petitions with NOA1 dated between 03/01 and 03/31, with 48 already being approved. Which correlates to a 69% approval rate. But the most exciting item to me, is the fact that apps from 3/24 and 3/27 were approved.

As Kim mentioned, I too subscribe to the box theory as put forth by the former USCIS adjudicator.

So, I cannot help but believe that some of the early April's have to be co-mingled with the March's.

And of course, at some point, a box of mid/late April's will get done at a surprising pace to the dismay of earlier filers. Sometimes, it is easy to predict the unpredictable.

Stay positive April,

Brian

Edited June 5, 2008 by brian87

[GrahamandMegan 1]

Good luck Brian, I hope you get approved first being the opening poster of this topic and being that your NOA1 date is April 1st!!!!

An update on March filers guys - 82 filers, 51 with NOA2 (62%) and 31 waiting.

Have a nice Thursday night everyone

[Susita 175]

Guys, I was touched again today... is this normal? It's like 3 times in the past week.

I hope this is a good sign.

[GrahamandMegan 1]

Guys, I was touched again today... is this normal? It's like 3 times in the past week.

I hope this is a good sign.

I know most of us were getting touched one day and then the following day but I think you are the first one to get touched 3 days in a row. Let's hope it is something positive for you, but a touch is a touch. Yay!!!!

[SterlingGirl 1]

Another touch for me as well. That's just eerie, Susita. I swear Jim's going to end up in the waiting area right alongside Luis. I'll tell him to say hi.

[Ana&D 0]

Really hope that those touches mean that finally they got around to your boxes, guys! Keeping my fingers crossed for all April filers!

BTW, Dave finally got our NOA1 yesterday! We were so estatic to be in the system!

[Susita 175]

Sterling Girl ~ Hahaha... that would be so funny. I hope this means good things for us!

Ana ~ Congrats on your NOA1

[KimandRuss 0]

Well it seems you folks are in the same box!

No new touches for us. An approval would be super though!

Ana&D... congratulations on your NOA1! I'm glad it finally got there and is in the works!

[enchantedtikiman 0]

BTW, Dave finally got our NOA1 yesterday! We were so estatic to be in the system!