
AmyWrites
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Posts posted by AmyWrites
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Who cares?
Not everyone is you. People "care" about different things. I want my partner to meet my parents before we get married (and no, neither of them can fly for a plethora of reasons, and Skype isn't meeting), I want him to see the places I was raised in. Maybe it didn't matter to you or your wife but my partner and myself can't imagine marrying someone without meeting a single person in their family or seeing where that person is from (provided they're not from a warzone and they have living and non-jailed family members, of course). I don't want to marry him in the US because I'm not returning to the US for god knows how long and we've got a pretty good life here. Yet the planets have to align in perfect harmony for him to visit my family with me... when (from what I know) Russia isn't considered a high fraud country and we have literally *no* intention of moving to the US any time soon (and how the heck am I supposed to prove that we have no intention of moving to the US? "Strong ties"? We all know that "strong ties" are subjective and often not enough.... I'd rather be cross examined and take lie detector tests).
Yeah, I know, there is fraud and a lot of people who want to move to the US even if it's illegally, and that's why everyone is treated as a potential immigrant, blah blah blah, but that doesn't mean the system is perfect. Not that it ever will be.
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No, not really
Moscow Consulate recommends not to purchase the tickets before you have your visa in hand. First of all, the visa can be denied; also there might be some kind of delay. In 2009 my visa got delayed for about 3 weeks and the explanation was that their "visa printer broke down" (they only have one?), but I didn't have my ticket at that point, so I didn't care. Last year the same thing happened to my friend and she had to change the flight date twice before she finally got her passport with visa - and that was just a waste of money, I think it cost her about $200-300 extra.
Thanks for the clarification. That certainly makes it all easier!
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I highly recommend it as well.
As for cost, you can buy the "sampler" which is basically the first 10 lessons, from Barnes & Noble or B. Dalton or whatever for around $30. I got the complete set off E-Bay (with Spanish 1-3 as well) for $70. Can't beat that! Keep an eye on CraigsList too. I see them on there every now and then.
They're actually on discount now at their website for I think $9.95.
I used a combination of Pimsleur, Teach Yourself Russian (real good for conversations but ####### in terms of grammar) and this Russian grammar book that's on sale in Amazon for like 7 bucks. Of course I took a few Russian courses at MGU and studied abroad in Moscow as well (is it obvious I wanted to become fluent?).
But with the books/CD's I reached an intermediate level. No way I was paying $400 for Rosetta Stone.
OP, glad you're having a great time and that your girl is lovely (as expected).
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Like it or not that is Rosie's mindset. I know a few Christians that would think the same had their children been gay.
It's not. Being gay doesn't mean you want your kids to be too; it's not a religion that you force-feed your child until the fear of hell is so ingrained in their mind they find no other way to live. Religion is different because you can raise your child in an almost exclusively religion environment, while raising your child in an exclusively gay environment isn't as easy. In fact I'd think most parents would not want their children (even if they accept them regardless) to belong in a any group that is ridiculed and faces prejudice every day.
If my child is gay, I would love him, and I wouldn't say anything negative to him about it, but I'd wish he'd been born straight so he'd have an easier, happier, life.
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I meant Russians getting a visa to the US.
Taking Russian salaries into account it's not such a brilliant idea to buy airfare to likely get denied a visa at the interview (according to my understanding you need to have your airfare tickets purchased before the interview?). But I have a bias; I've been in this cold place for a long time and I'd like to visit my folks with my Russian partner so he can meet them (and I can lie down like a dead fish on the beach for a week) but he'll probably get a visa denied because he's young-ish and whatnot.
I don't think I've ever heard of any US citizen getting denied a visa to any country.
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I'm not a Russian but my field is economics and finance (although mine is more research based so my advice will have a bias towards that).
Where did she get her degree from? Unfortunately being a foreigner she'll need a degree from a fairly well known uni in Russia. Good news is that those degrees are "useful" degrees, not a doomed from the start degree like philosophy.
What type of job does she want? Does she want to stick to sales?
She'd have a good chance at a good career (research based academia at least) if she pursued graduate degrees in economics. She might be stuck in academia for a while though. The fact that she has multiple degrees and experience would help her towards getting accepted in a grad school and in many cases she'd get a stipend or some part of the tuition paid if she became a TA and then she could have that on her resume as well, so she could pursue a research or teaching based career in academia.
If she can find any type of recommendation or something (proof, really) of her experience in Russia that would help. If she can't do that, volunteer work or internships it is, unfortunately, even if it means she needs her EAD. She certainly needs to have a good grasp of English, and like you said, without that her chances aren't so favorable. If her English is already good (or when it improves) some marketing courses could help her excel in a sales based career in the US.
So I'd say, you need to:
1. Make sure her english is at least at intermediate-advanced level, and then
2. Have her get experience whether it be through volunteer work or an internship OR take some courses in an area she wishes to specialize in OR go to grad school (I'd say this route has a better chance of guaranteeing her a good job but it'll take a while before she gets there).
Of course she can teach/tutor in Russian as well. I don't know how your city is but it was damn near impossible to get Russian classes or tutors where I'm from.
If you need anything else feel free to message me.
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Of course they'd get sensationalized. Islam the new boogeyman.
It was communists some time ago, now it's muslims. The effects of being constantly told, whether directly or indirectly, that X group is evil lasts for decades. It's why some people still fart blood when they hear "communist" and certain famous people still use the term to scare others into believing them.
Same thing with Islam now and in twenty or thirty years people will still be afraid or hate Muslims.
I'm not a Muslim, but I'm sorry that these stories are being used as the sole representation of an entire faith and its followers. My situation is probably easier than yours, I'm a very successful Hispanic (well, half Hispanic, if that even means anything) and I'd like to stop having the media portray Hispanics as welfare draining, uneducated, gang banging and lazy wastes of life. I get how it feels to have a stereotype be what others see in you as a first impression.
IMO the best way to prove a stereotype wrong is to not act according to what the stereotype you supposedly fall in acts. Being angry and argumentative about it, while understandable, isn't productive into "proving" these notions about your given group of people wrong. By being a good, successful (and I don't mean simply financially), hard working person you are eventually going to make people STFU. Most people are bigoted and hateful out of their own (and sadly, sometimes chosen) ignorance. It's not worth your time to get angry over it; people who are stupid enough to make such a sweeping generalization like "All _______ people are evil" based on stories on people who are obviously from a more radical area/belief/etc aren't worth getting even a little bit annoyed over.
- sandinista!, IR5FORMUMSIE, LaL and 1 other
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I really don't see the hassle. You pay $200, send off your passport and two weeks later you have the visa.
I'm not crying because my MIL can't come visit at the drop of a hat. Not calling my congressman either!
Every time people ask me why I only date people from abroad, I always say "So their family doesn't come visit me every damn week".
Yeah, it may be evil, but it sure is an advantage!
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There seems to be an interest in it but well, not gonna happen. Wish it would.... paying for airfare + 200 to MAYBE get a visa sucks.
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I met a lot of PR's when I was in the army, seemed like nice enough people.
Nice doesn't fix a bad quality of life.
Nice sig ;-)
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Puerto Ricans are now required to pay taxes. That's why we're seeing more of them here.
Direct quote from my co-worker, "If they're going to make me pay taxes, I'm going to come here and make more money."
Exactly. In PR, a job that requires a Bachelor's degree will pay $20,000 (example), but in the US, that same job will require no degree and pay $45,000. But more importantly, the quality of life in Puerto Rico is absolute ######; crime is extremely rampant and the authorities pretend it never happened, the education system all the way till high school sucks (so does the uni system, except the public university system, but that's being slowly murdered by the current government), there's no jobs at all and the few jobs out there pay ####### in proportion to the skills and such required, there's now a classical Latin American style oligarchy (which I honestly see now way out of, according to what my family/friends/the news there says), there's no public transport outside of the San Juan area, real estate prices are absurd, etc. The only good things are that opening a business is very easy (keeping it alive is an entirely different matter though) and the weather's fabulous.
I'd say more but I'm afraid I'd offend folks. If anyone's real interested in the subject send me a message. Long story short, I despised living there (as a teenager mom forced me to) and left as soon as I got the chance.
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Larry the Cable Guy has a new show on the History Channel called, "Only in America." That's a pretty cool show about "real life" in America.
Puerto Ricans aren't Americans?
Citizenship-wise they are, but culturally it's very different. And the island-living Puerto Ricans are even more different than those who lived/were born in the US but have Puerto Rican parents.
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Isn't the AOS approval the green card itself?
Congrats!
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If you're talking about me, I'm actually... well, sort of a majority here. I'm Russian, my fiance is American. "Sort of" a majority though cause Russian beneficiaries are not likely to post here
Still nice to see a another female here
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Congrats!
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Thanks for this. I've been with my Russian boyfriend for a long time now and we still have culture-clash moments (although I'm half-American half-Puerto Rican so maybe it's worse for me!). And my boyfriend falls in the "new Russian" category, so when we first dated, I didn't expect our differences to be so large. Now that we're talking about marriage we're noticing other differences (all good, though, things that aren't typical in my culture that I wanted in a husband) in how we view families and such. So I'll definitely read this and I can see many conversations stemming from it.
Btw, it's nice to see another female who has a Russian boyfriend here. We're a minority
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haha... actually I just checked. From December 15th 2010 to today, our Skype IM history is 1710 pages of text in a Word document :-D
So for the entire year, easily over 5000 pages of IM messages :-D
So... the question remains.. what exactly to give the USICS if even necessary?
The first time I did the K-1 (which I had to cancel as we broke up, sadly), I sent in copies of plane tickets, pictures, copies of birthday cards I gave him/he gave me, and about Skype, I took a screen shot (of the clean oens
) and printed it out.
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Don't get a lawyer... the K-1 process is an expensive visa, with the AOS and everything.
Save the money for later on in the process, because it will get complicated. The first part is easy as pie.
Read the guides 15 times and then do this yourself. Save the lawyer money for after she comes over.
And frankly, a lawyer can't (at least to my knowledge) go to law school to specialize in immigration law. It's not like a lawyer would have access to secret information you don't know.
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They had the right idea... if we did that more instead of shooting each other there would never be wars.
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This was extremely obvious and predictable.
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Use Skype, buy some Skype credit and call her fam that way. It's like 4 cents a minute or something... so $10 will last a lot.
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You don't really love him; you love what you want him to be.
I'm not part of this regional forum but ^^ that's genius.
You need to leave him and never look back.
He's taking advantage of you.
Don't let him. There's someone out there for you who will respect you, care for you, treat you and your daughter like you deserve. If he's like this now, he won't be a good dad either...
So kick him to the curb!
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Mine have been mainly about communication since we're not able to move to the US right now.
Like, once, he called me a "bad person"... this was when his english wasn't very good. Of course I lost it, in reality he meant I was "unlucky"; I had been telling him some bad things that happened in my life.
Or he would talk about moving to the US like the visa process is just so easy
So this means I'll make fun of myself instead since I have little to say about my SO. I'd never lived in a place that was as cold as Moscow before. Which means that of course I spent my fist winter slipping on snow, washing the snow off the car with water (yeah, that was a brilliant moment in my life), and wearing "coats" that were a hell lot more fashion than function.
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If I were you I'd wait until you were financially (more) stable.
You want your kids to have a good life, right?
Also, you're not old... these days it's easier and more common for women to have children in their mid-late 30's.
Going to Kiev in 7 days, any tips?
in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus
Posted · Edited by AmyWrites
I actually loved it. I wouldn't recommend it for beginners, I don't think it's worth the cost if you know NOTHING at all... pick up some language books and such and then it's a good investment. I went with a good grasp on Russian (intermediate level) and I wanted lessons in the country to "fill the gaps" (I was entirely self taught for about 8 years). Basically I could read very well but my conversational Russian was not so good since I learned from reading and not a lot of listening. They were excellent in those respects; slowed down when I didn't understand something (but not to a point that it was unnaturally slow).
I've taken other language lessons (German, French, etc) at the local university but they weren't as good because they weren't intensive (at least at my uni language lessons were 10 academic hours a week and the MGU course was 20) and they weren't challenging. The material was up-to-date and they helped me in the areas I specifically asked for (written composition and economics/politics/finance since those are my areas). And of course living in Russia, you're forced to use the language daily. Staying with a host family would've been even better in terms of language and culture acquisition but I like my privacy (and sanity) and chose to stay at the dorm (in comparison to my uni I found them cheap and pretty good except for the kitchens which were.... eh, usable).
So in short, it's really not worth the cost it if your knowledge of Russian is elementary or you have no interest in speaking Russian long-term for professional or academic purposes. I did it because I wanted to go to MGU for grad school and wanted to see how "good" I was before making a decision about it.
And also... the cost varies greatly depending on who you organize it through, in thousands of dollars. I went directly through the uni and it was a whole lot cheaper and more flexible with my schedule.