SnowyTater

All those years, I would have found a way to kill him...especially when the kids came in. It seems like she knew it was wrong and is extremely repulsed and (of course) traumatized by her father. But I mean she was in that situation since birth, so you'd think that maybe she'd just be completely totally brainwashed to believe whatever he told her. But the news said that though she'd never seen the light of day, she would only agree to talk to them (first other people she'd ever seen I reckon) on the condition that she never ever had to see her father again and they kept him away from her and the kids. So she has a lot more independence and smarts than you might would expect in the situation, so...with that resistant mindframe I'd have found a way to kill the #######.

I saw this on the news today, really really sad and weird, yeh...

Remember like...maybe a year, year and a half ago, there were a couple, maybe a few cases kind of like this o_O There was one girl found in Austria who'd been missing for years and years. Then there were two boys, right? I think they were in Austria or just eastern europe area too. And then there was some sick old guy in the States I think that kidnapped women and kept them in like a bunker in his yard while his wife died of cancer or something.

I thought it was really strange that most of the cases I remember are coming out of Austria or near-abouts though...I was wondering why. Is this some sort of weird Freudian cultural backlash reactionary thing about Austria or its history or what? It's just such a specific, peculiar crime.

I just got my results back for that Real Age Test everyone's been talking about lately. This might be an old topic, ya'l might have all already done it, but it was fun so thought I'd make a topic if you haven't.

Take the test here

Apparently my real age is 15.1. I'm 22 But I think it should be a tad bit older. I had lots of stress questions I checked no to now because I graduate in one week, but a month ago I probably would have been like 80 or something

Pretty cool little diagnosis and it gives you advice at the end to change your lifestyle

Yeh basically all career pursuits I'm interested in

I agree with Kathryn, as far as I know the US doesn't check up on your residences in other countries or look into the legalities of anything that doesn't concern our country.

As for marrying in Venezuela, nah I don't think that'd be better. I mean you can - that's the K3 visa, which I don't think is about equal in difficulty and expenses compared to K1 but for some reason I think K1 is more straightforward.

I say I don't think it's a good idea to marry in Spain because it sounds like you might just try to be getting around the system, and this is really unnecessary. You don't need to worry about being accepted or your fiance allowed into the country if you go through the K1 process properly. Almost everyone is accepted and when they're not, it's with good reason. But you need to be completely open and honest and know what you're getting into.

Also, before you file, you might wanna try to plan out your visits. Once you've filed the petition, your SO can still come to the US to visit but it's a little risky. Sometimes people get turned away at the port of entry and are not allowed in if they don't have good proof that they have ties to their home country and are going to return. So maybe her visiting your home, meeting your family, knowing the area she'd be living in, etc., would be good before you file and before it'd be more difficult for her to visit?

Just suggestions. Good luck.

You got your NOA1 the DAY after you sent it in? Wow

As to your question, you know I have no idea In all my reading I haven't heard of this happening but I'm sure it has before and is perfectly possible.

Since you're so early in your timeline, I'd act immediately on the US side if I were you. Call your Center and ask them what you can do, what your options will be. I would think since they haven't given the NOA2 yet, they'd be able to send the packet back to you and you just go ahead and change it now, or maybe even do it over the phone, without having to start over (and pay the fee again).

But it sounds like you're not sure if your SO will be able to move or not so I don't think they could help you nearly as much with that...but they could at least tell you what your options or instructions would be in the future if it does happen. Then I think you'd have to deal with the foreign embassies, so maybe your SO should also be making some preliminary calls to ask questions.

Good luck.

I think it sounds like you have a great pool of primary evidence, you sound more than fine to me.

Boarding passes and the likes are just examples since most people do have to travel to see their loved ones - it's just the most common example and VJ's advice, not even mentioned in uscis instructions anywhere. Any sort of evidence that you've met is good. And you're right, having proof that you worked in the same office is a lot more solid than proof that you happened to fly to the country your fiance lives in. Your case is actually kind of...better than others with that.

You don't have to show secondary evidence of your actual relationship til the interview, yeh, so hang onto phone records and all that for then. However most people do send in at least a couple photographs if they can with the initial package. Just some sort of little taste of the actual relationship. If you happen to have any receipts from restaurants, shows, etc. you guys might have gone to while together, people have used those before too. It just kind of fills in the narrative, you know? But I don't think it's necessary at all.

Hi lady23,

At least your Center is Vermont, so your case should go a little bit faster. No idea when you first sent in your petition. In most cases I think, the entire process until you get your visa is about 6 months, sometimes longer, sometimes shorter. Sometimes something happens where they don't touch your case for a long time or you get a lot of RFE's (requests for more information) that will slow you down.

the US citizen should be receiving instructions from the center, and then the person in the Philippines should start getting instructions. It's a step by step process. No idea where you are in the process since you don't have a timeline.

If you or the US citizen sent the petition in more than I'd say, six weeks ago, and you've yet to receive the NOA1 receipt from them, then I'd call and inquire about your case. You can also check your case status online at uscis.gov.

I don't think I've ever seen them around here. What sort of environment do they need to grow?

We get other mushrooms though. I would never pick and eat them for fear of accidentally poisoning everyone and dying.

Oh I'm not girly at all, to be honest. But when my hair's long all the lesbians go under the woodwork. As soon as I cut it they go CRAZY for me :D I'm being honest, and yes I do like it and think it's funny and kind of wish I'd been a lesbian xD

So no I'm not girly and I'm a bit athletic and walk very fast, all that, but at the same time it does suck because I don't think I'm that damned ugly or look like a guy that much. Sick of the mistake happening. I understand getting "sir" in a restaurant or something where people have been automatically addressing people all day, but it just happens like...lots. I went and bought some shorter shorts and that's helped some, but see most girl clothes drive me nuts because they have no good pockets and the shirts have this stupid cut thing in the sleeves that just...touches you in all the wrong places, and they cost twice as much, and then shrink, and then tear up twice as fast. So yeh I'm not doing myself any favors xD

I don't have a butch cut though...I guess it is mannerisms. The first time I got my hair buzzed though years ago (yeh okay that's butch ) a lesbian on my campus actually STOPPED IN HER TRACKS and ran back to talk to me. I just passed someone, heard footsteps, heard them stop, and then heard a clack clack clack running up behind me. She invited me to a gay-straight alliance meeting she was going to, hit on me a bit until I said I was straight, and then said I looked great a few times and wandered off xD

It was awesome

I'm in the same position. I started growing my hair out a while ago and it looks terrible. It's just not thick enough to be really long. I can't wait to cut it into a cute pixie cut at my next salon visit.

Luckily, my guy appreciates short hair on girls and has been encouraging me to cut it ever since he saw a picture of me with really short hair.

QUOTE(Alex & Rachel @ Apr 27 2008, 05:23 PM)

My hair is so straight and fine that if it's any longer than a couple of inches below shoulder length it begins to just look really limp and hangs around my face in a very unflattering way. I also imagine that if you have really curly hair that it's equally annoying to have to deal with. It's a rare breed of woman who can look really good with long hair - you have to have thick hair with a hint of curl, I think, to look really good.

Heeey I got my hair in the pixie cut last time I cut it like a month or two ago Liked it lots. I had mine short for a couple years in high school, then long for a good two or three years and finally gave up and cut it again just recently. I have thick curly frizzy hair and it sucks and won't do anything and is a lot of work, and I realized I just...never had time and always put it up in a ponytail anyway. So what's the point?

My problem is I'm too cheap to upkeep the short hair. I mean $20 cheapest haircut a girl can get...I'm not going to the salon every month or two. Like already my pixie has fallen out and in another month I'll have a mullet that I'll have to chop off But no I can't afford to go get a pro do every few weeks. But I do like it much better short and like short hair on other girls, etc etc too, and I think my SO doesn't care either way, so as long as that's the case I'm happy and don't care...

But lesbians WILL pay more attention to you.

EWWWWWW omg gross Gary :D What

Nah never had them. I thought at first the really pretty colorful plastic fruit in the corner was them and was like omg magic And then reality hit.

Um...have a good dinner

Well, are you the US citizen or are you the beneficiary from Taiwan?

I've never heard of anything saying you have to provide a military certificate, or anything showing that this matters in the adjudication process. There is a question on either the I-129F or the biograph about military service though...but I think you just fill in the answer and don't have to give any secondary evidence.

I'm just bumping this because it was about to get lost, even though I don't know the answer. Anyone shed some light?

I think you do have to finish getting them though, once you're in the US or whenever time for the next one comes up. I'm not sure about that, don't know if they check up on it and everything, but when it comes time to AOS and all that stuff they might.

In which case you might wanna try to get as many as you can while in your country if you have insurance and don't think you will for awhile in the US. Though we might have HPV shots for free at our health clinics here now.

Well, you know what guys, sensitive topic with me, I don't give a damn if you like hair really long or not.

Seriously it makes me mad. I grew my hair back out just for the sake of thinking people in general would treat me better/look at me less weird if I did and thinking SO would like it more, took YEARS to get to a decent long length, and is a huge pain in the butt to just...have. I hate having long hair, it sucks so much. So when people were STILL looking at me funny and calling me 'sir' far too often and ####### like that, and I knew SO didn't care either way, I hacked that ####### off again.

And I'm not wearing makeup and I'm not putting on skintight clothes that sink below my butt when I sit down so people can see my thong and I'm definately not putting on heels and I'm not adopting an artificially shrill high hee hee voice, dying anything, waxing anything, or in any way spending hours in the bathroom to make me look different and somehow more 'womanly' though I AM a woman so I must look right. Because grrrr!!! and all that.

Okay I's done Schtoopid gender roles grumble grrrs...

Ditto on the toilet thing, it sounds pretty nasty where I live. But I'm mostly desensitized to it now. When you hear your SO's little grandma say toilet you kind of got to let it go

Off topic but when I was little my mom would freak out if me or my sister said we had to go pee. To her that sounded horrible and she forced us for years to call it "tinkling"

I've been seeing these "experience" gift cards lately that seem pretty dang cool. You go onto their website and there's thousands of things to choose from, from regular stuff like movie tickets and restaurants to hot air balloon rides and surfing lessons and pretty much like...everything, it looks like. That might be really good for a vacation or for whatever she wants, really, and it's a bit more personal than just a generic visa giftcard I guess. I think it sounds fun to go online and see all the neat stuff you can do with it.

I think your ideas as is are pretty good too. In any case you sound like a really great friend

Oh yeh, well we call them fanny packs here. UKers it's bum bags. So weird because on either case it is worn on the british meaning "fanny" side of the body but in both cases it's called essentially butt bag. Fanny here means bum

Brits in general, in my experience, are much more err...either generous or exaggerating with their praise. Packs of cookies and stuff have BRILLIANT and SPLENDID and MARVELLOUS and stuff like that written all over them. Absolutely everything is brilliant and lovely and wonderful etc. Whereas here, at least in the south, it's a very big compliment actually if someone says (especially a man says) "That's alright" or "that's not bad."

Was watching the news the other day when this british journalist got rescued in the middle east somewhere by troops. The news was raving happy because the Brit had called the troops' rescue "brilliant" or something, they were really playing it up. Whereas really the guy's saying 'brilliant' was just kind of standard for ya'l and if someone had given him a digestive he'd be like oh fantastic!

Richard, get her a dunebuggy

My baby has taken lessons but um...keeps failing the tests in the UK xD Which is worrying. So yeh I'm thinking clunker for him too.

Up until a couple years ago a 1989 oldsmobile (sorry, don't know the make) was in our family well...since 1989. The thing was a TANK. It was always there my entire life in my conscious memory, and I can't remember it actually breaking down or having to be worked on ONCE. No kidding. I think it had 200,000 + miles on it.

My dad fixes cars himself instead of taking them in the shop when they break. Not saying he's pro at it, just slapdash gets it running again. He's very good at getting little Mitsubishi trucks to run forever and ever ever. He's had two cars in my lifetime both Mitsubishis, and the first one didn't finally give out, it just got totaled in a wreck at like 300,000 miles or something. So maybe these are a good buy too.

My first car which I got 7 years ago was a 1991 Toyota Corolla. I called it the can-opener. I think it was a pretty good little car...was older but didn't have too many miles on it. It's hard for me to compare because I've only ever driven it and a brand new VW bug, so yeh, unfair.

This car actually did have stalling problems. It would like...overheat, or something, I have no idea, if you pushed it too hard on the interstate (meaning with this vehicle going over 65). My dad would "idle it up" whatever the heck that means but it still did it.

Been wondering lately if anyone's got a moped or motorcycle or knows much about them? I think a moped would be fun as heck and get like 80 mpgallon on them or something, heck yeh Of course can't go too far with it but still the awesomeness.

I want a mini.

I sent in a whole ton of secondary evidence and got a really fast approval. But I don't think that's necessarily because of all the surplus.

I really don't think it matters, unless as others have said you have red flags, then yeh it might be better to provide a bit more.

Besides obvious fluctuations and a bit of luck, etc., I think probably what slows people down is 1. being unclear or ambiguous when you answer questions and 2. not organizing the packet well so the adjudicator can easily find everything. Like I said I sent a bunch of secondary, but I separated it and sectioned it off and marked it and everything else. If they didn't "need" to see it then all they had to do was not look.

Haribo's AWESOME. That's another thing you brits can kiss goodbye when you get here in the land of the brave and free and opportunity and all that. Well...our stores have started carrying just the bears, sure. But all those crazy ones, and the bestest of course the starmix with the hearts and eggs BYE BYE.

BUT you can order it off amazon quite cheap. For Christmas I bought Iain like five pounds of twin cherries off of Amazon for I think $15

The bovine/porky stuff goes for anything gelatinous yeh, so marshmallows, jello, pudding, etc Mmmm fine with that. You guys don't get pork rinds. We get pork rinds.

What the heck is suet...is it some kind of meat product? In pudding? Omg you guys stop eww.

I had bread pudding once in Edinburgh at this restaurant called Howie's. Only it was cheating. It was dark chocolate bread pudding and huge and hot and omg the best thing EVER. So delicious....

It's true that older non-super Walmarts tend to really suck and be really disgusting, same goes for the Kmarts that are left around here. I don't even think about those though, they're just like...huge bleak dollar stores or something.

My hometown's sheriff office is in the Walmart

Hi. SO lives in Edinburgh but he's in London studying at the moment. He just called whatever doctor he usually goes to and went and picked up the records. Um...why can't you do this?

They also sent the records down to him to the local doctor's in London for him, so if you're not in Edinburgh at the moment, they should be able to work out a similar arrangement for you.