maliciant

I had a dream too... and in it, for some reason only white lego's were ok to use, it was evil to use other colors of lego's... but I knew better and was set on proving the other people wrong. Also, in the dream the building was two stories and using non-white lego's did cause the roof to tilt. Uh yeah... most of my dreams are pretty random.

Got married first, then the SSN, you pretty much have to wait 10-14 days after arrival or you may not be in the system, we got married about 5 days after arrival (flew home 2-17 and married 2-22). Having married first didn't allow us to get the SSN in her married name, the name had to match what USCIS had, they said we could notify them of the change but it wasn't clear how (for all I know they meant file AOS as a method of notifying them of the change). We ended up getting the SSN in her maiden name, once AOS is complete we'll get it updated to show her married name, but it's no big deal at this point. I have seen cases (after we went through the SSN deal) where people only had to show the marriage cert and they were given a SSN in their married name, maybe they were K-3's or something, I don't know all the details but it seemed impossible having seen the procedure used here (they checked some database and if the name didn't match no go). Each state has diff requirements for marriages, so make sure you know the details, some states require a SSN before you can get married, there are also potentially diff requirements like getting blood tests, waiting periods, and of course different fees (though I don't think the marriage license fee is going to be a big deal in many cases compared to the other costs of this process... but you might have to pay using cash or something along those lines too and may even have to have exact change).

I just noticed this thread by Ghana so my questions about how they entered the country probably are already answered (I haven't read the thread).

i didnt have a k1....i have an approved vawa case

How did you enter the country (and I guess when)? The only thing that makes sense with what you have told us is if you had entered the country illegally. I don't know how a VAWA case would have gained you entry into the US, it seems like that'd only apply after you had gained entry and married someone, and then divorced and self petitioned. Either way, a complete lack of ID makes your situation a lot different from anything anyone else here is likely to be able to help with, you may be able to show birth certificates and other original documentation but you need to get some form of legal ID or it'll be non-stop trouble.

I haven't seen any touches or anything on my wife's AOS in the last two weeks... and I'm in the habit of checking the online status daily now (well, twice daily even a lot of the time). I'm expecting the EAD or something to show up in the mail any day but each day when I check the mail, a little dissappointment is all I get. I know it should be soon but my wife is getting sick of hanging about the house and wants to get to work!

In addition to all the junk you needed for your visa, your school records are important, and if you have medical records bring a COPY of them, even if you maintain your health insurance in some other country because it's free, you might have some emergency here that requires immediate attention and it's always a good idea to have your medical records handy.

I'm going to guess that in your case cuchita there might not be a lot of opportunity to use that medical, it's going to require something major, but not immediate... which I guess leaves pregnancy and cancer, probably most everything else is less than the price of a plane ticket and it probably won't be practical to travel once you are working unless it's something major, with plenty of warning time but a short treatment period (so cancer might not be practical unless you move home for the duration of treatment, which is probably worth it if it's serious).

For question 23 put your annual income, before taxes, no write offs etc, just whatever you make in a year before taxes.

As for the 693 question... the thread you linked seems pretty difinitive but there has been a lot of mixed results on that... my wife did her vaccinations at her medical and got the DS-3025 document, there are very few approved doctors in missouri and they are of course a few hundred miles away so we went with the slight RFE gamble of just sending the DS-3025 document instead of the I-693 supplement, we dont' know what the result is yet but I'm fairly certain it'll be fine, if not we'll make another trip up to STL to get the document transcribed (or go the dr tom route that seems to be fairly popular).

Oh yeah, starting to get impatient about that AOS/EAD, my wife is gettin some cabin fever I think, spending so much time at home, all we can do is wait though (and the online system for AOS doesn't seem very reliable, most people can only track part of it and then there is the usual case of a lot of times updates not showing up when people already have noa2's or other weirdness).

Did you setup a forwarding address with the post office? Or are the green card envelopes marked do not forward/return to sender only or something?

Happy Dancer is heading to Kentucky, she's from the philippines... but her man might know the answers.

Probably the info you need for KY school enrollment

I spent most of my life with hair down to my ####, all the way around (not just long in some spots but the whole mop). I took my slayer signs down around the time the divine intervention album was released, long before I went and got a proper haircut... I always figured if I was going bald I'd just go for the fully shaved cueball look... I'm all or nothing!.. I'm not there yet but I do think that the hair on top is thinning, so I've looked into what treatments are available and the end result I came up with... the hair treatments all fairly expensive, typically involve a continued cost to maintain, and often one of the side effects is if you ever stop a treatment it actually will have a negative impact on you... you lose whatever results you may have gained, and then some. The hair replacement industry strikes me as about as full of hype as the weight loss industry, there are constantly new pills being pushed on tv that will magically give you amazing results backed by science (the real science behind these things usually shows less than a 1% effectiveness... you may lose a few pounds a year as a direct result of taking some pill... far from the claims of the ads). I think that the products *can* work for many people, but there is no way to predict which product will work best for you, or if anything will work... so well... talk to a doctor or two, find out what they have to say, research what they tell you, but in the end probably the best option is save your money for hats, cause hats have a 100% baldness cure rate (except in places where wearing a hat is discouraged).

DCF (Direct Consular Filing) requires only 6 months living in a country, as a resident, not 6 months living as a couple, at least as I understand it (so you can't just be there on a visitor visa). It's kind of like skipping the steps all the way past NVC and starting at the embassy as I understand it. DCF is only faster IF you are already qualified to do it, otherwise it's most likely slower to meet the qualifications.

I definitely agree that the AOS wait is no big deal, it could take a year and it's OK, you are with your spouse, however, it could definitely be stressful waiting on the EAD if the AOS doesn't finish fast, because face it, a person can only take so much sitting around the house, especially in a new country where they don't have many (or any) friends, and no real easy options for meeting more such as when you are in school or have a job etc.

We had some fun storms roll through this morning, lots of wind damage, there were a few tornados but apparently they weren't any more serious than the wind itself (the steady wind was already gusting as much as a small tornado EVERYWHERE so an actual tornado would have to be pretty powerful to be too significant).

The only online status I can see is for the I-485, arguably the most important to be able to see so it's not all bad, but yeah, a lot of people can't see the status of all their documents.

I figure once you know an EAD or GC is in card production, I think it's safe to start looking for work, just let them know if they want to hire you that you haven't received the card itself yet (usually in an interview a question like "When can you begin working" is asked, that's when I'd answer as soon as I receive my EAD/GC which should be in a week or so).

Maliciant - I will be contacting you when it's AOS time.

Yikes!!! Your AOS is going to be more complicated than mine, if for no other reason than you have kids, but overall don't worry, most of it is not too complicated, there are just some goofball things in the docs that make a few things look confusing (until you figure out it's a butterfly type format, and that a two part question started at the bottom on the left and continued at the top right... STUPID!!!!)

I'm not joining the april aos thread... I joined the march aos thread! We filed AOS on about the 14th of march, and are likely almost done now. There have been several GC's issued, many interview dates are set, etc.

Gemmie: The practical and emotional stuff is all kind of tied together, if there isn't enough to keep you busy with the practical side of things, the emotional side has more time to go haywire thinking about how much you miss... now that said, she doesn't have a whole lot of things to do during the day to keep her busy yet, and somehow isn't too homesick so far, once and a while she really feels it, especially missing her nephews which she has done a lot in terms of raising them, but she's not breaking down and crying every night because she moved to a different country or anything like that. I was worried that there would potentially be a big problem with this from reading the phils forums and other threads around about how homesick people got, part of why I wanted to get the AOS filed as soon as possible here, the sooner she's able to get a job and be more independant the better she'll feel, while she's not so much homesick I do think she's getting pretty bored with home life, just itchin for the EAD or AOS to show up so she can start huntin for a job.

Still, this is her, from my point of view so it's possible it's not 100% right, she seems to be coping with the things that so many seem to make a big deal out of without any big problems, she's also only been here for two and a half months so it's possible it hasn't even really hit her yet. I can say for myself, I've never been particularly attached to any place I've lived except of course where I grew up... even that wasn't so much of a strong attachment for me, I can move pretty much at the drop of a hat, I think that you are probably about the opposite of me in this regard... and your move is more significant than mine, as you are moving countries, I have not done that yet. You won't know for sure how you'll handle it until you get here, so hopefully you'll do just fine, it's far from the end of the world, and you and your man somehow managed to visit each other quite frequently already, no doubt you can still visit your friends and family at least occassionally after you move.

Ever hear anything on the expedite chris & mara?

After everyone does AOS I'm pretty sure this thread will live on but it'll almost always be on page 5 or so. But hey, it's just a few more months until august, if we can keep this thread going strong, we can start to mess with the 2009 august k-1 filers by having a thread that they may think is the one for them....

My own situation is similar, my birth certificate has my fathers last name but I have a court document that states the name change that I keep with it (and of course make a copy of any time someone needs a copy of my birth cert) stating that my name was changed. You may have to get the document from the county clerk where it was issued, so it's probably easier to patch things up with mom so you can get that (and this time keep it, that's not mom's paperwork anymore).

Nice HW, the interview date is just far enough away for you to be able to get pretty the best pricing possible on your tickets, I recommend showing up at least a day early (give yourself at least 24 hours before the interview when you land) so you can be rested. Are you going to try to stay long enough for the visa to be issued so you can make the return trip together? I know how brutal that embassy tends to be, so I guess you can't really count on anything there, but if they do approve things, does the visa itself take long to be issued or is it usually just a few days?

Cuchita: I hope you're only like me in that it's sore, hopefully not the kind of severity I had, that was brutal.

HW: Hopefully you'll get an interview scheduled soon, I saw that post by another person dealing with your embassy that is missing his NOA2 but otherwise has just saled through the process at record speeds (kind of like the 21 day NOA2 that happened with a september filer early on in the process).

Um, the article didn't say anything about the man deliberately infecting the pigs, just that he did infect them. The thread title is misleading... who cares if some pigs got the swine flu, other than the scientists who'd be all gee gosh it went from human to pig!... But a man deliberately infecting pigs with it, that sounds like some mad scientist psycho stuff, I wanna know why someone would do that on purpose... I nominate CherryXS for a prestigious reporter award, based on ability to misrepresent the facts just like real reporters do (intentional or not).

I got water in my ear once, I went under unexpectantly and breathed some weird way that probably involved choking at the same time... either way water got in there good, it didn't seem to want to come out but I figured I must have gotten it all out and it just felt like there was something in there still from me messing with my ear... well, a few days later it had managed to get an infection going or something and I even had the pleasure of being semi-deaf in one ear, antibiotics cleared it up pretty quickly though but it's never pleasant thinking you might lose your hearing (or vision or major appendages or... anything).

I did get some swim ear stuff before that point trying to get the liquid out but it didn't work and apparently if you use that stuff too much it'll make the skin sore... It probably would have worked had I used it on the first day but I don't know, the water might have just been too deep inside my ear.

Anyway, all I can say is monitor it I guess, sometimes we feel things that aren't there anymore... and sometimes it's because they are there. Sometimes we notice something and think it's new but once we notice them we kind of obsess and wonder how we could have overlooked them (there are some bumps in your lower jaw on each side that pretty much everyone has... a few years ago I asked my dentist about them worried it might be cancer or something... I think he chuckled).

Yum... ice cream for a meal... I actually did do that a few times but it wasn't always easy to eat, but I'm feelin pretty good today, just sweatin like mad... I don't know if that's the humidity speaking or what though.

Best of luck gemmi, you're almost done with the wait. Only a few more august filers left to go now, I'm just hoping a certain lost petition can resurface suddenly and get some people on track for the original approval, there is just so much wrong with the idea of having to file from scratch because USCIS lost the petition.

I've also had a touch on 5/1, I don't know if there were many touches before that as I haven't been watching it on a daily basis, but considering how much activity we're seeing it's fairly promissing, I just hope I don't get an RFE (RFE = trip to civil surgeon... not local, a day off work and probably $500 in expenses). I don't know if it's worth making a big deal out of touches but if it gives ya a warm fuzzy feeling then it definitely doesn't hurt!

I think the sore throat is finally wearing off, that's really nice, cause nothing sucks worse than trying to stay well hydrated when every attempt to swallow is literally torture. I had thought this a few times in the past week too, but it turned out I was just hopped up on ibuprofin... well, I'm not hopped up on ibuprofin now, still sore but I think I can manage.... but I'm still feeling pretty miserable, it's more vague now since nothing in particular is really nagging, it's either the notorious fatigue I've read so much about, maybe a little nausea... or maybe ibuprofin withdrawel... I don't know how much exactly I was taking in a day, but I do know it was likely double the recommended max dose for a 24 hour period (1200mg in 24 hours, 400mg at a time spaced several hours apart)... I'm guessing it was closer to double that most days, I'm guessing taking too much ibuprofin causes some kind of poor body temp regulation because about the peak point of it's effectiveness for pain control I'd start sweating a LOT (plus side I could eat/drink easier... down side I was sweatin out my liquids).

Also, you know, bump off page 2...

Five weeks? Ugh, seriously, I'm feeling pretty lucky to have gotten away with 1 week (and I had to go in friday to reboot a server... the manager was like you ain't stayin, and you're takin a cab home, and stole my umbrella to make sure). A week of pain every time I swallow sucks, I really hope it doesn't drag out another 5 weeks... friday I started to have a fever, and that means sweating... it's hard enough to keep enough water in my body as is with the swallowing pain, now I get this extra dirty trick for removing even more water. There's a good chance I'll be returning to urgent care today or tomorrow to get rehydrated/a nutrient pack to get me back up to normal (thanks to my insurance which takes such a big chunk out of my paycheck every week I'm always debating whether or not it's worth having... visits like those will only cost me $15... so I am glad I always remained on the fence on the insurance and never actually dumped it, I paid for a similar visit a year ago for a friend and it cost about 480 for 2 waters and a nutrient pack).

Anyone know of something good for the sore throat? It's sore from swelling, not from coughing or anything. When I'm sleeping every time I have to swallow I imagine I'm swallowing a tree house or something (not intentionally, just kind of like a dream).

Congrats fred, time to start crying about the AOS bill!

OK, for those who remember, I said I was sick a few days ago... I've actually only gone to work 1 day this week and left early, I don't have fever, cough, diarhea, etc, I just have swollen tonsils and it literally makes me wince to swallow, and has since about last sunday. I went to the doc on wednesday (I was pretty stubborn about it but I didn't want to tell my boss that I was missing a bunch of work and still hadn't gone... heck, my paycheck is raped every month by the insurance company... and it costs virtually nothing to use my insurance... like $15, I should go once a day!). They did some tests, and other than a low resting heart rate (which was actually up for me... it was 47... it's often lower) all the vitals are in the very healthy range (and I'm not too concerned about the slow heart rate since I have no side effects that I'm aware of and I get enough exercise that it's assumed it's from fitness I guess). Anyway, it was down to strep, not a common strain, something that takes lab work to detect, or mono, which also takes a bit of lab work but it's quick, they gave me a perscription for antibiotics and told me to start them that night after they called to let me know if it was mono (virus so no use in antibiotics) or not mono (in which case assume strep and start downin some serious antibiotics)... From what the doc had told me and the symptoms my wife had also had a week or so before, mono sounded most likely... and that's what they said when they called, it's mono.

Now mono is good in a few ways, you get it only once and are immune to it (like chicken pox), it's rarely fatal, something like 1 in 1000, it's not likely to lead to tonsil removal which I hear is fun for adults (and I've witnessed isn't so hot for teens). Also a bonus is something like half of the people get it and never have any symptoms, especially the young, and about 90% of people have gotten it by the time they graduate high school. The cure is simply bed rest, liquids, and some painkillers now and then (not aspirin) to deal with the symptoms, you don't have to do anything to get over it really.

The bad news... the older you are when you get it, the worse the symptoms are, I'm 32, that's apparently old enough for it to suck seriously badly, it can last months, from what I've read the symptoms might rotate a bit, and I could probably deal with say, fevers, and a few other things, but the sore throat is brutal, it's hard to get the liquids when it hurts to swallow, eating is slightly less fun. Apparently most likely fatigue will be pretty severe for a few months, I'm not feeling too fatigued right now but well, I'm sittin at home whining about how sick I am, while talking as little as possible of course. Mono is a virus, so no cure, there is nothing you can do to speed up recovery really... yeah, I listed that as a possitive because I prefer to let my body take on all comers and not rely on meds when possible... but I'm kind of tired of this particular torture. Your spleen and liver can enlarge from mono and this can last a while too, and apparently while that's going on they are very fragile, so no exercise (not all bad, doctors orders, no exercise... but it's a shame cause I was finally back into a good routine again, so this is a little more negative, plus even once it's over it'll be a few weeks before it's safe to exercise, approximately).

For comparison to how miserable I feel, I used to smoke, I was an addict, if I was sick I was still going to smoke, etc... the smokers and ex smokers in this thread know how addictive that is, and it'd been a long time since I'd come remotely close to quitting (it only takes 4 days to quit cold turkey!!!! and yet millions can't)... I had recently gotten on an exercise routine, I was working out regularly etc... and then one friday I ran for an hour on an elliptical, overall it was pretty easy (and of course I crank the resistance up, I was about 275 at the time so well... my body weight alone made the resistance somewhat negligible). I went to the movies that night, feeling pretty good, I heard a bit of coughing in the theatre, kind of annoying, but no big deal... I think I was already sick at this point and didn't know it though because by the end of the movie I was startin to feel a bit bad and all that exercise had really weakened my immune system (I was just getting into shape for the first time in 10+ years)... the next 4 days I was the most miserable I'd ever been, but as an added bonus I literally could not inhale ciggarrette smoke, I tried every day for four days, in the morning... I just couldn't, by the fifth day I was starting to feel better but I realized what a blessing it was in disguise, because I wasn't craving a cigarrette anymore, I just stayed away, it was miserable being sick but quitting turned out to be a total cake walk... well, for comparison, I think mono sucks more so far, more because it doesn't seem to have let up any yet and I'm pretty sure I was way more delirious from the flu so I probably don't remember it was well.

Also, the wife seems to have had it, and seems fine already, she had different symptoms like probably the swollen spleen (we didn't know it at the time, thought her symptoms were allergies, which is what I thought mine were too until monday when they got severe). Anyway, luckily for her, she got over it fast and didn't get the very swollen throat (torture!), but the down side is she did get the other symptom... the decrepid wimpy man syndrome where she gets to cook all manner of exotic home remedies to try to make my throat pains go away at least a little (yeah for ginger papaya chicken soup... it didn't seem to help with the soreness but it was definitely delicious... and sadly painful to eat... I can't wait to eat it when I'm not sick!). I owe her some serious pampering of some sort when I get over this!

I have a theory about how we managed to score mono... I blame it on my wife's baby kissin ways, I think she kissed my nieces drooling baby and the baby had managed to get infected at some point before by her mother, father, or some of there other teenage friends and passed it on that way, mono has such a long incubation period it's really difficult to determine where you were infected, there was also another possible theory too, but it seems a little less likely due to the time frame, that the wedding we stayed at while getting married (which I can tell you was NOT very clean) may have had some mono germs floatin around, but that'd be about 2 months before we had symptoms, it's possible we got it there, but not likely.

Anyway, sorry it's so long, just my life story... but I typed this while waiting for some ibuprofins to kick in... and sippin chocolate milk (it went down easy last night... but I think the ibuprofins were workin for me then).

No swine flu? must be SARS! hahahaha jk jk jk!

SARS... I forgot about that one, I never took it seriously, just a load of media fear mongering... swine flu... well, this one is a bit scarier and I am paying a bit of attention to it, no doubt some fear mongering going on here too but there's numbers backing up the potential for trouble this time.

Some good news in this thread. I Hope there is some good news for chris and mara too, there is just way too much BS going on there, when the government screws up that bad there should be some kind of free pass. I wouldn't be surprised if when things finally do happen, they'll state that they have the original petition and that the second one is denied because the first is still active or something.

I been sick the last few days, no swine flu though, but still pretty sick.