My Life for the Past 10 Months

I haven't written a lot about the Green Card process here on the blog for one main reason: I wasn't sure if the government was spying on me or not. I didn't want to jinx anything, or give myself away. Yes, I suppose I am a paranoid person. But now that things are moving along, I feel like I can share the whole ordeal {at least, the parts of it I've dealt with up to this point}. 

Let's start at the very beginning, the whole reason I'm in this mess in the first place. I got married in August last year. I still had my student visa, so I was able to finish up school without worry. Once January came around, I was done with school, and thus the visa. I couldn't work on campus anymore. So I sat at home and waited and tried to help save as much money as I could so that we could eventually start the paperwork to get me a GC. They're pretty pricey. 

I sat at home, filling out paperwork and trying to not spend so much money. Luke worked hard, and eventually we had enough to continue with the process. 

We filled out more paperwork. Pages and pages of addresses, marriage dates, how much money we made, and so on.  We took passport photos. And then more passport photos, because they can't get enough of my beautiful face.  I had a physical exam. The exam consisted mostly of whether I was a risk for communicable diseases {HIV, STDs, tuberculosis, drug addictions, etc}. I'm clean, by the way. I also have a healthy set of tonsils. 

Once we had the results from some blood work back from the doctor's office, we sent off our LARGE packet of paperwork. 

Then we waited. 

And waited. 

A letter showed up, wanting even more paperwork. We sent that off, and waited. 

I had a biometrics appointment last week, where I got both my fingerprints and my face put in the system.

Finally, yesterday afternoon I got my "Employment Authorization Card" in the mail. The card itself looks more like a driver's licence than anything; it's pretty legit.  Now, I can work{yay!!!!} and travel out of the country without abandoning the rest of my application {yay!!!!}. I don't have any immediate plans to go home, but I'm working that out. 

I still have to wait for the rest of my application to be approved, before I will receive the actual Green Card. I also still have to have an appointment with an immigration agent to determine the legitimacy of my marriage {that sounds so technical, doesn't it? Basically, they just want to make sure I married Luke because I love him, and not so that he would get me a GC}. So I'm not quite out of the woods yet. But the end is approaching, and I no longer have to sit at home, doing nothing all day. I get to look for jobs!

That was a long post, so as a reward for reading through all this, here's some Dwight and Jim.