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Citizen M.
Jul. 12th, 2004 09:48 pmGood tidings today! I'm now officially in research mode for naturalization! M can apply for citizenship right now, which is two months earlier than expected. The rule is 90 days before he's lived here for three years. (Disclaimer: not valid for all types of naturalization.. when in doubt, look it up yourself.) Soo.. yes, it went pretty well today. *cheer* I've downloaded the forms and perhaps I'll turn them over to M to struggle with this week. They're going to want something like $400, which I find completely excessive. I wonder how much money we've given them all together? I should look it up, just for personal edification. Anyway, this form, at first glance, looked particularly nasty, but it would be nice to have it sent off and done with it, so I'll try to get it done as soon as I can. The estimated burden of time required is supposedly six hours and eight minutes. They always exaggerate, though.. I'm planning about an hour's worth of work. I guess it's pretty unlikely that he'll be a citizen in time to vote for president, which is unfortunate. I have a very very bad feeling about this election, so any extra vote is good. If there even is an election. I don't want to talk about it.
Today seemed to be the day for the removal of conditions interview--everyone waiting was there for that, and we seemed to be approximately the only people who had actually gotten a letter at all. This is particularly scary as a concept if you consider that we only barely got ours and were initially informed of the interview by chance, through the chance of address notification that we received from them. These people, by the way, don't have phones. Or rather, they don't have phones that you can call with questions. I'm just glad we didn't miss the interview like several of the other couples had. I'm feeling very uncomfortable with my level of irresponsibility, though. We gathered documentation, and I--judging from past experiences--decided that they probably wouldn't want to keep the evidence we brought with us, and so I neglected to make a copy this time. I mean, there was nothing that we can't live without, but I'm a bit of a control freak about our paperwork, and now the INS, instead of us, has our lease and income tax returns for the last two years. I've been telling myself that this is silly--I think I can print another copy of last year's taxes, and we can probably get H&R Block to print the previous year's (I would assume?) and M will go down this week to get another copy of our lease--surely they won't complain about giving us a copy--but I feel really uncomfortable with it. I can't imagine why we would need these things again, really, but the universe seems vaguely out of order now. And let's not even talk about the missing bank statement from my carefully collected binder of every bank statement we've ever received since we got married. I really need to relax, don't I?
We were going to be all cultural and go to an art museum while we were out and about, but then we decided that they looked closed while they were under construction, and also, we wanted to go home. I was fairly sure they weren't actually closed, but it was the perfect excuse. It was raining and icky all morning--we walked a block in the worst part of the rain and were still a bit less dry than we could have hoped for, and it was just generally one of those days when it's nice to be home. M took an extremely long nap while I puttered the afternoon away. Very nice. If he makes a joke this week about my sleeping habits, I might beat him about the neck and shoulders with a metal clothes hanger again. I did that this afternoon, you know. Or at least, I tapped him with a plastic hanger on the shoulder a few times. Whatever. He called me silly, and I think he considered me a tad on the melodramatic side, but that's really nothing new.
Today seemed to be the day for the removal of conditions interview--everyone waiting was there for that, and we seemed to be approximately the only people who had actually gotten a letter at all. This is particularly scary as a concept if you consider that we only barely got ours and were initially informed of the interview by chance, through the chance of address notification that we received from them. These people, by the way, don't have phones. Or rather, they don't have phones that you can call with questions. I'm just glad we didn't miss the interview like several of the other couples had. I'm feeling very uncomfortable with my level of irresponsibility, though. We gathered documentation, and I--judging from past experiences--decided that they probably wouldn't want to keep the evidence we brought with us, and so I neglected to make a copy this time. I mean, there was nothing that we can't live without, but I'm a bit of a control freak about our paperwork, and now the INS, instead of us, has our lease and income tax returns for the last two years. I've been telling myself that this is silly--I think I can print another copy of last year's taxes, and we can probably get H&R Block to print the previous year's (I would assume?) and M will go down this week to get another copy of our lease--surely they won't complain about giving us a copy--but I feel really uncomfortable with it. I can't imagine why we would need these things again, really, but the universe seems vaguely out of order now. And let's not even talk about the missing bank statement from my carefully collected binder of every bank statement we've ever received since we got married. I really need to relax, don't I?
We were going to be all cultural and go to an art museum while we were out and about, but then we decided that they looked closed while they were under construction, and also, we wanted to go home. I was fairly sure they weren't actually closed, but it was the perfect excuse. It was raining and icky all morning--we walked a block in the worst part of the rain and were still a bit less dry than we could have hoped for, and it was just generally one of those days when it's nice to be home. M took an extremely long nap while I puttered the afternoon away. Very nice. If he makes a joke this week about my sleeping habits, I might beat him about the neck and shoulders with a metal clothes hanger again. I did that this afternoon, you know. Or at least, I tapped him with a plastic hanger on the shoulder a few times. Whatever. He called me silly, and I think he considered me a tad on the melodramatic side, but that's really nothing new.
