I do!

OMG–to get there, though. We were just getting to 441 and I realized I didn’t have my wallet which has my green card in and we had to turn around and get back, meaning we were going to be at least 20 minutes late to the ceremony, they said we had to be there for 1:30 p.m. that time came and went and we were at the intersection of Turkey Lake and Sand Lake, no way we were getting the Orange County Convention Center on time and I’m thinking OMG–we’re not going to get in. Then I’m thinking, well, Mum and I may be able to get sworn in together then. So, hey, not so bad. I make peace with that, but I know I have to show up anyway so they know I didn’t just bail.

We get there and a lady ushers us upstairs, “Oh, honey, you’re going to make it! It’s all fine!” and I find out we’re not late. The ceremony itself doesn’t start for another twenty minutes. They just want you there early so that they can get the THOUSAND people and their guests seated before hand. HUGE relief. I’m almost crying I’m so happy.

So, I get sat next to a guy from the Dominican Republic, and a woman from Zibabwe is on the other side. She’s been waiting to sit because she’s got a broken foot and has to be on the end of the row. Ten minutes and they start. We get a little video about being a citizen, a woman from the post office gives us tips on getting passports, they present the colors and a guy does this beautiful Accapella rendition of the anthem which had most of our section in tears myself included and introduces the guest speaker who is a USCIS worker whose family emigrated from Cuba, and she gives a really stirring but thankfully short speech (as I can hear my son shouting, “MUMMY! WANT MUMMY!” from the balcony area where Mum, hub and him are sat) about what it means to make the citizenship journey and how important it is for the future generations of your family that you take the step and become a citizen.
Then they had everyone stand up by country, there were 94 countries represented. I was one of the last to stand up because my country of origin was the UK and then we did the Oath and a future citizen from the Army led us in the Pledge of Allegiance. We watched a video speech from George W. Bush and a video of people at other Oath ceremonies to the tune of “Proud to be an American” and we all stood up at “and I gladly stand up!” and waved our flags and sang and cried, then they gave us our certificates and that was it.

Wow. My Mum took us out for Pho and then I left my cell phone at the restaurant and we had to go back for that. I’m in top form today. Yeesh!

But, hey, it’s cool. We get to do it again in a few months because Mum gets to have her ceremony, but at least we know the ins and outs now.

When we got home there was a white peacock in our yard! That was really cool. I like to think it’s a good omen.

I got tons of compliments on my hair LOL. I couldn’t spray paint stars in my hair but I found those really cool star earrings which set things off.
I can’t believe it’s really done. I’m a citizen. I just have to put my DL# on my paperwork and send it in and I’m registered to vote, and I have a passport form too, but that’s gotta wait ’cause the passports about $100.

I had my citizenship interview yesterday as I mentioned in my blog and I passed!

In some respects I knew that it should be okay and really given I’ve been here double the length of time that you’re legally allowed before going for your interview. I could have gone for my interview in 2000-2001 around the time I graduated from college if I’d been able to afford it or felt like it, but I was a bit…disenfranchised at the time.

Anyway, my appointment was at 10:30 a.m. My Mum came with me to look after the munchkin. Initially she was going to watch the munchkin at home, but then we decided that she would come with so I had company on the long and hairy drive into the heart of Orlando where the USCIS offices are. I’m really glad she did for several reasons, not least of which is the fact that the GPS system we were using to navigate down there kept disconnecting from the cigarette lighter in my car any time we went over a slight dip in the road or an area that was rough and bumpy, or any time you just breathed wrong near it, and so it had to be rebooted, something I wouldn’t have been able to do if I’d been by myself.

Ordinarily on a trip I do print out directions from a place like Map Blast or Google Maps given it lets you plot the map a bit and rearrange points so you don’t go on the freeway if you don’t want to and what not, but I was so busy the night before freaking out because I couldn’t remember if Mel Martinez was Republican or Democrat, or being afraid that I had forgotten some of the required verification paperwork I forgot to print back-up directions.

Anyway, despite all that fun with the GPS we got to the USCIS office on Tradeport Drive near the airport and then had to drive around the lot several times to find a parking space, but still we arrived by 10:15 and I was able to check in. Given the office was pretty busy Mum decided she would take my son to a little cafe that was in the same strip. Even though my letter said the interview would take about two hours she figured that I would be out sooner than that so she wouldn’t bother taking him to try and find a mall or a play area near by they would just play on the grass if he got bored and fussy. I left her my car keys anyway because you’re not allowed to take any electronic devices in the building and I had an electronic lock for my husband’s car on there and didn’t want to risk it. I remembered from previous instances that I wasn’t allowed to take a cell phone in with me even if it was turned off, and had left that in the glove box of my car.

So, I went in, set off the metal detector because of my boots and jeans, something I hadn’t thought about, and sat down. I was getting some funny looks from other applicants in the waiting room, because of my pink, purple and blue hair, but none of the security guards or attendants in the area seemed to mind.

I sat down with my notebook full of information and set to work going over the 96 prep questions that I’d been given, filling in that Francis Scott Key wrote the Star Spangled Banner, that there are nine Supreme court justices, and the Chief Justice is John G Roberts Jr. That Bill Nelson (Democrat) and Mel Martinez (Republican) are our senators, that Congress is made up of 100 senators and 435 representatives who are elected for six and two years respectively, and so on. There were a few questions that I had a bit of trouble with, but they were review questions and I figured they would be fresh in my mind if I happened to be asked them, like that Patrick Henry said, “Give me liberty or give me death” and that Washington was the first Commander in Chief of the US Army and Navy.

At 11:20 I was finally called. The staff did keep coming through and checking on us and cheering us on, which is another example of how the USCIS has improved in attitude and also connectedness. There were many times before in the early portion of our immigration experience that we would be in waiting rooms for four hours or more with no idea what was going on and the staff just sat behind their desks and screens looking glummer than the people at the driver’s license office, but they kept coming through and apologizing that they were running behind but they only had seven officers on staff today and were still trying to get through 120 people who were there for interviews. A few of the officers came in and read off the names of the people they’d been assigned to let them know that they were there but they were running an hour or more behind and so not to stress out if someone who came in after them was getting called sooner it was just because of the way we had been assigned to people.

So at 11:20 I was called by a gentlemen to go and interview. He apologized for being almost an hour late for my appointment but figured since I was clearly an English-speaking immigrant that we could motor through things fairly quickly and sat me down. I told him I had my folder of paperwork and he said he would call for certain things as he went through my case and had me verify my information and occasionally asked me the civics questions like what the name of the president is and how many branches of government we have.

He was impressed to see that I had graduated college, and congratulated me on my son and new house, and said that I was a model citizen. We had a bit of a joke that my hair color is listed as “red” and the only real change was that I had forgotten to include that I’d received a traffic citation for having an expired tag, which they had uncovered, of course, but he realized I had just genuinely forgotten it and given I’m married to a police officer and it was just a $72 citation and not something like a hit and run or a D.U.I it won’t affect anything to do with my application.

I could be getting sworn in and taking my oath as soon as April and would therefore be able to vote in the upcoming elections!

I’m so excited!

Tomorrow I have my USCIS interview. To say I’m nervous would be a major understatement.

I’m going to be getting tested and interviewed for TWO HOURS and at the end of it all hopefully they will agree to allow me to no longer be an alien and give me the right to vote and the right to have a US passport. It’s been a long strange trip since I came to this country.

Most people seem surprised that I’m not a citizen, and then they think I must have come from Canada. I did come from an English speaking country but that country is England itself, the original English speaking country :).

The other reason people seem surprised is because I’m married, and surely with being married to someone who was born here I’m then automatically a citizen so why would I have to take a test? Well, because all marriage does for you is lower the length of time before you can take the citizenship test. If you immigrate you can take the citizenship test within five years provided that you can afford the cost of the testing procedure, if you’re married to a US citizen you can take the test within three years. However I’d already been here nine years when I got married I just wasn’t ready to take the test.

Wish me luck tomorrow!

Wow, oh, wow! Yesterday I got an amazing surprise in the mail.
Over the weekend I finally remembered to sign on to the USCIS website and update my address with them that I had moved and link it to my Naturalization application. Well, am I glad I did because I got a letter yesterday that had been forwarded to me (apparently if your address is incorrect instead of forwarding USCIS instructs for it to be returned to sender!) and so it had gone back and then been fowarded out again after being initially mailed on January 16th!

Well, I’m scheduled for my testing and interview! I’m SO nervous! I’m going to be tested on American history, governmental procedure and my ability to read and write in English! My interview is at the beginning of March, right between my FIL and my Mother’s birthdays.

I was hoping that Mum and I would go for our interview on the same day given we applied at the same time and we went for our photos and fingerprinting at the same time…but right now it doesn’t seem like it hopefully she gets something in the mail herself in the next couple of days, maybe it’s because I’m a C in the alphabet and she’s an S?

A few days ago my mother got her fingerprinting notice. My parents wound up having to cancel a holiday they were about to go on because the day for printing fell right in the middle of it, and she hadn’t been able to get a hold of anyone at the USCIS to see about rescheduling.
We had a few tense days also because I hadn’t recieved a letter, so we were wondering if I would have to go on a different day, which would make things exceedingly awkward here. The appointments seem to be scheduled about 3 p.m. the office is at least an hour away, not to mention the wait time after you get there and the chances of the appointment falling on a day my husband had to go to work at 4 p.m. about 60%.

Finally yesterday we got the notification and my appointment is at the same time on the same day as my mother’s, and at the same place, which is an office I’ve been to before when I had to get photographed and fingerprinted to get my green card changed to my married name. The appointment day is a day my husband has to work, so doubly glad that it wound up being the same day as Mum’s because we can go together.

There’s an excellent sushi restaurant just down the block too, so maybe we can go for sushi afterwards

I can’t believe I forgot to mention this in my previous update on ‘good things’ post. This is a very, very good thing.
Yesterday we got a letter from the USCIS which said they had recieved my citizenship application and it was ‘in process’. They said we can expect to hear about my testing and interview within 365 days. This probably means at least eighteen months given the permanent backlog immigration seems to have, but it’s good to know they actually got the application.
Before we’ve experienced an intense and stressful period of ‘not knowing’ where things were and if they’d even arrived where they were supposed to go and weren’t just lost somewhere between here and the central processing center in Texas.
I am going to treasure that green and white piece of paper at least until I get my US passport!

My Mum and I are about to send in our N-400s to get our citizenship so we’re studying for the test. Here are some of the questions we have to study. How would you do?

1. What were the thirteen original states?
2. What are the three branches of our government?
3. Who is the Chief Justice of the United States?
4. What is the Bill of Rights?
5. How many voting members are in the House of Representatives?
6. What do we call changes to The Constitution?
7. How many Senators are there in Congress?
8. How long do we elect each Senator?
9. What do the stars on the flag represent?
10. What do we celebrate on the 4th of July?

BONUS: Who said, “Give me liberty or give me death”?

Try not to cheat and google it, although I’ll admit it’s hard. I came out of US History with a 110 score…but that was ten years ago. I’m lucky to remember that there’s executive, judicial and legislative branches of the government.