I handed in my Green Card yesterday. I am no longer a permanent resident alien in the US.
Instead, I am a naturalized US citizen. Yes, after 23 years of living in this country (a span my brother notes represents more than a casual relationship with the
country) I decided to take the plunge. Last fall, when we were returning from an overseas vacation, the immigration agent noted in passing how long I’d had my green card (nearly 20 years) and said I should naturalize. That got me thinking, so I started looking into it. I was going to have to renew my green card this year anyway. I always had to carry the darned thing with me, all the time. And I’ve lived in the US nearly half my life. So I started the process, which proved to be much simpler than getting my green card in the first place. I submitted my application in November (the most difficult part was listing every time I’d left the country in the past 20 years), went in for my biometrics a couple of months ago, had my interview two weeks ago and went to the oath ceremony yesterday.
For the interview, I had to re-attest to many of the things I stated on my application. I also had to prove I could read English (“Who was Abraham Lincoln?” was my test sentence. You had to read at least one out of three sentences in a way that showed you understood what you were reading) and write English (“Abraham Lincoln was the president during the Civil War” was my test sentence. Again, 1 out of 3 was all you needed). Then there was a civics test. There were 100 possible questions, all provided in advance. You had to get 6 out of 10 right to pass. Some of them were trivial (what ocean lies off the east coast of the US?) and some were more challenging (who is the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court?). I got the first six, so that ended the test.
Yesterday, over 1800 people were naturalized, representing 118 countries. We were at a high school basketball stadium. Had to show up at 7 a.m. to check in, hand in our green cards and review our naturalization certificates to make sure they were okay. Then, into the stadium, where we waited until about 10 a.m. for things to get going. A District Court session was convened and the oath ceremony took about 30 minutes. Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee was in attendance and both she and the judge gave speeches. Once the ceremony was over, we were encouraged to fill out and hand in voter registration cards, picked up our naturalization certificates and that was that. Took about 4 hours.
Next, I get to apply for a U.S. passport. I also keep my Canadian passport, since I am now a dual citizen.
After the ceremony, I took the rest of the day off to catch up on work. Though I am busier than a one-legged man in a butt-kicking contest, it feels good to know that what I am working on will definitely be published. I’ve worked as hard on other projects only to have them end up in the trunk, so there’s that. I did another phone interview for the book today, so I’ll have that to write up this weekend, on top of everything else. Two more phone interviews and three e-mail interviews to go.
The female tribe is in trouble on Survivor. I give them credit for kicking the malingerer from the male tribe out of their section of the camp. But when it comes to challenges they are having a rough go of it, and I think they made a monumentally dumb decision in who they evicted. Why keep someone who admitted she doesn’t bring much to the table over a cop who has strengths all across the board, but maybe older than the rest. I don’t get it.
It’s always good to see Malcolm McDowell on The Mentalist. I wouldn’t mind if he became a semi-regular because he and Patrick see each other for exactly who they are. I thought Robert Picardo was going to be the killer, because he was the most recognizable guest star, but then I suspect it was the guy who nominated him, perhaps as a pawn. Never guessed that it was the one person at the table who stood up for McDowell’s character, though it was obvious once they explained it.
That was a strange episode of CSI, with the “homicidal house” involved in four separate deaths and about $100K damage after someone stole it and ditched it in the desert. Strange, too, that Finn went all Bruce Campbell-with-a-chainsaw, threatening to cut the place in half. Have to wonder exactly why DB fired her in Seattle and why he hired her again. She does add an edgy presence to the team.
What a waste of Summer Glau on Grey’s Anatomy. She was pure eye candy. If they were paying her by the word, I think she wouldn’t have made a penny. I think all of her “lines” were mimed in the distance.
