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| I have had some unique and 'interesting' experiences with the USCIS and want to document these events for posterity.
The experience that comes to mind most often happened back in Aug-2008 after a visit to Turkey. Going through immigration in Chicago first involved a 2 hour wait in line in the non-citizen queue. After waiting in line for so long, any noble ideas about toughing it out with my fellow non-US citizens just went out the window. Next time, I'll use my connections (via my wife) to just head straight to immigrations' US citizen/Green Card holder line where it only takes 5 min at most to get to the front.
To add insult to injury, I got sent to a special area for 'special registration' next. Officially, it's called NSEERS - I used to remember what it stood for at one point. That's where people who fit a certain profile (most times, that means you're male, citizen of a predominantly Muslim country, and who knows what other criteria are) go through secondary registration where more data is collected about you like where you work, who your parents are, etc. Thanks to computer troubles, that took another 4 hours to clear that checkpoint. Ended up missing my connecting flight and having to stay an extra night in Chicago. All unreimbursed by the government, of course.
I did get to see some interesting people while undergoing secondary inspection. One of them was a (very) elderly woman who got rolled into the area in her wheelchair since she was too frail to walk on her own strength. Yup, you can never be too careful about all these people coming into the country...
There're a couple of other good stories to write about. Perhaps next time. In summary, I think it can be interesting to be a little 'different' from everyone else around oneself. I suppose if I were like everyone else, things like this would never happen, I would never know what it'd be like to go through this process and life wouldn't be as... 'interesting'.
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| Malaysia (Dec-21st to 31st)
Thurs, Dec-18 - Missed our flight at Atlanta airport (grrr - Delta)! Had to re-book for Sun, Dec-21. 
Sun, Dec-21 (5:30 pm) - Left Atlanta for L.A. on Delta. Waited in line at Delta counter for 3.5 hours. Finally had to plead with multiple counter agents to let me jump queue and get checked-in. Nice agent (D. Manuel?) was kind enough to make an exception and help.
Sun, Dec-21 (7:30 pm) - Arrived in L.A. Really hungry after long day. Got some Udon at the International Terminal. Registered departure with USCIS.
Sun, Dec-21 (11:30 pm) - Left L.A. for Taipei, Taiwan, connecting stop to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Tues, Dec-23 (12:30 pm) - Arrived in Kuala Lumpur. Nora got a new country stamp in her passport. 
Wed. Dec-24 - Ate nasi lemak from vendor wrapped in banana leaf. Checked out Seremban, lots of new roads now connecting familiar places, saw my old high school St. Paul's. Ate cendol (crushed ice, coconut milk and flour jelly), yum!
Thurs, Dec-25 - Christmas morning service at my mum's Methodist church. Really good brunch served at church, freshly fried chicken, noodles, hot fries... combination may not sound great but it tasted really good. Must be the seasoning they used. Drove to Port Dickson beach later and saw a neat lighthouse. Mum made ketupat covers after plucking some coconut tree leaves she saw on way to lighthouse.
Fri, Dec-26 - Took train to KL Sentral. Walked around KL city, checked out the Arts Market, Kampung Baru (literally translater to New Village) a Malay village tucked away in a section of the city. Tried to get tickets to to to 41st floor of Petronas Tower but they ran out. Have to wait in line by 8:30 am for those free tix! Ate at top floor of KL Suria, a megamall at the lower level between the two towers. Delicious, which is just about every meal we've had here! Also discovered Sour Gum, mango-flavored gummies.
Sat, Dec-27 - Drove to Melaka, walked around busy Jonker Street, had chicken rice, easily one of the best in the world, if not THE best. Nora says mine's better...  Could not find a hotel room due to busy end of year tourist season so left for the day. Saw some relatives on my mum's side.
Sun, Dec-28 - Headed up to Klang to see my aunt (mum's younger sister). Stopped by Putrajaya and Cyberjaya along the way. Putrajaya is a planned federal territory developed in the last decade to house the various federal government ministries. Cyberjaya is right next to it and is intended to be an IT and technology center. There's some growth potential in that area, I personally think it is an uphill battle against the likes of China. R&D into resources natural to the country to develop new products is a better bet.
Mon, Dec-29 - Back to Melaka to see more relatives. Had satay-celup, hot-pot style except with spicy peanut sauce. Watch out for sanitary conditions though, customers use the same pot at the same table all through the day and the peanut sauce doesn't get changed. It was extremely yummy and spicy though!
Tues, Dec-30 - Packed up and did some shopping. Got Sour+, very sour gummy with the mango flavor coming out late. Very good stuff. Got some Malaysian junk food like Cheezels (that's a classic from my childhood and it's as good as I remember it). Ate at the local KFC, pretty good and of course, tasted a little different from the U.S. version. Had mum's nasi lemak for dinner, dad plucked banana leaves from a tree growing wild nearby to eat on.
Wed, Dec-31 - Bummer, had to leave for 2:15 pm flight. Hardly spent anything whole time there (when converted to US dollars). Entertaining thoughts of saving up money here and living in luxury in Asia.
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| Xanga did make it difficult to blog. Until this latest update, couldn't find where that new blog button was. Then they created a user's main page and moved the new blog button to the top right of it, right to a corner. For a function that important, there should be more than one place a person has to go to in order to create a blog! Even getting to that main page from my weblogs is a 2-step process.
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| I met up with a Burmese family today, they're new migrants to the US and were refugees prior to arriving here in Oct-07. I asked a question about whether they knew to file their taxes since it's that time of year again. The dad and head of household asked me if I was talking about a W-2, which what he understood taxes to be all about. I said 'yes' and he told me he'd taken his paperwork to a tax preparer. I looked over his forms and was somewhat disappointed by what I saw. He was going to get about $3000 back, his income for '07 was low enough to have qualified him for the Earned Income Credit and with 2 kids and no taxes to pay, that seemed good. A real windfall for the family since he was their only wage-earner. Only drawback is that the fee was $142! For nothing more than a filling in a simple 1040 and a Schedule C. Something I could've done it in 1 hr forfree. I suspect the preparer could charge that much because she was marketing her services to migrants in the area and had little competition there since traditional preparers wouldn't really know how to attract, market or reach out to them. More than anything, I applaud that preparer, she may have been expensive but at least she was there to serve them (and herself at the same time). In a free market system, she was only charging what she can get away with. Capitalism is great for those who know how to take advantage of it. Yet there're whole population segments that exist with such a huge setback to thriving in this system - those w/o good language skills, who're handicapped, who're old, who have health troubles, who're new to or ignorant of the way things work here. The list just goes on. Another good example - the family's most recent landline phone bill came to about $84. They asked me why. I said can they show me the bill? He said he didn't have it because he mailed all pages of his phone bill except the first page to the phone company... so I had to tell him that the pay stub is the only thing he needed to send in future and that I'd call the phone company for him during the weekday and find out why. I'm guessing there're some long-distance charges that were billed to him, probably about $50 worth that he didn't even know he was going to be billed for. His apartment also has no heat now, for a reason he couldn't figure out but he was okay using a space heater for now and I had to tell him to call his apartment complex up since he was sure he'd paid his utility bills. When I called to cancel Netzero for him, I got bombarded with at least 3 other 'extra' services that the technician would've signed the family up for if I hadn't said 'no' to each service at least twice. How the family would've known to decline a well-trained, fast-talking salesmen (who're only doing their jobs and were very polite) is something I dread to imagine. Yup, the free market is great for those who would use it to bring great benefits to society. It also gives others the opportunity to be taken advantage of. To my mind, Christians are the best answer to this issue. When God spoke to Israel, "...you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation" in Exodus 19, it was the fulfillment of another of God's plan revealed in Genesis 22 - "...and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me." Our priesthood and our citizenship in this holy nation had an end goal in mind - the blessing of all nations and/or people groups. I would say that by extension, folks in situations like this family are part of our calling. I sure hope we don't fail them! | | |
| Either San Francisco is a city with a lot of mailboxes or else I'm not paying attention to where they are in the other cities I have been in. It's almost like everywhere I look, there's a mailbox every other block. Is that telling me something about the attribute of the people who live in San Francisco or is it simply the vision of a rogue Post Office administrator?
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