mahlerite

Thank you SOOO much for all the congrats and wishes! We are thinking to take off in Jun, and we are gonna spend the first 2 months in Milwaukee where my wife's family is located. I'm sure there will be tons of impacts and shocks up there. My email add is kubusek@126.com, pls feel free to drop me a line if you'd like to talk.

Hi guys, as I promised, I'm here to share all the details of my interview which I've passed with flying colors. CFL is such a wonderful community, I believe more and more people will be sharing and obtaining valuable information at CFL! Anyway, I hope the stuff below will be helpful in some ways. What I've prepared for the interview included -Interview appointment letter -My passport and my wife's -Photo album -Form I-864 -My father-in-law's (co-sponsor) I-864 -My father-in-law's tax return documents (2002, 2003, 2004) -Copy of fees paid for immigrant application -A letter from my father-in-law (witnessing the soundness of our marriage life, willing to let us stay with him when we get to the states...) -Copy of deed of the house owned by my father-in-law -Our email records -The article about our love story posted on a newspaper (translated) -Declaration of cohabitation (notarized) -My resume My wife and I arrived in Guangzhou 1 day in advance. The subway system in Guangzhou is incredibly well organized and convenient. We got off at East Train Station and walked to Exit G which directly led us up to Lin He Zhong Rd. The consular building is just next to IKEA, pretty hard to miss. My interview time was set on 7:15 am, Apr-19th. The square in front of the consular building had been already crowded by tons of people when I got there at 6:45 that morning. So I ended up throwing myself at the tail of the line, sandwiched by a never-stop-spitting middle aged woman in the front, and a petite Chinese girl on behind who was quite bitter to her girly American husband that morning. The waiting wasn't that torturing as Ann and I kept talking to each other to drive the tension away. She is so cute when she tenses up. About 40 minutes later some security guards showed up on the top stairs and started issuing tickets with numbers. As people got a bit crazy after a tedious wait, one of the guards shouted "Keep the line in order, otherwise I won't let you in!" The crowds booed. Anyway, I showed them my passport and the interview appointment letter to get the ticket, and flew into that legendary mansion with tons of people who had the same dream. There's actually nothing to talk about passing the security check, just follow their instructions. At around 8am I stepped into the main waiting hall, it was not as packed as it would be later. I was supposed to go through three things: handing in the envelope that had been sealed by the hospital staff, leaving fingerprints, and being interviewed by VO. The whole process was actually pretty smooth. After about an hour-long wait, my name was called for the first time and I trotted up to Counter 22 to hand in the envelope. Behind the window there was a Chinese girl with a professionally stoned face, but she was actually more patient than she seemed to be. One thing I need to put out here is, my wife has been in China with me for about 6 years, but she has never worked here. So she had to write a letter saying she can't hand in the tax return documents because she doesn't have a job in China. I was then strongly suggested, by the girl behind the window, to have this letter notarized otherwise I would probably be rejected by lack of authority backup. Honestly I wasn't appreciating the 'tips' she offered at all, I felt I was like a patient before being put on the operation table. Everything else was totally fine. 20 minutes later my fingerprints were recorded at Counter 18. I walked back to the waiting area, wondering which VO would decide my fate later. Actually all the VOs were really gentle-looking and they smiled all the time, they seemed to be quite patient with us. While I was waiting there by myself someone came up to me and asked me something in Cantonese. Shoot, beats me. I answered in mandarin, "Sorry dude I don't understand what you are talking about." But he kept asking me in Cantonese and threw at me a how-can-you-not-speak-Cantonese look. Finally he left with dissatisfaction. Fifteen minutes later I heard my number being called from the speaker from counter 29. It was a middle-aged man with bold head and heavy beard. It reminded me of some Harley Davidson biker. We smiled and simply greeted each other through the window, he was quite amazed by the fact that I could speak English nearly accent-free, so I received my first question from the VO: "Did you go to the states to study English?" "No sir, I've never been to the states before." I answered with smile. "Oh, your English is just amazing." What a surprising icebreaker! Then he told me that I was actually the first one who could speak English to him that morning. I wanted him to breath some fresh air and relax. I felt like the interview I'd waited for 3 years was not crucial and ruthless anymore at that moment. The conversation went on casually. None of the sample questions on CFL was asked, he didn't even ask me how my wife and I met. All the documents that we had spent years preparing and carried from thousands of miles away, were just sitting there peacefully and totally untouched. It reminded me of the two snipers in "Jarhead", bloodily trained for the war, but never pulled the trigger to anyone in the war. However, the VO did require to see my picture album. Ann has put a lot of goofy pictures in the album, so it looks more entertaining. When I was slide-showing the pictures to the Harley Davison biker, I heard him say "These pictures look great!" "Man your English is so good, you will have no problem on the Visa." Suddenly I could feel some sort of emptiness crawling up (try me man, come on.) It's over now, no more what-if-the-VO guesses, and no more rehearsals . This time I'm taking off for real. Ann was not having a chill time waiting downstairs while I was up there dealing with the interview thing. She got herself two cups of coffee to kill the stomachache caused by too much tension. I met her at the coffee shop in the consular building. After I passed the news we dipped ourselves into kisses. I'm sure that her dad in the states will get hammered to celebrate for us. We are planning to get to the states by the end of June. Everything is new to me over there, and that's why I'm always in this game. And I just wanna say good luck to everyone here who's still struggling hard, or being separated from his/her love ones. Sometimes, things are just not as tough as they seem to be. Don't worry, you'll be there.