Green Card

Endrit has been looking online for the last little while to see where in the process his renewal application was and it always said that it was recieved, but not analyzed yet. I believe the last time that we looked at it was 3 days ago is all and the website said that they were processing the forms filed in August of 2007. Well we applied in February 2008, so we were expecting it to be upwards of 6 months before we heard anything. We also thought that there was a slight chance that we would need to go in for an interview because supposedly it happens more often than not because something with the application was wrong.

I got the mail yesterday and lo-and-behold there is an envelope that I slightly remember seeing before but I thought that one of Endrit's cards expired...either his check card or credit card. It is a kind of ambiguous envelope with no distinguishing marks, but it is heavy and it feels like there is a card type thing in there...honestly I thought that it was a credit card offer the first greencard we got and I almost threw it away without opening it. Anyway, I opened it and there was his shiny new green card. That wasn't the half of my joy. I forgot that this green card is valid for the next 10 years! I know that it will still have 9 years of validity left when we apply for citizenship, but just in case we don't have to give uncle sam our tax return back with filing fees for another renewal.

We have started to fill out the N-400 for citizenship wich is T-minus 6 months. Endrit bought a study guide for the citizenshiop test. I think we are most nervous about the English portion. He has to prove he can read, write and communicate in English...we are not sure he will pass :) It really shouldn't be too hard for him. I even knew most of the questions. It has been an interesting process that I am hopeful will be done in about a year from now. Who knows it may be longer but it will definately be before graduation which is all well and good. We had a friend get citizenship and it took 3 months from filing to saing the oath. I am not sure it will be that fast here, but it gives us hope for it being less than a year.

I thought that people would like to know this development.