The Day I Became a US Citizen

14 years, 1 month, and 11 days.

That is how long this journey was for me since I left Bosnia on 08/14/1998 to come to the US. And mountains of papers and thousands of dollars later, here I am - a US citizen!

It was a glorious day. I picked up my sister-in-law and we drove to the Austin Delco center. I was supposed to report there at 11am, but the actual ceremony was not starting until 2PM. The traffic was at a stand still on the access road leading to the location. We were barely moving for about 15 minutes at the stop light. Other candidates who had someone with them in the car, were leaving their vehicle and heading toward the building on foot - in fear of being late. That's the fear that years and years of being in the immigration system has ingrained into the people. This was the last stop on their long journey, and they didn't want to jeopardize their getting to the finish line by getting there later than told. It was almost a comic scene.

I knew that they can't process hundreds of candidates at exactly the same time, so we waited our way through the traffic and were in line at 11.20. They had us divided in four groups, at four entrances of the center, based on the color of the paper we received in the mail. I was in the blue section. It was a beautiful day, sunny and with just enough breeze to make it comfortable. Another friend of mine joined us in line few minutes later, and we slowly made it inside the building, where the line was even longer.

The officers checked our papers, made sure (twice) that we have our green cards with us, and sent the guests to find their seats. I took a picture with and said good buy to my green card, a piece of plastic that I worked so long for. In exchange they gave us a packet with some booklets, a letter from the president, folder for the certificate, and a US flag. I was seated at about 12.30, and again happy that I wasn't first in the line and have been sitting in those small bleachers seats. When everyone was seated, they had us give an oath, something about everything on our application still being true (we didn't recite anything, just said "I do" at the end), and at about 1.15 we were free to take a break.

I met with my friends who arrived in the meantime and we went outside. Emilia and I ate our lunches we brought with us, and took some pictures. In no time, we had to go back in for the ceremony. The entire thing lasted about 40 minutes. It was presided by a judge. There was a "prayer", procession of guards in civil war uniforms with flags, some speeches, most of which were good and inspiring, kids sang 2-3 songs. The immigration office person then gave a report on the candidate: there were 970 of us, from 95 countries (including Yugoslavia - which doesn't exist!). Around me were folks from Guyana, Kenya, India, Pakistan, China, France, Island... They called out all countries one by one and had people from those countries stand up. I didn't see it, but my friends think they saw one other person stand up for Bosnia. Mexico, of course, had the biggest representation, and huge applause echoed afterwards. Russia also got an applause.

Entrance From Citizenship Oath Ceremony Day

America the Beautiful From Citizenship Oath Ceremony Day

Any objections? From Citizenship Oath Ceremony Day

Once we were all standing, the judge asked two things: If there is anyone who is not ready or agrees to to take the oath of citizenship as it written and anyone who is not ready to pledge allegiance to this country (or something like that). Of course, no one went forward to disagree! The judge then read the pledge, we had our right hands up, and then responded with "I do". The acoustics and sound system were no that great, so it was hard to hear all he was saying, but I do have a copy of it! And just like that, we were officially US citizens!

It took another 20-30 minutes to shuffle everyone out of the seats and distribute the certificates. I checked it multiple times to make sure all information is correct. Hundreds of people were mulling on the gym floor, smiles all around, taking pictures, and a sense of relieve, and almost disbelief. Out long journey, each with its own story, has converged here on the gym floor and now we are all the same - all US citizens!

Our group was the among the last to receive the papers, so by the time we got done with picture taking in front of the flag, there were barely anyone else around. I also wanted to register to vote there, because it was convenient, and there was no shortage of registration volunteers. The YNN, Austin news TV station was also there. After the ceremony they wanted to talk to some of the new citizens who registered to vote., and my friend volunteered me for an on camera interview. The story aired that evening, and bellow you can find a blur from their their web site, (I copied it here because I don't know how long their stories stay on the site.)

We finally left the building at 3.45PM, just as the traffic was easing out. I wanted to celebrate with some American deserts, so a few of went to Chez Zee, an American Bistro. We had American apple pie, pecan pie, key-lime pie, American coffee, and American water (with ice). Of course I had to share with the waiter that I was celebrating becoming an America citizen.

After dropping Emilia home (finally - dear things was with me the whole day!), and a quick hello with my brother, I went home to change and rest a bit before going out to dinner. And in the theme of the day, we went out for some American BBQ at Rudy's. We even had American beer - which I had just a handful of times, if ever, before.

It was such a fun and exciting day!

Thank you all for celebrating it with me.

Emotions run high as 1,000 obtain American citizenship

By: Sebastian Robertson

Tuesday was a day filled with emotion at the Delco Center in East Austin when people from some 80 countries became U.S. citizens.

Federal Judge Lee Yeakel presided over the hour-long ceremony, handing about 1,000 people a certificate stating they were American citizens.

A Bosnian woman by the name of Zvezdana Stojakovic was thrilled about her accomplishment—it took her 14 years, one month and 11 days to obtain citizenship.

"I don't think you can explain it in words, unless you have been through the process, and so many people work and there are so many steps, that it is just such a relief to be at this spot and know that now I am just one of the citizens like everyone else here," she said.

For many of the new Americans, their first act as a U.S. citizen was registering to vote. Various voters’ organizations were on hand to make sure they left as registered voters.

Among the qualifications to become a citizen, they all had to be at least 18 years old, hold a green card and have lived in the United States for at least five years.

They also had to pass a civics test, and many of the questions on that test cover the history of our country. Click here to check out a sample test.

New Guest Bedroom

My brother moved out, again, and I think this time it's pretty much for good. 

There was some pondering/melancholy over that fact, but to look at the positive, I decided to reclaim that room of the house and give it a makeover. 

He had a bed and a coffee table with tv and stereo in that room, dresser in the closet, and bunch of stuff just laying around. It was quite a mess, and not a pretty sight to look at at the end of the long hallway. I had him empty it all out, and all that was left was bed and the dresser. 

Clean slate. (literally, this was how it looked after hours of cleaning)

Since the two items in the room were from IKEA, I looked what else they have that would match. And I found all the stuff for the bedroom on their website. Everything but mattress and pillows is from that store! I should contact their marketing department or something to advertise. :)

And it all started with that poster my SIL found at their previous apartment when someone moved out, and it also is from IKEA. It was falling apart when they were moving out their stuff from my house, so they left it behind. It was an inspiration for the whole room!

My mom will probably stay in this room when she visits, even though she was used to "her" room next door. She'll have the choice, but I think the decision will not be hard. I almost wanted to move in!

Citizenship: Oath Ceremony Scheduled

Today I received a letter that I've been scheduled for the naturalization oath ceremony!

September, 25th, 2012, 11AM, at the Delco Activity Center.

I was encouraged to invite guests, and I really hope some would be able to join me, even though it's on a Tuesday. I am supposed to report there at 11AM, and the actual ceremony starts at 2PM. I haven't been to one of these before, but here is one explanation I've found to the question how long these ceremonies last:

It really depends on the actual size of the Ceremony and on when the Judge shows up. All the applicants for naturalization first have to present their Notice. You need to complete the questions on the back and sign it before you get in line. An Officer will check the answers with you and at some point someone will take your greencard and any re-entry permits that you have. You will be seated, it may be assigned seating in groups according to a particular digit in your A# or it might be first in-first-seated. It depends on the seating arrangement and other logistics, staffing etc. 

You'll sit and wait until everyone is seated. There may be preliminary speakers, the judge usually says something they hope is inspiring, then the Oath, the Pledge, the Anthem, they should play a video message from the President, and finally, they hand out the Certificates... Some ceremonies have Passport agents there to collect passport applications. Some ceremonies have folks there from non-partisan voter registration, either the Board of Elections employees or a group such as the Laegue of Women Voters to supply voter registration forms, help you fill it out and hand it in.

Oath: http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/usc...00b92ca60aRCRD

And here you can find some photos from the oath ceremony at the Delco center from two years ago.

Dyeing Wood

Pet toys are not cheep.
The purpose of pet toys is to get destroyed.
When you add those two together... well, it kinda doesn't make sense to pay big bucks for something that will be shredded into pieces.

So, I started making bird toys myself. I got different kinds of beads, ropes, chains, bells, links, wood blocks,... bunch of parts to cover the basics. It cost me about $60, including shipping. To that I added old toy parts I already had, and shreddable material like egg carton box pieces, wrapping tissue paper, paper cups, straws,... and so far I already built over 20 toys!

I still needed more wood pieces, and I calculated that it would be cheaper get wood by foot, cut it to different sizes, drill holes. A quick trip to hardware store, and I brought home bunch of pine slats of different thickness and shapes, adding to 6ft, for just over $3.

Now, plain pine wood is kinda boring. Birds do see colors, and usually like more colors that are similar to colors of their feathers. So, to continue this DIY toy project, I tried to color the wood myself. Of course, the color has to be from all natural, edible source. I considered coloring with vegetables, but knowing from dyeing Easter eggs that only good color I got was purple from red onions, I decided to try something else. Koolaid!

I got unsweetened Koolaid packages; orange, lemon-lime (green), cherry (red), and tropical punch, which came in a blue package but is actually just darker red color. I mixed each package with 1 tsp of lukewarm water, 1/2 tsp of rice vinegar, 1/2 tsp of rubbing (Isopropyl) alchocol, and 2-3 drops of corresponding Wilton gel icing color.

And voila!

I string these on some cotton rope, maybe with beads in between, and I got a toy for fraction of the cost of those in pet stores. 

Property Appraisal Protest

Just got done with another successful appraisal protest at the Travis Central Appraisal District office.

Unlike the last time, I felt unprepared this year. Last year I procrastinated with sending in a request for appeal until, literary, the last day, the last minute actually, and since it was past their last pick time for the day at the post office, the stamp showed one day later and the district rejected it. Well, this year, I at least sent in the form on time. But then I didn't think I have hard enough data to prove the appraised value was too high.

My house was appraised this year at $190,400. Down from $192K from last year, but I still thought that was high, and especially after I checked the value on Zillow.com and it showed to be around $150K at the beginning of the year. That was a huge drop from $215K in February '11, according to that web site. And not all the areas of my neighborhood showed that drop, so I knew I had to challenge that appraised value.

But my data gathering didn't really start until few days ago. There was one house on my street, very similar to mine, just a bit larger, that was on sale for $189,500, for more than a month, but then it seemed to just disappear from the market. Yesterday morning, I was able to find out that it actually sold for $182,500, with $10K extra to the buyer for repairs. I was going for $187,500 based on that house. That was actually my only argument, but I knew I needed more. 

Then just yesterday afternoon, I learned that I wouldn't be able to use a sale from this year to protest the value appraised (but I will for next year!). I was able to get some comps from couple of realtors, and I felt my case was slowly building up. I also remembered, just yesterday, that I might be able to get the appraised value from the refinancing I did back in December, but since it was a no-closing cost refi, the bank didn't order the appraisal again, and just used the previous value of $187,500. Still, I thought that might help, and took with me the refinancing packet from the bank that showed that market value. 


So, my 3 arguments for lowering the value to $187,500 were:
1. Market value of $187,500 the bank used
2. Slightly bigger house on my street sold for $182,500. 
3. Dozen of comps that sold, or were listed but never sold, in that price range.


I realize a $3K decrease in value is very little, <$100 probably, in taxes, but I felt if I don't challenge this every year, the value just keeps going up, and little by little that adds up.


My informal hearing was scheduled for 8.30am. Reading back on my experience from 2 years ago, I was reminded that I can pretty much show up for this informal hearing any time. I was also surprised that this year I was scheduled 3 months earlier than last time, so I didn't know if that would mean more or less crowds. I showed up at the office at 8:52am, signed in and set down. I was the only one there waiting. In less than couple of minutes someone came and called my property out (again, didn't want to butcher my name), a nice man. 


We chatted small talk a bit while he pulled up the records, how he used to live in that neighborhood, I asked about when the county lines were made (there was a map above our heads)... He then briefly showed me the 4 comps the county used. For some reason I didn't receive a copy of those when I requested the appeal (apparently, bellow a check-box, I was supposed to write on a line that I want those copies - good to know for next time). The values were bellow $180,000. He said, based on those, he could go down to $177,400! That's $13K decrease! and I didn't even open my packet, or make any arguments. 


There were two houses sold on my street, bigger than mine, so the county calculated their adjusted values, and they were around there. I commented how I didn't even showed him my papers, but he said with that many properties on sale, they can just go by those. So he did. I just signed two papers, and was out by 9:00am.


Another quick and positive experience at TCAD. Another happy customer!

Citizenship: In Que for Oath Ceremony

I was checking today the USCIS site to see if my case moved to the next stage, which is Decision, but it jumped from being in Testing and Interview stage few hours ago to Oath Ceremony just now.

Oath Ceremony

On July 19, 2012, we placed your application in the oath scheduling que. We will send a notice when the ceremony is scheduled.....

Naturalization Applicants: you will receive your certificate at your oath ceremony. You can expect to be scheduled for an oath ceremony within 45 days of receiving your recommended approval... 

So exciting!

Citizenship: The Interview

Today I had my citizenship interview. And I passed! :) It has been long day...

5:00 AM Alarm went off
I set the radio alarm, cell phone alarm, and home phone alarm. All 5 minutes apart, in that order. Since I didn't get a good night sleep the night before (because of a bizarre knocking noise that kept on throughout the night, me thinking it was an animal or termites or house moving because of all the rain - only to discover in the morning some bug was stuck on the window screen and was able to make so much noise by tapping her whatcha-ma-call-it claw thing in her mouth...) But I digress. I felt tired and went to bed early, 10PM the night before, but not being used to such an early bed time, had trouble falling a sleep. At some point, I heard my home phone alarm go off. I looked at it, and wondering why I didn't hear the other two first, I remembered that I never set the home phone clock correctly after the time change, and then panicked not knowing what time it really was, am I an hour late, ...and then looked over to my radio clock. It was 3:30 AM. It was just a dream! No alarm went off yet. Phew! I turned around, and, in what seemed like just a few moments, it was 5 and time for me to get up.

5:30 AM Left the house
The appointment was for 8 AM, in San Antonio. Which is just around the rush hour. I didn't want to risk it. Google Maps told me it should take about 1.30 min to get there. I gave me another 30 min cushion for the traffic, because I wanted to arrive 30 min before the appointment. Which meant, leave at this hour when there should be barely anyone on the road. But there was more traffic than I thought.

6:55 AM Arrived at the USCIS building in S.A.
Not a bad travel time at all. Under 90 min. No rush hour traffic in Austin, and just some delays for the last 10 miles. On the way, I listened to the CD with interview questions, and sipped on my coffee, trying to wake up. The location of this building is really not ideal for spotting when coming I35 N. To turn East under the highway, you come to an awkward stop sign, not a light. It's one of those two-way access roads, and there is a stop sign on the other side, too, with cars turning in directions you wouldn't expect them to. Then, that street merges into two others, and even though there is a sign right at the merge point for the INS building, there are two buildings with no obvious markings on them for what offices there are. Plus, some construction is going on over there, and there are orange blockades and no visitor parking signs... Needless to say, confusing, especially if you are running late. I was so glad I had time to spare. I asked couple of guards, who were getting ready to raise the flags, where to park, and then saw a huge vertical sign for address number of the building. I guess I just needed to look up.

7:40 AM Entered the USCIS building
To kill some time I drove around a bit, sat in the parking lot watching the sun rise (which is not really glamorous when it's behind buildings, fences, and power lines), and with all the moisture fogging the windows on the outside (again glad I didn't have to squirm through the windows while driving), I finally went inside. Went through the security screening, turned in my appointment letter, and set in the large waiting room. There were 4 other people in there already.

8:00 AM Announcement
In those 20 minutes, another at least 20 people walked in. Only 3 other caucasians. An officer then asked if anyone was without the appointment papers, and told us how they'll call us in a bit. The work day has started at the USCIS.

8:05 AM First name called
They started calling names, in no particular order it seemed. It actually even seemed as if they were calling people who arrived later, first. Possibly they just took the appointment letters from the top, as they were stacked when people walked in. Or maybe just those who were supposed to call us who arrived earlier were not ready yet.

8:20 AM My name was called
David, the officer handling my name, checked my green card, greeted me, and we took the elevator up to his office. We chatted on the way. He asked me if I still wanted to do this. Apparently, some people, he said mainly from the UK, change their mind at the last minute, even right before the oath ceremony. I said "yes, I am ready to get this over with". He seemed pleasant, held the door for me, pulled up the chair for me. When I set down, he told me I should actually remain standing until I take the oath! Should have remembered that from the video. I swore to tell the truth and nothing but the truth, and then set down.
We first went through the application, still chit-chatting every now and then, about how he almost went to Bosnia with the army, but instead ended up in Somalia. And about how he had to get up really early the other day, too, when he was staying in a hotel on an army base and they sing some song on the speakers and the crack of dawn. I was still not fully awake, so I don't remember what I had to say.
He asked me about my employer, marital status, children, if I had any taxes issues, tickets,...He asked if I had any travels since filling for the citizenship, and I understood he meant about all those travels I had in the last 5 years that I had to put in the application, so I said yes, only to realize after few moments what he actually meant. After giving good marks with red pen on all pages of the application, we were ready for the interview part.
He started asking me questions, while still looking between his computer screen and turning over application papers, and not really looking at me directly. He even joked right before it that since I am one of his educated clients, he will give me the hard questions. He didn't. Here are the questions he asked, in no particular order:
1. What is the name of our national anthem?
2. How old do citizens have to be to vote for President?
3. What major event happened on September 11, 2001, in the United States?
4. Why does the flag have 13 stripes?
5. What ocean is on the West Coast of the United States?
6. What is the “rule of law”?
This last question was actually somewhere in the middle, and I guess I just heard "law" and automatically went to "What is the supreme law of the land?" question and answered - the Constitution. As I said, I was not fully awake yet. He paused his looking through the papers and looked at me, I realized what I said, and corrected myself. He just said "you got me there for a second" and continued with the questions.

Passed the Civics test!

Next was the English reading and writing test. I had to read:
- How many Senators do we have?
and then, after he said it, I had to write
- We have one hundred senators!

Passed the English test!

Then I had to print and sign in cursive my full name (and while telling me what to do, he explained that cursive is to try to connect the letters as best as I could - duh) on a piece of scrap paper, and then, again after his detailed explanation of which goes which, sign it in the same way on some document. And we were done!

I asked when I can expect the oath ceremony. Since I live in Austin, he said it would probably be on Sep 25th, with several hundred other people. I think he said at the Palmer event center - but I am not positive. I asked if I could maybe move it so that my mom, who is coming in mid October, could come, but he said they can't wait that long. Plus, he said that they will send me a notice letter just 7 days before the oath, and she would have her ticket long before that, so if that date changes, she still wouldn't be here. I'll just stick with what they give me - it's not that important to mom to come.

We shook hands, he congratulated me, and then escorted me down. Those 20 minutes went by so quickly, and I wondered out loud about it.

8:40 AM (I usually just wake around this time!) Walked out of that USCIS building
Hopefully for the very last time!

I am so relieved I am done with all the paperwork and preparations, and all that is left is the oath ceremony!

Woohoo!