So I’ve now long passed the 6 month mark in my new home country America and there have been a number of changes since my last post about obtaining my SSN and bank account and getting married.
Employment and things
First of all, I’m finally able to work legally in this country. It took almost 3 months to finally get the Employment Authorization Card(EAD) approved and in hand. I’ve been looking for a job since then as well as spending some time on personal projects to learn things and building my online resume to at least have something to show that I’ve built all by myself. About 3 months later(ie. November first) I had my first work day at Highforge as a front-end developer.
In the time that I’ve been working, I’ve already learnt quite a lot about WordPress and more specifically how to work with it properly. Additionally, I’m getting more acquainted with responsive design and building sites for mobile. I’ll eventually use my experiences to update my site and WordPress theme and make things more awesome.
Driving
With a social security number and newly acquired semi-status in the form of the EAD it becomes possible to obtain a driving licence or permit. And so I did, and the test to obtain the permit is really, really, really stupid. You’re in line longer than the actual test. Hell, you’re in line to pay longer than the actual test. It’s two 20 question tests, where one focuses on general rules and the other on signs. Most of the questions are the exact same as on the practice tests and so it was easy peasy. I got two rule questions wrong, one about how much you should slow down relative to the speed limit when passing an accident and ambulance and such and the other asked what the safe distance between two freight trucks is. I’m not really sure what that last one has to do with anything.
All in all, I got done with the test before the lady at the counter was done helping the next guy in line and while it was easy, there was still a guy struggling with it next to me. He was still there, doing the test, while I paid the fee and left.
Green Card
There’s absolutely no news on the green card situation. My case was transferred to the California Service Center forfast processing. This happened in back in June. Needless to say, it hasn’t gotten much faster. There is a positive side to this transfer and that is that I most likely don’t have to come in for an interview.
TLDR: Everything’s going fine. I have a job and soon will be able to drive. I do not have a green card yet, however.