Filed under: ramblings
We went to San Antonio this morning for an 8AM appointment with a USCIS, formerly known as INS, Application Support Center. It’s for our Adjustment of Status to Permanent Resident application (I-485), which is the last step toward obtaining our greencards. Yup, we’re finally there.. after all these years. That’s why I’m still here in Austin today. Initially I had plan to go home for 2-3 months during the summer and return in August, just in time for school. Oh yeah btw, I think I haven’t mentioned it here that I’ve been accepted at UT Austin Full time MBA program !! Yipee.. the acceptance notice came 2 days after I moved to Austin, so when I left Indiana, I was still unsure about it.
Anyways, so our immigration attorneys strongly advised me not to travel outside US, until I get my advance parole travel document. We’re expecting it sometime in July (if processing time is normal) so after I get it, I don’t need my H-4 visa anymore. If I do get in July I probably will go home to Indonesia for a couple of weeks. But if it comes later, it won’t be possible as the MBA orientation starts in mid August. So I’m crossing my fingers to get it asap. I was gonna use these 2-3 months vacation in Bandung to relax and prepare for our wedding reception in December, but because of this for now everything has to be done online :p
So back to this morning. We woke up around 5.15AM, left home around 6AM, and got there at 7.30AM. Waited in line, luckily it wasn’t that long. I was #5 !! We imagine if we have a later appointment the line wouldn’t be that short. So the purpose of this appointment is to take our biometric ( electronic fingerprints and picture ). I googled it and read that the purpose for the fingerprinting is for a check against the FBI database hehehe. FBI will also check our names for any records.
They took fingerprints of all 10 of my fingers, in my case the agent took so my tries to get a good print of each finger, so it took longer than other people. And I noticed on the computer screen that oftentimes after it recorded my fingerprint, it showed "68% MATCH WARNING". I’m wondering what those warning messages meant !! I asked Hendrik afterwards if he saw the same messages and he said no. So, did it mean my prints match some fingerprints on their database? Are there criminals out there whose fingerprints are similar to mine?
We went to Houston… yes AGAIN :p for the long weekend.. we were just there last month, but last time it was so hectic because it was during the same weekend that Hendrik got a Kendo exam in Dallas.. so the only reason we still made the trip to Houston was because we didn’t want to waste our hotel reservation (.it was at JW Marriott! ) .. we got there around midnight on Friday.. woke up late on Saturday.. had lunch in Chinatown and headed to Dallas straight after lunch.. so I felt stupid about it afterwards.. So.. to make up for that, I booked us another trip to Houston for this past weekend..
This time around the weather was really bad.. lots of T-storms and rained really bad, but we still made it to Moody Garden in Galveston, stopped by at one of the beaches there.. and the Houston downtown aquarium..
We took lots of pics, but there isn’t a single picture of ME that I like, so I’m just gonna post Hendrik’s pictures
Moody Garden pyramid at the background.. wondering what’s inside it ? Well.. supposedly a Tropical Forest :p.. there’s also a 2nd pyramid with an Aquarium inside, but we didn’t go in because we planned to go to the downtown aquarium instead which at that moment I thought would be bigger and better .. after we actually went there.. it’s actually quite small , but it’s located in downtown.. so Hendrik said.."How big do u expect it to be?"
Filed under: geek
Wanna learn Chinese ?
check out chinesepod.com
where you can download free daily podcast on lesson review, grammar introduction, vocabs. etc.
Filed under: music & film
Last weekend we started watching The Office (courtesy of bittorrent, of course) .. we did a marathon.. started with the very first episode of Season 1.. and now I’m already halfway through Season 3 
hehehe It’s just so hilarious.. probably the best comedy on TV right now.. well I haven’t been watching much TV these days.. but for sure next season I’ll be tuning in to NBC again every Thursday night 
It’s different from other sitcoms that we’re used to.. and it does takes a couple of episodes to get used to it but afterwards we just couldn’t stop laughing hehe
Filed under: ramblings
It’s been a month now since I quit my job, moved to Austin, and became a full time housewife hahaha… life is good here like today for example, woke up at 10… had breakfast.. watched some k-dramas… took a nap again :p.. back to my k-dramas hehe then ate lunch.. and it’s already 7pm now hehe hubby should be home in an about an hour
hahaha of course i didn’t spent everyday of the last month like today ..
I actually had a lot of things I wanted to post here.. from my farewells in Columbus, the roadtrip, my first week here… but now it seems like the moment has passed hehe.. everything happened quite a while ago.. I’ll just post some random pics..
these are my prized possesions … 
of course this is not all .. i have a lot more of these.. they’re my survival kit of 5 years living in Columbus :p
now some last pics with my Columbus family @ Buca di Beppo .. Kas went even though it’s only been a week since she had a new baby !! and the crazier thing is they brought 1 week old baby Faleeha in the freezing weather to Greenwood !!
oh and Andy was also in crutches hehe Kai was so cute.. he’s getting so chubby!
we took off straight from the restaurant… Magda gave us a surprise gift just minutes before we left.. a mini wedding cake!! of course homemade :p and Arine also gave me a bag of goodies for our long drive hehehe.. how thoughtful of them
we left the restaurant around 3.30PM on Saturday April 7th .. and we arrived in Austin at about the same time the next day :p total driving time was about 15 hours.. 1100 miles (1800 km)
we spent the night at Texarkana.. at the border of Texas and Arkansas.. half of the town was in TX and half was in AR.. thus the name of the city. Our hotel was in the TX part so we actually made it to Texas that night .. it was past midnight though.
