4 posts tagged “ukraine”

Finally!

Some fun information for anybody out there who still thinks becoming a citizen is a piece of cake.

Time that it took from the time application was sent in until the day of the oath:
TEN MONTHS

Cost of application:
$595

Number of times I received an appointment letter telling me to be in a different city in three days or my application would be considered abandoned:
One

Did I fly to a different city to make that appointment:
Yes

Reason for having the appointment in the city where I did not live and work:
Whoops. You mean you're not living with your parents?

Number of hours ON THE PHONE I spent trying to change my address:
NINE

Number of the very important pieces of mail I received from immigration AFTER I changed my address:
Two

Number of days I missed work because of this process:
Five

Number of times I had to affirm in writing or orally that, yes, I will shoot a gun if you tell me to:
Five

Number of times I had to show that I know my rights:
One

Number of times I had to show that I know my responsibilities as citizen:
Gazillion hundred million

Sentence that I had to READ for my English Reading Comprehension test:
"They go so well together"

Sentence that I had to WRITE for my English Writing test:
"Today we went to the store"

[Whew! That was, like, first grade?]

What are the first thirteen states?
North Carolina, South Carolina, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia.

Did they ask me about the first thirteen states?
No :(

Number of really really really bad videos we had to watch at the oath ceremony:
THREE
One was a slideshow of early immigrants with tears and hope and joy in their eyes, I think it was meant to "create a mood."
Second was an address from dear Mr. President who pronounced all the words correctly, but I was still too distracted by thinking about how much he reminds me of a clucking chicken.
Third one wins the prize for absurdity. It was a "music video" sung very badly and with truly awful lyrics "I am proud to be an American where at least I know I'm free." SERIOUSLY? This song is famous? I guess it can't be worse than the Ukrainian national anthem that starts with the words "Ukraine is not dead yet".

Number of times I almost cried or laughed because of the really bad videos:
Three

Number of new citizens taking the oath with me:
15

Number of God references made during the oath ceremony either there or in the videos:
Thirteen

How long did it take me to fill out my voter registration card after the ceremony?
Like, three seconds.

Big deal - I am becoming a citizen tomorrow morning!! I had my citizenship interview today, and after many "no, I am not a habitual drunkard," and "no, I have never solicited prostitution," and "no, I am in no way associated with the Communist Party in ANY COUNTRY," it looks like I passed!

To check my knowledge of English, I had to read "They go so well together" and write "Today we went to the store." I kept writing "store" as "crack house" but in the end the nice lady let me pass anyway.

The whole process is mildly absurd, from the very beginning. Lots of bureaucracy, of course. Lots of confusing directions and strangely-worded questions (Have you ever committed a crime for which you were not caught?)
In the interview, apart from asking you the same questions that are on the application to check if you have a "good character" and "values", I got asked the following:
How many stars are there on the flag?
What do the stars represent?
Who is the head of the executive branch?
Who is the current vice-president?
What is the most important right granted by the Constitution?
In which month do we vote for the president?

Weird, right? Especially the stars - do you think I would be a bad citizen if I didn't know the symbolism? To be honest, the US flag is much less interesting than many others. It's full of boring numbers. If you don't believe me that other flags are way more interesting, read about the Sri Lankan Flag or the South Korean one.

Anyway, so the final step in the naturalization process is taking the citizenship oath. It's sort of a big deal. I used to have a problem with the "I agree to bear arms on behalf of the Untied States" part and have let it go. Now I have serious issues with the fact that the oath ends with "so help me God." I think it's detrimental to rely on help from a non-existent being, don't you? But then, maybe, if I fail at any of my oath statements, I can say, God didn't help me? If one of our fundamental rights is the freedom of religion, that includes not being part of any religion, why am I, as a non-affiliated, non-religious person, required to acknowledge the existence of God? And please don't tell me about TRADITION. Not all traditions deserve to be respected.

Each word of the oath has to be said for it to be valid. In a room of 1,500 people taking the oath I may get away with mouthing something else, like "so help me Mom" or "so halp meowed cat" but there are only going to be 10 or so of us tomorrow (or so I hear).

Well, whatever. We all know I'll say the words.

I just wanted to say "ura!" for the new fraudulently elected Russian President. What a coinkidink - the word Medved is "Bear", the last name "Medvedev" means something along the lines of "Of the Bear". Are we all ready for all the puns about the Big Russian Bear? Because I had to strap myself in when I found out he's going to be the golden boy. Bring in on. President Bear looks sometimes like George Clooney, no? And sometimes like Jake Gyllenhall? And sometimes he looks really Russian, like you know he drinks vodka instead of coffee in the morning?

Anyway, let's do another government-paid-for "Ura!" and go celebrate on the streets.

So how am I supposed to do anything when two out of four people in my office are out today, and one of them is my boss? Really, I am sitting here looking at my desk, looking at my email, and nothing is registering. I don't know if it's because today is Friday, or because nobody is here, but I'm having problems typing even this without getting distracted by things like why are my earrings on my desk i don't need this email I'm going to delete it and what is that taste in my mouth oh I'm eating a candy.

In other news, something is wrong with my wrist. It's been hurting for a while now, and I wonder if I broke it again. This is the wrist that I broke three times. The first time I didn't notice that it had been broken, it just hurt for a while, a really dull persistent pain. I was the girl who climbed trees and played "war" with boys, not the girl who played dress-up or thought it was fun to make cookies with sand. So, I wasn't bothered that my wrist hurt, only concerned that if I told my mom that it hurt I would be banned from boys. My mom saw one morning (to my shock and awe) that I was holding my spoon funny, due to the fact that my wrist had swollen up so big it was as wide as my palm, and was bent at a funny angle outwards and up. Weird morning that was. After the x-ray, we found out my wrist had been broken in two spots and grew together wrong (in the wrongest possible way, of course) and needs to be broken again and I will be in a cast for three months (instead of four weeks that I would have had to endure had I got to the doctor right away). The horrible swelling was caused by muscles having to readjust and regrow into this new angle and had I waited even another week I would have had to have surgery.

Lesson was learned, or so it seemed.

Wearing a cast for three months was NOT FUN. I'm not talking about the pussy American casts that are so technologically advanced your hand actually functions better when in them... I'm talking about Ukrainian Soviet-style, hard-core, plaster/sand casts, that weigh a few kilos and basically it looks like your arm is stuck in a humongous white cannon. Wearing that cast... fuck, those were months of itchy hell, months of not being able to turn faucets on, eating and writing with my left hand, and everything from dressing to showering took about fifteen times more time than usually. Oh, and I should mention that this cast could not get wet. So, showering meant a very complicated wrapping of plastic around the cast with one hand. Oh, and maybe I should mention this was summer and it was hot and sweaty.

The second time I broke my wrist I actually noticed that it happened, partially because the broken bone actually cut through the skin and I was bleeding, and partially because it was very dramatic - I tripped on the carpet and fell right in my own home. I should mention that the tripping was caused by the fact that my tailbone was broken, so I was pretty clumsy. And the reason I broke my wrist and not my head was because I was trying to break my fall with my wrists to make sure that my broken (almost healed at that point!) nose is not broken again. I had a fun childhood, can you tell?
At that point, it didn't really matter if I had a third broken thing on my body. Fuck the heavy itchy arm cast, the MONTHS OF NOT BEING ABLE TO SIT AT ALL made me extremely resilient to any sort of physical challenge. Sitting is so overrated anyway. So is breathing through your nose. And writing with your leading hand. My best friend in those months was the toilet, where I could SIT because of the donut-shape, at the same time resting my casted broken wrist on the little shelf, my back against the tank and prop up a book high enough in my view that I could read it over my nose clips. This is me at eleven. Reading in the bathroom since then has become one of my favorite activities.

The third time I broke my wrist was not overly dramatic, probably because breaking my ankle and ALL of my toes was a lot cooler. We didn't even notice the weird angle of the wrist until we got to the hospital, because we were all fascinated by all the ways my ankle could bend without the impediment of bones, and how funny my toes looked shattered and bleeding. Ever seen a "toe-cast"? No, you haven't, because there aren't any. The ankle cast extends past your toes and that's it. They set the toes straight, tell you not to try and move them, and put little plastic bands to make sure they don't get moved out of shape again. Then, you just hope really hard that the little bits of bone form back into a straight line.
Oh, I probably should mention that this happened when we were having a "jumping off the swing contest" with "the boys" where you swing and swing and swing and then when you are at the top you slide out and jump down. Whoever jumps from highest point wins. Needless to say, me and my friend Andrei were the first two to compete. Yes, of course he got hurt, too. He shattered his knees (what a smart way to fall) and dislocated his hips. They were not able to put one the hips back to normal until three years later because of complications.

I've had my fair share of broken bones and I really hope I am not about to have another cast experience. The only consolation is that this time the doctors will not be mean to me and I won't have an itchy sweaty heavy plaster cast.