tdaxp

When I was a kid, I was pretty sick. My body hurt a lot and I was not eating enough. On Saturday afternoons Mystery Science Theatre 3000 would come on. I would prepare for this sometimes my making cherry bars or something else high calories (and thus healthy), and lay on the couch with a blanket around me and watch the show. Sometimes, when I felt very tired I would wish that I could live in space with Mike and Servo and Crow and not be in pain. The show was such an escape.

I am so grateful for my family -- my wife, my mother, my brother, my sister, &c -- and so enjoy the work I do. But, like now, I am in the dark alone. I am in the dark, of course, because it is late and the lights are out, and alone except for my ipod mini. I listened to "Vito Ordination's Song" by Sufjan Stevens and then the first track of (), by Sigur Ros. I would listen to Sigur Ros in the dark waiting room after company had gone and I waited for news on my father. Just now I only listened to one track. The rooms are too similar in the dark.

My family is a refuge and my work keeps my mind busy. Recently I took up my new favorite sport, badminton, and spend my free time either looking forward to the day's matches or looking back at them with contented exhaustion.

But today I am traveling, so no badminton. I did chores and worked, mowed hte lawn and played PlayStation2 while on the treadmill, but no badminton wso the mind is more free.

I was listening to my ipod in the dark and saw the most recent episode of the Generally Speaking Lost podcast in the playlist. And I felt the same escape as with Mystery Science so many years ago.

I know the bureaucrat who screwed up my wife's chances at getting a temporary work visa. She works at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln. And the school's offer to help is beyond insulting.

Those who read Part I recall that Department of Homeland Security's Citizenship and Immigration Services rejects, without the ability to appeal, my wife's temporary work application because she already graduated. (She, of course, is still in school, so we don't even have the luxury of a true-but-absurd reason but denial.)

Because we were applying for the work permit as part of "OPT" (the Optional Practical Training that's at the tail-end of a student visa), one of the forms had to be completed and signed by a school official. That is, the information on the form does not come from the student but from the academic institution (which, presumably, is more used to American laws, more competent, etc.). It is one this form that this particular official wrote the impossible graduation date of July. This bureaucrat provided Homeland Security with false information, which lead to the denial.



But of course, realizing their mistake, the University rushes to correct it? Of course not!

We were able to fix the dates on your I-20 however you will either have to file a motion to re-open or to reapply for the OPT which both cost about the same and take about the same amount of time. Please let us know what you would like to do.

So we are offered the pleasure of spending several hundred dollars to fix their mistake.

Considering that it takes two months to process the permit, and we are about two months from the probable interview date for Permanent Residency (Advanced Parole), we won't go through the process again. So we're left with official incompetence and some bitterness.

But at least we know the bureaucrat's name.

The Department of Homeland Security, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, tells us that my wife graduated in July.

This would be fantastic news, as she travels to her laboratory daily to finish her thesis on radio frequency identification technologies. I could have sworn that she wasn't graduating until December, especailly as it today we both filed our applications for advanced degrees with the University of Nebraska - Lincoln today.

The relevant portion of their letter reads

A review of your application, all supporting documents submitted and the SEVIS System indicates that your course of study ended July 13, 2007. However, your Application for Employment Authorization was not received until July 18, 2007. Because your application was received after the completion of your course of study you are ineligible for employment authorization under (c)(3)(i). Therefore, upon consideration, it is ordered that this application be denied. There is no appeal to this decision.

This is relating to the non-immigrant application to work, not the immigration "family reunification" visa that would allow my wife to become a permanent resident. Still, quire annoying, and angering.

I'm still trying to determine the chain of screw-ups that led to their letter of "September 06, 2007" (postmarked September 10, and received by us on the 11th). More posts, I assume, to follow.

Two big games today

#5 Michigan 32, Appalachian State 34
#20 Nebraska 52, Nevada 10

My dad always routed for the underdog (except when it was a good whupping), and had never voiced support for the trolls (those who live under the bridge in the lower pennensula of Michigan), so he would be pleased by the Wolverines losing in the greatest upset in college football history: the first time ever an 1-AA team defeated a ranked 1-A team.

However, dad also thought that Nebraska got by with a perennially weak schedule, so inspite of the good start of the season he would have mentioned that if things don't click for Coach Callahan, this could be his last season.

After a delicious dinner meal in post-game celebration, I went for a walk.

I took my camera because the evening was beautiful. However, it wasn't fully charged, so I didn't even get to the stadium by the time the battery gave out.

I was ok until I got to the computer science building, which my father and I visited during our first trip to Lincoln. Here the sidewalk forked, and I could walk back to the union or go out of my way to the hotel we used to stay at. I decided to walk back to the union. My legs carried me to the hotel.

I walked inside for the first time since he last stayed there. I walked outside our old room. Around the lobby TV's were turned to a football game and cheers would go up at appropriate moments. I went over the skywalk to the parking garage.

I walked back home. I thought of how I had promised to get a copy of the Boise State/Oklahoma game to my dad during his deep sleep at the hospital. (Immediately after the game, which he had missed, he looked up buying a DVD on his iMac. But the "commemorative DVD" was quite pricey, so he decided to wait until the charge came down.)

I had a waking dream that I was back in the hospital on the day my dad had surgery to have a ventilator. I walked on the paths of Lincoln but I could have navigated the hospital too.

Then I walked home.

Within the past year, the best thing ever to happen to be happened to me. So did the worst thing.

So it's no surprise that my mood varies from pretty high to pretty low. From day to day, and even moment to moment.

There is all the normal stress and anxiety of the school year, but also real honest happiness and real honest sadness. There are so many times I keep thinking of my dad's letters or are phone calls. There are so many times I am so happy to be with my wife.

Sometimes I have this driving energy to get things done (I woke up at 4:30 and started working this morning, before going back to sleep) and other times I find it hard to click continue on a web form.

I am introspective enough to recognize how time changes things. The only reason I finished the spring semester at all was that I had gotten nearly all work done before my dad's heart attack. This summer I accomplished a lot, including work ahead in class, deforestation, a visit to China, and, of course getting married.

So I'm feeling more down that I was, at any given time, a year ago. But I'm also feeling more up.

If living means feeling emotions, then boy, am I living now!

May the joy always increase, the sadness become less intense, and US CIS stop losing our paperwork!

Two years ago, at about 1:00 PM, I met my wife for the first time.

There has never been a more perfect day.

Six months and one day ago, I talked with my dad on the phone about where we would go on spring break. I was planning on taking Fei out west that weekend, so I wanted to make sure that our spring break destination was Chicago. (This way we wouldn't re-drive much of I-80.) Chicago it tentatively was.

Six months ago, almost to the minute I am writing this, I called home while driving to pick up soup and bread for Fei and myself. Dad seemed tired, and put mom on the phone. We talked a bit.

Six months ago and a little later, Fei and I ate our soup (she loved it, I thought it was mediocre). We watched some tv, and ate some of the birthday cake she made for me.

Six months and a little later I got a phonecall. It was my mom. Dad had a heart-attack. Fei and I threw things in the car, we called my brother, and drove north.

It was dark by the time I got to Sioux Falls. I remember images from that drive, but of everything it is the part I recall least.

I remember the next few days. Because I I had taken a class that dealt with neuroscience the previous semester I was able to understand some of what the doctor's told us. I learned about coma scales and degrees of unresponsiveness.

I learned that dad's odds were reduced by one treatment he did have and one he did not. The treatment he did, Avandia, is known to increase the risk of massive heart attacks. The one he did not, induced hypothermia, appears to help recovery because the damage of cardiac-induced comas come after physical revival. But that's new, and experimental, and the hospital just did not have it.

I remember crying in the waiting room (actually a family conference room which
our family occupied), at my dad's bedside, and just whenever.

I remember listening to Sigur Ros in the dark.

There were two good signs, two good responses, that had made us hopeful. Shortly after the coma began, my dad responded to certain jokes told by my mother. He would smile and lift his head up. Later, after that had stopped, he would arm wrassle me.

The response to the jokes may have been him fading away. The arm wrassling was dad "waking up" to a persistent vegetative state.

Ten days after my dad's heart attack, he went into PVS without having woken up. The same day he died of an infection.

Yesterday my mom mistakenly referred to February 10th as the day that dad died, but that's what it feels like.

Today, one year ago, my grandpa was dying. Today, six months ago, my dad was about to.

Since February 10 I have split my time between Nebraska and South Dakota. At first my dad needed me. Now my mom and sister do.

I miss my friends. I have not been able to give them the time they deserve. I have not been able to present them with the kind of happiness they should have.

I miss my dad most of all.

Since my dad's heart attack both Fei and myself have missed dying by inches. Her car was sucked under an 18 wheeler. I was nearly hit by a bus.

I dreamed of going to Chicago without him.

I love you dad.

Lady of tdaxp and I visited our lawyer at the Wolzen Law Office today, to sign some final papers are send off our applications (for family reunification and change-of-status). We had spent the last month or so getting this and that piece of paperwork (including a marriage license!)

Today we signed a number of things, including an affidavit where Lady of tdaxp "unreservedly renounced" her membership in the Chinese Communist Party, and her prior memberships in the (Communist Party-affiliated) Youth and Pioneer Leagues. Then we went to Walgreen's to get passport photos.

We had to write two checks out to D.H.S. It felt like being gypped out of a PlayStation 3, but our attorney said that DHS is actually pretty efficient (I believe it), so hopefully things will go smoothly.

If all goes well, nothing in the applicatin packets will be lost, the paperwork will travel from the Chicago "lock box" to down in Missouri somewhere to finally Omaha, we'll have an easy interview, and like magic -- my wife and I can stay together!

Sean was kind enough to give us congratulations from his blog. Thanks!

Today got off to a bang. Last night we devised a list of questions to ask our lawyer first thing in the morning... and this morning we got the answers

Q. Do we have to fill out the G-325A Biographical information, or do they?
A: The law office will, and they sent out draft forms yesterday .
Result: Updated drafts will be hand delivered backto the lawyer tomorrow.

Q. Where to get I-693.
A. Instructions were provided.
Result: Appointment set up for July 5.

Q. What is "Police Clearance? (If applicable)" requirement about?
A: It's not applicable.
Result: The issue's mute!

Then went to Walgreens to print up pictures of us for the "bona fide" relationship requirement. Got them back this afternoon, wrote a summary and date on the back of each, and now their in the envelope with the updated drafts. Forms and paperwork took long enough, but eventually that we set out for today was finished.

So yesterday I got married and today I'm blogging. What's up with that?

We have our very own passive-aggressive matchmaker: the federal government..

Our preferred wedding date was August 8, 2008, in Lady of tdaxp's hometown, when the Olympics come there. However, Lady of tdaxp's student visa lasts only a year from her graduation, which is either August or December, depending on when her thesis is accepted. Worse, our lawyer inforemd us that an oversees wedding would involve approval by the State Department, who make the DHS look like a model of efficiency.

So that means that the Beijing ceremony will be a "reception," and not the wedding itself.

So the question becomes: when will the American wedding be? This time Homelan Security steps forward, proudly doubling the fees for just about everything at the end of July. Compounded by the rule that the wedding has to happen before the application is begun, we now have an American wedding, an American reception, and a Chinese reception.

In the end, these adventures add to the awesomeness of yesterday. How many newlyweds get to here any of the following, let alone all three in only a few hours

• "I never married anyone while wearing shorts before!


• "I never opened a checking account on anyone's wedding day before!


• "I never heard a presentaiton on the speaker's wedding day before!

Well, we did. We got an absolustely unique wedding. Yesterday was pure cool.

Today is too.