One Year
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Well, I've been in the US for a year now. In that time, I've applied for and received my Kentucky Teaching Certificate, and have found both a full-time and part-time job. I'm working full-time in the education department at the local Federal Prison (light security, but still lots of razor wire), and work part-time at the local daily newspaper writing the weekend obituaries. Both jobs are lots of fun and so totally different from each other, that I'll probably stay with both for quite some time. Oh, both jobs are contract positions, so in essence, I'm self-employed as an independent contractor. Technically, since I'm not a US citizen, I'm not eligible to work for the federal government (or state for that matter) as a bona fide employee. However, as a contract worker, there's no problem.

Since my EAD expires in mid-June/99 and my advance parole expires at the beginning of July/99, on April 5th, I mailed my application for renewal of both forms to the INS office in Louisville, KY. I was a bit surprised to find out that the costs for both forms had risen ($100 for EAD, and $95 for advance parole). Hopefully though, my adjustment of status will be approved prior to having to renew both forms again. As I mentioned in a previous link, the INS office in Louisville indicated that my adjustment of status would take about 15 months... it's been about 10 months now and I hope to hear from them sometime over the summer.

One thing I do want to mention, totally unrelated to the K-1 process, is making the adjustment to living in the US - specifically, things which I took for granted in Canada! For instance, having local references on your résumé - which, when you first move here, is not that easy to put in writing. Although I'm now working, I was unemployed for almost 4 months - and it took that long before I had networked enough to get some local references. I did a lot of volunteer work during those 4 months - and I highly recommend this route. Also, it's not that easy to get a credit card when you're a newcomer to the US. As it turns out, even though I had a great credit rating in Canada, it was worth diddly-squat when I crossed the border. I still don't have a credit card in my own name separate from Sheila. We applied jointly for two gas cards to get things moving, but I expect it'll take another year or so before any bank finds me credit worthy.