the climb

Ever since I got my control number from USCIS to track the progress of my paperwork, I've been checking that progress faithfully, marking everything on a slip of paper that I've taped to the side of my laptop's screen.

The term "progress" refers to one's paperwork's position in the queue, not to how many pages of one's paperwork have been combed through. With that in mind, then: one's inquiry results will take the form of "XXXX of XXXX," where the first "XXXX" refers to how far down one is from the top, and the second "XXXX" refers to how many applications are in the queue. The second number is always changing, and for our purposes, it's irrelevant. What matters is how far one's paperwork is from the Number 1 position. I'm happy to say that I've been climbing fairly steadily. Here's what my progress looks like according to my notes:

7/20/15: 1346 of 1645
7/22/15: 1344 of 1669 (up 2 places in the queue)
7/24/15: 1266 of 1678 (up 78 places)
7/29/15: 1050 of 1764 (up 216 places)
7/31/15: 858 of 1665 (up 192 places)
8/3/15: 625 of 1547 (up 233 places)

Progress seems to be accelerating, so I'm hoping my paperwork gets done in a few more business days—perhaps as early as August 10. If I can get Mom's naturalization papers sent to me by August 17 or so, I can have my F-4 visa by early to mid-September—almost a month earlier than the currently anticipated October date.

Fingers and tentacles crossed.


_