Tuesday, September 14, 2004
an outing with uncle sam
had an outing at the us embassy this morning. too bad, camera phones were not allowed inside, otherwise, i'd be posing here and there and get a feel of how it is to be there. sigh. the land of milk and honey. how elusive can you get.anyways, not that i was expecting something fruitful from this endeavor, i headed to the place to attend the long-before scheduled interview.
well, i'd have to say, i enjoyed the adventure. watching all these pinoys (me, included) try their luck to be with Uncle Sam. the interviewing area was so full of people, i.e. kids, mothers with their kids, old men wearing their US Veteran caps, old women. i was pretty much amazed at how Uncle Sam never lost his appeal to us noypi's.
anyways, (again) i wouldn't dwell on issues of colonial mentality or war veteran benefits or even how this scheme is such a successful and profitable business, tubong lugaw ika nga. just want to share my adventure as a first time US Visa Applicant.
funny how waiting for one's turn to be interviewed make you more friendly with people you don't even know. ofcourse there's the standard question, "Anong inaapyan mo? Tourist?" and "First time mo?" and "Sino nandun sa states? San kayo don?" and the list goes on and on. all of you are quite familiar who came first and who'll be next. and somehow, you wish the other person well because you waited with him/her.
Person on my left : "Ako na!"
Me : "Good luck po!"
Person on my right : "Naku malapit na ko."
and what's even funnier is how it is so obvious when one has passed the interview or not. a few signs that the applicant failed,
(1) he's not smiling
(2) he walks fast
(3) he pretends he doesn't see you when a minute ago you were talking about each others assets (ha!)
and the particular sign the applicant passed.
(1) he carries a yellow slip (a paper given to passers) and puts it on top of everything else he's carrying such that you will never miss it
oh well. anyway. i passed. sam and i. yabang eh no! :P hehehe... the consul was cool and didn't ask shitty questions. for a while i was scared while waiting because i actually overheard an interviewer asked an applicant the difference between a real and an imaginary number! oh hell! i was so scared i actually browsed through my entire algebra in 20 seconds!
bottomline. as everybody who's been there and done that would say, swertihan nga. yun lang.
babyburn at 4:18 PM