School

So, a few days after I received my SSN, I applied to a school here in town, Lake Area Technical Institute. I had my high school transcripts sent to me and my college transcripts sent directly to the college. Now, because of the postal strike in Canada, it probably got delayed. I'm planning on calling tomorrow to get an update as I have general education credits from college that I want to get transferred so I don't have to re-do them again and pay for stuff I already know.

Anyways, finally got my high school transcripts on Friday, but I was out all day Friday and only got home at night, so I couldn't go to the school to drop them off. So on Monday, Ben brought me to Lake Area while on his lunch break. Dropped them off.

Today, I had a wonderful letter from Lake Area. Right on the front of the envelope was a sticker with 'accepted' on it! Didn't even need to open the envelope. I now have to pay them $150 as a deposit of sorts. I don't really have enough money at the moment to pay that, but thankfully I have about a month to get it to them.

I'm very excited to finally go back to school again as it's been more than a year!

~Lindsay

SSN received!

So, I had a good feeling this morning as I went to check the mailbox. Lo and behold, there was something for me from the SSA! Came all the way from Baltimore, Maryland. There was only one thing inside the envelope:

(front with SSN card)

(back)

So, after one month and one day from entering the USA, I finally have my SSN! *dances*

Going to my bank after Ben gets off work and I'm going to apply for a credit card. Hope I get accepted! As soon as I have a credit card, I'll be buying my computer parts off NewEgg, so I can finally, finally have a desktop again! *super excited*

I'll be applying for school probably tomorrow and getting my transcripts gathered and such.

I'll also have to pay a visit to the DMV (*shudder*) to get a South Dakota driver's license.

And then finally, try to get a job somewhere, so I can start getting money again after one year of unemployment.

~Lindsay

Applied for SSN

Well, yesterday marked 3 weeks since my POE. I read on VJ a lot that if you checked off on the DS-230/DS-260 for an SSN and don't receive it after 3 weeks from POE that you should go to a local SSA office and apply in person. So that's what I did today.

After lunch, Ben drove me to the SSA office here in town. I explained to the lady there that I had to come to the USA on an immigrant visa and still hadn't received an SSN, after 3 weeks of waiting. So she asked for my visa, so I gave her my passport. A few moments later, she requested for my birth certificate, which I brought with me as well. She then asked me some questions, like my address, if I ever had a US driver's license before, if I had applied for college in the US, if I ever had a checking or savings account in the US, if I had ever filed taxes, if I had ever been registered to vote, etc etc. After she finished asking all the questions, she printed out a form with just my basic info on it (name, date of birth, parents' names, address, phone number) and asked me to verify if everything was correct. It was. She took the paper back and printed something else out. She told me that I should receive my SSN in the mail within 10 days. If I didn't receive it in 2 weeks, she told me to call the number that was listed on the paper she gave me. All in all, it took about 15 minutes.

So, back to the waiting game. I'm hoping the card arrives next week sometime. I really want to apply to school for the fall semester and then apply for a credit card, so I can finally buy a computer. And then of course, find a job.

~Lindsay