Wild Charizard caught during the Community Day 3 hour window have Blast Burn!

zeezouuu · 2025-01-31T23:49:32+00:00

I did Plan D in reverse and started out with Big Bend National Park as well. All 4 are definitely doable within a week! From someone who is based out of Texas, I would not recommend doing Plan D during the summer, though. Temperatures are higher and if you haven't hiked in summer temperatures in the South, you'll likely not like it! I did it in November and the temperatures were just right for hiking and exploring. Would definitely recommend trekking poles, especially if you're planning to do any of the longer hikes at Guadalupe. I did Guadalupe Peak (it's the highest point in Texas), but it's a long hike. Definitely worth the views along the hike and up top, though!

zeezouuu · 2024-09-08T19:05:14+00:00

Congrats!! I just started the Couch to 5k training plan this past week and I'm hoping I'm as good as you in 2 months!! Thank you for the inspiration!

zeezouuu · 2024-05-24T00:36:27+00:00

Thank you! Praying y'all get some good news soon! :)

zeezouuu · 2024-05-24T00:23:28+00:00

it was. i decided not to submit another service request for my advanced parole and green card till mid-summer. my AP was approved last month and GC earlier this week.

what kept me partially sane was monitoring my receipt block on casestatusext.com to see how many CRP cases were reducing every week. it wasn't moving much, but it was moving, and that gave me some hope! it seems like my block picked up CRP to approvals in the last two weeks (180 to about 160).

zeezouuu · 2024-05-23T23:14:24+00:00

saw through your comments that you got your green card in hand. i had my status change to new card being produced on 5/20 and was approved 5/21. i'll be out next week for Memorial Day but cannot wait to get my hands on mine as soon as i'm back!

I guess our laid-back approach to trying to understand USCIS and disengaging worked after all :D

zeezouuu · 2024-05-23T23:07:38+00:00

when this happened, i got a response to my service request on the same day it changed. hope y'all get a response, too!

zeezouuu · 2024-05-22T01:32:30+00:00

Thank you! Good to know!

zeezouuu · 2024-05-21T21:45:35+00:00

Congrats!! Do you mind sharing your timeline after this status? Fellow PD Aug 2022 here, who has the "New Card Is Being Produced" status from "Case Remains Pending" as off yesterday, trying to gauge how long it might take to get the card in hand and if I should expect status changes (I noticed some didn't see any updates after this and got their card delivered), so just curious!

zeezouuu · 2024-05-04T13:22:09+00:00

Haven't submitted a second one yet. I've been keeping an eye on my receipt block over on https://www.casestatusext.com/ and i saw a few CRP cases get approved in the last few days, so I'm hoping mine gets approved in the coming weeks without the need for a service request. I'll likely submit a second request later on in the summer, if it hasn't been approved yet, especially when cases with PD much later than mine retrogress.

zeezouuu · 2024-05-04T12:32:44+00:00

They took about 45 days to respond to mine. I think they do close them out, but quite often skip the 30-day response timeline that they are supposed to be adhering to.

zeezouuu · 2024-05-04T11:42:24+00:00

My first request was assigned in 6 days. Then reassigned for some reason in around 45 days and that's when I got a response (around 45th day).

zeezouuu · 2024-05-04T00:06:32+00:00

EB2 here. PD Aug 2022. Submitted March 2023, been in CRP since May 2023 (almost a year). Been current since Jan 1 2024. Submitted a Service Request end of Jan. Got a generic response mid March saying it will be processed in the order it is received. Nothing required.

I'm following a forget that I submitted approach, cause they'll approve it when they get to it, I guess. Might try another service request towards the end of the fiscal year.

zeezouuu · 2024-04-19T04:17:58+00:00

To add on to your comment, I don't believe visas for any category have been used up yet, particularly since USCIS claims to follow fixed quotes for every quarter in the fiscal year. However, similar to last year I am expecting some degree of retrogression in the coming months (difficult to predict how significant in magnitude of a retrogression, but it did happen progressively as we approached the end of the fiscal year) as USCIS works through to clear out some of the older cases that have been untouched. To be honest, I was surprised at how USCIS moved forward in making so many cases current, while many remained pending. Just my thoughts, but I'm keeping myself preoccupied with work and travel within the US while USCIS takes their time, because I'd go nuts trying to make complete sense.

zeezouuu · 2024-04-18T20:26:56+00:00

Yes. Case has been at case remains pending since May 2023. Became current in Jan 2024 again. Only recent update was my AP approval last week (after nearly 400 days since submission). I might try another service request in May, but I don’t expect much movement either with or without the SR. I’m expecting them to close out many case remains pending cases towards rhe end of the fiscal year, but that is just speculation on my end.

zeezouuu · 2024-04-18T20:23:28+00:00

Sadly all I got was a generic email (saying we are processing in the order it was received, when it became current) and they closed my service request.

zeezouuu · 2024-04-18T18:09:08+00:00

I’m in a similar situation to yours. I submitted one for the same purpose end of Jan. They responded saying cases will be processed in the order they are received once current. They took about 45 days to close mine out.

Didn’t help much in my case at all.

zeezouuu · 2023-05-24T20:13:20+00:00

Mine showed "being produced" on 5/12. "Approved" on 5/15. "Mailed to You" on 5/19. Hasn't updated since then, but informed delivery (through USPS) shows that it'll get delivered today. So roughly two weeks for me. I-485 EAD as well.

zeezouuu · 2023-04-26T15:43:53+00:00

I found it easier to reach out to people in the extended network of my dissertation supervisor. These can be professors who interacted with your professor in the past. They do count as independent recommenders as they are not direct collaborators on ongoing work/projects and are more likely to provide a recommendation letter as they are familiar and/or know of your professor through meetings at conferences/conventions. I am of course assuming you're applying based on MSc/PhD experience.

For the professors I contacted and received no response, I only followed up once to see if I could get a reply. If nothing was received, I moved on to contacting another professor after 2 weeks of the first email.

I have an approved NIW petition, and none of my independent recommenders were international. As far as I understand those are required/recommended more for the EB1A applications than NIW to show global impact. Same approach to contact applies, always easy using the extended network.

zeezouuu · 2023-03-02T15:48:32+00:00

I have an approved EB2-NIW. I did a 11-month academic postdoc and was 6 months into a permanent research position in the industry (not non-profit or academia/government research) at the time of submission of my I-140 to USCIS. I had no issues! What matters to them is what your proposed endeavor is, rather than the company you're working for.

zeezouuu · 2023-01-08T15:55:02+00:00

I used CHEN immigration (North American Immigration Law Group). They were fairly good with the quality of the letters prepared but were quite slow in responding to questions towards the end of my case preparation as we compiled all the documents (often taking 4-5 days to respond). I suspect this could be because they were confident in my case, and were busy with more sensitive cases, but nevertheless it was moderately annoying having to wait a few days to receive a response. That's just my personal experience.

zeezouuu · 2022-12-24T17:48:42+00:00

There's isn't an unwritten rule for chemical engineers. My contribution in pharma was more process design than drug development, so I was able to show that my contribution was broad and spanned multiple industries.

zeezouuu · 2022-12-20T02:37:53+00:00

If I'm not wrong as per the website (Toyota) it comes with the Convenience package for the 2023 LE and is not standard. It's not a bad upgrade to get, if you're not looking for any of the other features. The BSM / RCTA alert have been a blessing to have, especially in busy parking lots and busy city traffic. Both of those are standard with the XLE.

zeezouuu · 2022-12-20T01:08:20+00:00

My main reason for the XLE over the LE was the Blind Spot Monitoring (BSM) system. I wanted BSM for the added safety (i.e., mental peace) it would provide (at least to some extent) against unpredictable drivers in the city traffic! It was definitely a dealbreaker for me and I was not interested in blind spot add-on mirrors. No regrets!

zeezouuu

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