part 003 : the application

Today I had an interview for my application for an American visa at the United States Embassy, Malaysia.

(Does it seem strange to anyone that north Americans are called Americans. And why are south americans not called americans, although technically they are in America? Maybe USAians don't roll off the tongue quite so well?).

Anyway, I managed to get a ride to the embassy with Uncle Mizi who was nice enough to come over at about 6.30 am. At first I was hoping that I wouldn't arrive late because despite Uncle Mizi arriving early, we actually left the house at about 6.50am but it seemed that I was actually 20 minutes early to the embassy (which, may I add, is HUGE) and was also afraid that I would be the only one waiting but I was pleasently surprised to find Siyan and Nick waiting in line as well. They remembered me and waved, I recognised Siyan no problem but I had a bit of a hard time figuring out who Nick was but I eventually got there. He doesn't need to know this, by the way. My memory isn't the best, especially when it comes to names. (I'm so and so with remembering faces).

After a while a few more people whom I met at the previous AFS interview arrived; Djawad, Hidhir and also a few new faces such as Agan and Sook Yee.. urm, there were more but I can't remember their names! I'm so sorry guys!

To get into the embassy was a tedious task in itself. We first had to line up for quite some time outside to wait our turn to state our reasons of visitation to the embassy at the guard house (I got really annoyed here for reasons that I shall not disclose for fear of embarassing other parties, none of which are under the AFS, and I think the US embassy isn't really to blame either). After that was done with, we had to go in one by one into a room where our possesions were screened and we had to go through a metal detector doorframe, much like those in airports. Electronical gadgets and weapons (?) are not allowed in the embassy. I'm not sure if that only applies to visitors or to embassy workers as well.

After getting through the gates, we went into the main building where we were screened yet again for metallic items. (The lady working there was really nice and friendly. I felt the need to write this down.) Went into the waiting room and surrendered our documents to the person in the first counter and waited for our numbers to be called.

Our group was very very noisy. It was even up to the point that many of the people in the room turned to us and as one, made big SHUSH-ing sounds . That was embarassing, but partly (or mostly) our fault anyway. On the other hand, it showed that us students were using the extra time to bond. That's good, isn't it?

There was also a nice old lady waiting with us who wanted to go to the States to visit her daughter ( I'm not too sure about this). She was about 80-90 years old (?) and as far as I know, could only converse in Chinese. Nick and Siyan, being the responsible, caring youths of today made small talk with her as to not make her feel uncomfortable, afraid or lonely. Once in the interview/waiting room, her number was called and she walked up to a caucasion man behind a desk. The two good youths were afraid that there would be a language barrier there and prepared themselves with looks of concern plastered to their faces should the need to translate arrive. Imagine their utmost surprise when the caucasion man behind the counter started speaking FLUENT chinese with a beautiful chinese accent and pronunciation. Now I don't mean to be discriminative, and by no means am I being a racist, my own host sister from Germany speaks fluent Malay and has shocked many Malaysians throughout her stay here. Its just that the extremely surprised faces of Siyan and Nick were just too funny for us not to laugh.

When I was called back to the interview counter to get my old passport returned, the interviewer lady asked me if I was interested to join a discussion tomorrow among other students (college/afs and other things as well I suppose) regarding visa applications. I said I was ok with it and so tomorrow instead of just dropping by to retrieve my passport and visa, I have to extend my stay at the embassy a little longer.

That's all for now I think, and oh..

Unrelated to AFS, tonight was my prom night. It was fun, and tiring as well.
livejournal?
read the introduction?

P/S : if my spelling is way off, forgive me. I'm too lazy to spell check.