On Friday I took a day off for my much-too-long-awaited citizenship interview.  It’s about time since I’ve been in this country for 15 years.  A quick recap of what happened:

• My appointment was at 8:05am in San Bernardino, CA, a 45 minutes drive from home.  I woke up early fearing traffic and got there at 7:30am.  When I got there the waiting room was already half full.
• No cellphone allowed, so I couldn’t mess around on my phone.  It was just boring waiting.  There were many different interviewers popping out of a door and calling out a name.  Some of them looked very nice and friendly, but some are just plain mean/annoyed looking.  I kept on hoping to get a friendly one.
• They didn’t call my name until 9:00am!  By 8:30am I really wanted to go pee, but then I was afraid that they would call my name and I wouldn’t be there, so I just kept on holding it.
• I got a friendly guy in his 30s or 40s who was in the Air Force.  He basically went through my application item by item to make sure there are no mistakes, then on with the tests.
• 1st I was asked the following (6/10 to pass):
  “What colors are the stripes on the flag?”
  “Who makes the Federal laws in the US?”
  “How many Senators are there in the Congress?”
  “What is the capital of CA?”
  “Name the countries that were our enemies during World War II.”
  “What was the 49th state added to our Union?”
  “Who nominates judges for the Supreme Court?”
  “What is the executive of a state government called?”
  “When was the Constitution written?”
  “Where is White House located?”
  2nd I was asked to Write the following:
  “The boy threw a ball.”
  3rd I was asked to Read the following:
  “The children play at school.”
• That’s pretty much it.  The actually interview itself took less than 20 minutes and was rather painless.  By the time I came back out to the waiting room again, the room was all full, which probably means a 3 hour wait time.

Yay!  So I am almost done I guess.  All I have to do now is just to wait for another letter to tell me where and when I need to go swear in.  The long journey of citizenship is finally almost over.