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The Mini Hiatus

First of all, I want to sincerely apologize for being absent from the blog for such a long time. Looking at the comments and questions, I notice that several people were expecting replies from me, but I wasn’t available. I had been pretty engaged in the blog until Fall last year and had been wanting to take a break for sometime now.

Change of government gave me a good opportunity to take a break and reflect on where my family and I stand, and how we want to proceed further. After living in denial for a week or so, and looking at all the folks protesting against the new President, we decided to take one day at a time. There are things that we can control and there are things that we can’t. Instead of burying ourselves into the sorrow of the big unknown, we decided to continue to live as if nothing has changed (yet). I understand this peace of mind is a luxury not everyone has, especially workers who are yet to get their H-1s, students who are yet to graduate etc.

Once I was out of the denial phase, I decided to engage in something positive. So what did I do:

– Have I told you that I am philatelist. I have 100% of Indian stamps issued post Independence and almost 95% of US stamps ever released. The albums and catalogs were little out of date and I spent most of the winter break bringing them back in shape.

– Started engaging myself in churning i.e. credit card and bank bonus churning. Learned few tricks, and started earning miles and points. Instead of accumulating them all over the place, became better in earning, managing and tracking them.

– Did a small vacation overseas using the miles earned above. While on vacation, travel ban 1.0 went into place. Didn’t know what to expect at PoE, but nothing happened. Although while overseas we did come across people who asked us if we are sure that we would be allowed to return to US.

Now that I have taken a break, I plan to be more active on the forum again. So if you have any questions that I missed, please post them here or just add a new comment below your original question and I will try to answer it.

Here is to hoping that new/amended laws would make life better for at least most of us, if not all.

image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/sunset-sea-lake-sun-glow-reflect-49355/ 

   

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13 Comments

  1. Welcome back dude,
    Just curious to know what do you do for a living 🙂
    Must be a cool job that allows you to indulge in hobbies, travel etc..

    Reply
    • Uncle sam,

      I am still an engineer. However, employer has a great worklife balance program which gives me time to indulge in hobbies, travel and blogging 🙂

      I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the folks on the blog are with the same company.

      Reply
  2. Official: USCIS Will Temporarily Suspended for All new H-1B Petitions. This suspension may last up to 6 months. This is the last night news
    Please help me if anyone have more info.
    My employer planned to file regular petition for upcoming FY.

    https://www.uscis.gov/news/alerts/uscis-will-temporarily-suspend-premium-processing-all-h-1b-petitions

    Reply
    • Regular or premium does not change the outcome of the result. It only delays how fast you will know your result. So why bother about that?

      Reply
  3. Bro,

    H1B is temporarily suspended. I have my flight on April 28th and travelling on H1b Visa. Is this decision going to create any issues at Port of Entry? I have resigned from my current org and making arrangements to travel. I am worried.

    Regards

    Reply
  4. My H1 Visa was valid from 30 sep 2014 to 30 sep 2015 after that I got H1 Extension till 31 Dec 2016 and in the mean time there is an H1 amendment filled and the extension was moved further till 10th Apr 2017 .
    As I am planning travel to India I got my another extension approved till Apr 2019 and need to go for stamping .My Question was

    Which dates will be there on the visa stamp ? If its 10th April to 2017 to Apr 2019 then can i enter before 10th April ?

    Reply
  5. @Saurabh..

    Never knew you were into Philately. I am on the same boat. A lot of Indian, US stamps but also including rare stamps all across the world. Being based in the US, we should connect.

    Reply
  6. Hello brother,
    First of all thanks for welcoming back!

    Yesterday I got the 221(g) white slip in h1b..so any chance to get the visa??

    Reply
    • H1b 221(g) Mumbai Consulate,

      221g doesn’t necessarily mean denial. Consider it like RFE. They need additional information and/or documents and final decision would depend upon their review. So remain positive.

      Reply

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