"The Seas We Swim": An Open Letter to Migrationsverket

It has been a dark month, but I refuse to apologize for the emotions I have been going through, despite a voice inside my chest that reminds me daily how weak I have become.

I've experienced struggle in this life on many occasions, but while this one is different, it is also not different at all; every day is a reminder of how psychological the notion of "hope" is.  Some days, hope seems nothing more than a lie we tell ourselves in order to inspire our legs to keep treading water for one more day.

"Don't sink now," we tell ourselves.  "The rescue boat could be here tomorrow."  

Meanwhile, we continue to swallow water.  The taste of salt never leaves our lips.

(EDITED) The Swedish Sambo Visa in 2015 Part 6b: The Ending of "Priority Requests"

EDIT (5 Nov 2015):  For those of you just reading this, it has been explained to us by Migrationsverket that the reason for disabling priority requests was so that they can focus all of their man power on clearing out all of the oldest cases with no decision yet. Since all of us have our cases viewed in the order they are received, this will shorten the wait times for all of us. MV has said that since the wait times have gotten so long, EVERYONE has been requesting priority, which has caused a huge administrative mess -- MV was spending too much time investigating if people qualified for priority, which took a lot of time away from them processing applications in the queue.  As a quick reference, they will not consider pregnancy for priority - we have seen several cases of pregnancies being refused priority already.

As a means of keeping this blog as current as possible (given how many of us are waiting in the wings of a situation that seems to grow more dire by the day), I thought this update was important to share because there is not much press about it.

"It's OK to not be OK."

True story:  I have been terribly sick for a couple weeks now, and between that, exhaustion, and stress, I had a total meltdown on the phone with Johan last Friday. He and I both are dealing with some extremely difficult things in our work and family lives, and I just couldn't find the strength to keep myself together in the moment. In a fit of worry over me, Johan quasi-threatened that he was going to email Migrationsverket the following Monday and request priority because of these certain ongoing stresses in my life.  Of course, we both knew that we wouldn't actually get the priority, so I had surmised that he was just venting his frustration for being separated from me.

Except, that he wasn't just venting.

On Wednesday of this week, Johan and I spoke and I could tell he was extremely upset. I came to learn that he was indeed on MV's website researching how to request prioritization, when he happened upon the fresh new announcement that priority was no longer an available option.

A Quick Post About Swedish Language Resources (and a shameless plug of some recent travel pics!)

I thought I would write a quick post to link up useful websites and share other information I've used to help advance my Swedish language skills.  This will be an evolving post; I'll add more as I come by it.

I first started learning Swedish in 2005 when I had my first relationship with a Swede.  He taught me little phrases here and there, and eventually I bought the Teach Yourself books & CDs package (see #4 on the list below).  Teach Yourself was MUCH cheaper than Rosetta Stone, and seemed just as comprehensive (but a casual disclaimer that I have never tried Rosetta Stone).

When I broke up with the first Swede and wanted to continue learning, I started using LiveMocha.com which was really good for basic learning (see #5 on the list below).  But then I began to want a real penpal to have natural conversation with.  I plugged a name into Facebook, pulled up a list, sent a message to someone who showed up on the list, and 5.5 years later we are engaged!*

*These results are not common...but this is, of course, an entirely true story! ;D

In any event, over the years (especially the last 2) I have really focused on my language skills, and these are some useful websites and tips about learning Swedish that I have used in obtaining fluency.  Please feel free to comment if you have other suggestions!

The Swedish Sambo Visa in 2015 Part 6a: The Monthly Update of Processing Times On Migrationsverket

EDIT (25 October 2015):  Please note that any screen shots or references to wait times are as of the date this post was written (6 October 2015).  Wait times have since been updated several times.  In order to have the most recent time frames in mind, please reference Migrationsverket's website HERE for the most recent processing times.

Not much to update really on our case.  We learned our case is being handled in the Umeå office, for whatever that's worth - no discernible news online whether that's a good or bad thing.  The silence can be maddening at times, but at other times it becomes easy to melt into day-to-day life.

Johan has been here with me for the past week and a half.  We've done a few days in LA, a 7-day road trip through central California to Monterey and back, and now we are going to head to San Diego.  I just need him to wake up ;)

But while we were in San Luis Obispo I had logged onto a thread on The Local where a poster had indicated that Migrationsverket had updated the permit processing wait times ("Handläggningstider") on their website.  It struck me as odd because, previously, MV only updated these wait times every 3-4 months.  And just one month ago, they had updated the wait times with a 1-month increase in processing time (a screen shot of that can be seen at the bottom of my Sambo Visa Part 2 blog post).

At the time of the update one month ago, many of us felt it was promising news that the wait times had only increased by 1 month given the refugee circus that is ongoing.

So, to hear that wait times had been updated only one month later, was disconcerting.  I hopped over to the Handläggningstider site of Migrationsverket to see what all the fuss was about: