Can You Pass the U.S. Citizenship Test?



Photo Source: PolicyMic



This past Sunday's sermon at GFCC was about citizenship, specifically into the Kingdom of God, but it also touched on becoming a U.S. citizen. I became a U.S. citizen through birth, despite being born in the Philippines. I actually got to witness my mom's naturalization process while growing up and I was pretty young then but this past Sunday gave me the opportunity to reflect on that.

My mom had to take tests and she had to learn civics, government rules and procedures, etc. She was diligently tested on matters that high schoolers "learn" but do anything to pass and many naturally born citizens take for granted.

It got me to thinking about how many of today's citizens would have a difficult time passing the U.S. citizenship test. It also sparked a challenge between me and Ryan. Could we both pass this?

I went to the USCIS website, you can too, and checked out the free resources. There you can find a list of 100 questions and answers that could be asked on the civics test. There are also downloadable civics flashcards, vocabulary and writing flashcards, video and audio as well. If you're interested in doing the challenge with us, comment below or send an e-mail! I literally just got this idea overnight and thought that it was important enough to follow through because it's my role as a citizen to actually understand what I represent. I'm going to try to find more resources, maybe track down some at the local library, and see if I can find a practice test to quiz us on. If not, maybe I can put something together and post it here so we can try it all out together.

If you're still pretty confident in your abilities to pass(way to go rockstar), see if you could get through these questions, provided by PolicyMic's 5 U.S. Citizenship Test Questions You'd Probably Fail

(remember, no Google searches)

1. What does the Constitution do?

2. Who becomes the President, if the President and Vice President can no longer serve?

3. How many amendments does the Constitution have?

4. What is freedom of religion?

5. What stops one branch of government from becoming too powerful?

Stumped? You can find the answers by clicking on the PolicyMic link, or better yet, join us in prepping to take our practice test :)

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Back to "Blogspot"

I've reverted my custom domain name back to "blogspot" because fun fact, AF computers can't access blogs that have custom domain names. This is something I learned through trial and error and all of those fun, awesome blogs that have custom domain names are impossible to look at on alert. So if you want to reach a broader audience, maybe you should consider not having one. I know, I know, it goes completely against the branding rules but there's an audience of people out there who can't look at your blog and that's a shame.

With that said, I would hate to lose you on Bloglovin, so please make sure that you can still follow me. I promise I'm still updating things :)

Y'all are rockstars :)

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Now Dating a College Freshman

We had the wonderful opportunity to celebrate the last day before classes started at our friend, Jeff's birthday.  A delicious BBQ, yummy birthday cake, and some brew with friends were perfect ways to top off the day.  We ran through a rainstorm with heavy winds (yikes) with our friends Hannah and Anthony.  Ryan was upset to have left the party early, so I was really glad that our friend Troy invited him over to continue the end-of-the-summer festivities.

Ryan was really excited to meet other Wisconsinites at the party.  That's one really great aspect of military life- seeing other people from your home state. I get excited when I meet people from Wisconsin or even Minnesota and a Wisconsin license plate makes my heart go all a'flutter.

 The next day was the first day of classes for a lot of students, whether it be Kindergarten or the start to a college degree.  Although I was content with sleeping in the next morning, I definitely wanted to snap some pictures of the new college freshman in our household...my husband!
Also take note that he's rocking a Badger tee, even though he's going to school in Montana.
#bleedredandwhite

 After four years in the Marine Corps, Ryan is taking advantage of the G.I. Bill and going to school in the town that we now live in.  I think he's interested in becoming a high school teacher, but for now he's tackling his gen eds.  I'm particularly excited about his creative writing class and how it's focusing a lot on poetry.  Maybe I'll get some love poems out of this gig ;)

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Having Babies

A ton of my friends are either pregnant or recently gave birth.  These are people who I respect, value, and love and some of these ladies are blogger friends that I've never met but that I think are awesome. I pray for their babies and the expansion of their families all of the time.

It caused me to think about the life plan I had created in second grade.  At that age, anytime in your 20s seems so far off.  I do remember wanting to be a teacher and have two standard-sized poodles.  I would have either been dating or married and between 24-26 we would have our first baby.  Well I'm turning 24 in a couple of months and although I definitely don't believe in the life plan I created when I was eight years old, my 23-year old self can't help but focus on my life ambitions.

When Ryan and I first got married, there were a few times that I was positive that I was pregnant.  We definitely weren't ready, and of course, you know that little thought in the back of your head grows with worry by the minute.  I remember two very specific incidents where I started to freak out.  The first was when we moved into our first house and I was on a new birth control (wasn't taking any chances) and the oral medication made me feel nauseous.  So I wasn't preggers and took myself off that birth control.  The other incident was on a trip back to Wisconsin, where I wasn't feeling good but I wasn't on Mirena yet.  I remember walking to Walgreens in the disgusting humidity of a Wisconsin summer and just sweating balls.  I was nervous and anxious because again, we weren't ready and I had just graduated from college.  Again the tests were negative.

I'll be 24 this year and Ryan and I have been married 2.5 years.  Now I'm starting to feel ready, but I often feel that everyone around me isn't ready for us to have a baby.  It feels weird to phrase that, other people aren't ready.  But ultimately many of our life decisions are influenced by expectations and trends on society.  My good friend, Lindsey is having a baby and got married around the same time that Ryan and I did.  She shared a link with her Facebook followers about the timing of families and how people always have an opinion on when to have a baby.  The article, Having Babies (in Opposite World), discusses today's expectations to wait and how people can feel guilty if they don't hit certain life benchmarks, if you will.  The author of the article, Courtney, describes how friends of hers have been made to feel guilty about their pregnancy for whatever reasons.  Courtney was told her entire life to be a responsible adult and wait to have children.  It's pretty solid and standard advice.  So she and her husband waited and had her first at 27 and second at 29.  However in her 30s she came into certain health concerns that inhibited her ability to have more children.  Everyone's biological clock is different, but hers cut off at 29, when she was under this presumption that she would be able to have babies for a good solid 10 years or so, even if they waited.  She wishes that they had started sooner.

This article got me to thinking, because Courtney brought up a lot of great points that haven't necessarily come up in my life in terms of parenting.  We have moved from a society where women got married very young, had babies young and that was it to what we have today where young women are encouraged to commit to a career and get married/have babies much later.  The problem is that whatever the common ideology is becomes this social law.  I covered the marital aspect of it in my post, I Got Married at 21 When Everyone Else Was Getting Chocolate Wasted, where everyone had an opinion of my choices in getting married.  People didn't take into consideration my feelings, the impact of how they chose to talk to me about my choices, and ultimately they forgot about the two people who were getting married in the equation.  As soon as I accepted a proposal at 21, everyone saw my life going down the tubes but that didn't happen.  People forgot to take into consideration that I had certain factors in my life that caused me to grow up a lot sooner than many of their own college-aged children.

Now when all of that is said and done, I don't think every young couple should just have babies for the sake of having babies.  Each couple needs to have that discussion on their own timeline, not with the influence of other people.  I just think that in terms of our society, we need to cut each other some slack.  People have opinions when someone has a baby at a young age, at an older age, doesn't breastfeed, has five kids, gets married young, etc.  I don't know if it's just this kick I've been on, but when you feel like judging, think of an encouragement for that person instead.  I can tell you that having walked in some of those shoes, they've already felt stress from people who are completely unrelated to their life. Empower, don't bring down.

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If Ryan and I were LEGO figures...

While I was on alert, I thought it would be a lot of fun to kind of do another post on where we're at with our marriage.  Ryan and I have been married for over two years (2.5) and are going through some pretty major phases in our life together.  I have graduated college, been commissioned as an officer, completed my tech training, and we now live in Montana.  Ryan has finished four years with the Marine Corps, has completed a civilian job working as a gun retailer, and now he is starting college.  So I e-mailed him some questions and we actually kind of made a game with it with our friends the other night.  We know a lot of young, married couples due to our military background and it was fun to see what their responses were. 

1. Where are you in your life?
We're now living in Montana in a really great house.  We have two German Shepherds, Holly and Blu.  Blu is having incontinence issues, which can be very frustrating at times.  Ryan has just started his college career and it's fun seeing his accomplishments through academic fields.  I'm adjusting pretty well to my job, and I'm adjusting to living in Montana.  Right now I'm also accomplishing my Master's Degree.

2. What is the thing that surprised you most about marriage?
There are several aspects that are really not very exciting.  I think while you're growing up, influencing factors come into play due to how impressionable media, magazines, Disney, and social media outlets like Pinterest can be on a young person.  I definitely thought marriage was a lot more exciting that it really is (or at least in my marriage). It's really just the day-to-day stuff and balancing responsibilities such as being an Air Force officer and paying bills.  You have to make things romantic and take the time to pay attention to your partner's needs.  You think this would be obvious but it's easy to get wrapped up in your job, school, etc.

3. What are the best parts of your marriage right now?
We're definitely learning how to communicate more effectively with one another and what buttons not to push.  I can recognize the areas that I need to improve upon and hopefully this will help make our marriage more cohesive.  Being in a better rhythm with our day-to-day has made it easier to being better partners.

4. What are the areas of improvement?
My area of improvement is a definite need to respond better to what Ryan needs.  My husband is very devoted to organization and keeping a clean house.  If he's got his mind set on something, it kind of needs to be done right away or it stresses him out.  If you know me, this is so completely not like me whatsoever.  Whenever he asks me to do something, I try to get to it right away to kind of help him with his love language.  His area of improvement would be patience and being more romantic.  It's very obvious that I married a Marine.  He's very disciplined but sometimes he forgets that I'm not a PFC and I'm actually his wife.  His personality has definitely helped me curb my expectations on how being realistic with romance expectations.  It's important to keep in mind that if I don't express what I'm looking for, then he can't possibly know.

5. How has your partner changed?

I have changed basically due to our lifestyle.  I'm not crafting as much as I used to and I get stressed a lot more easily in regards to my job.  I realized certain aspects of my personality weren't changing for the good and I kind of addressed that in this post, Practically Imperfect in Every Way or My Flaws Through the Use of GIFs. It's really important to me that I stay optimistic and see the beauty in our everyday lives here.  Montana is a beautiful place, maybe not Great Falls, but the state is really pretty. There are certain opportunities that I need to take advantage of because I won't experience it anywhere else.  I'm also trying to make sure that I don't let myself go and actually put together outfits instead of living in workout shorts (I love being comfy).  Ryan has changed in terms of how he reacts in a relationship.  I think having that long distance relationship aspect played a major part in our relationship dynamic.  When I went to see him, he definitely made an effort at being more engaged in activities and being more romantic.  We lived in the moment because it was always uncertain the next time we would see each other. 

6. What do you love about your partner?

I love that Ryan is very honest and loyal.  I feel safe with him and even though he's 22-years old, he always amazes me with his maturity and how much responsibility he has held in his life.  Ryan always takes care of me, no matter what and he definitely pays attention to my body language, regardless if I say anything. 

7. What is the most stressful aspect of marriage right now?

We both said the same thing- money.  Paying off school loans, car loans, vet bills for Blu, and any other bill that comes across our way definitely takes a toll on our budget.  We do have a strict budget, so it just isn't possible for us to go out on a lot of date nights.  Ryan's strictly a student right now and  I'm working on my Master's Degree and my job, so it's really just my source of income.  This limits us to one date night per paycheck and sometimes that gets sucked into one of Blu's vet bills.  Our dog, Blu, has incontinence and a heart murmur.  The incontinence is probably the worst because money goes to not only the vet, but also into cleaning supplies and we also just bought a carpet shampoo vacuum.  It's not ideal but it's what we're working with.  

8. What are some of your goals?

I really can't wait to pay off loans! We have one of our cars paid off and we're thinking of trading the other one in to get an SUV.  School loans take a lot out of every paycheck I have and I can't wait for a promotion.  We're also trying to plan ahead so we can have kids, but that probably won't happen for another 3-4 years.

9. How do you see yourself improving as a partner?

Responding to Ryan is really my main priority. I don't have an innate way of just thinking, "hey I should vacuum." It's really not something that comes to me naturally.  This really frustrates Ryan, so I'm working on thinking ahead and recognizing that by accomplishing x, y, and z, this will help alleviate Ryan's stress and the things that burden his part of our life.  Ryan is working on trying not to get as irritated (addressed above that he needs to be more patient).

That's basically it :) There were a couple more questions but they dive more into some of the questions already asked.  If you're in a relationship, how would you have responded to these questions?

If you liked this post, share it with others! If you feel particularly moved by it, leave a comment because I love feedback and discussion. Social media links are provided below and thanks for reading!