Lost in the blogs...

Instead of spending my time working on my speech for next week I spent last night and this morning reading blog after blog of different Foreign Service Officers. I have spent a considerable amount of time with this amazing list of Flag Day experiences (http://www.travelorders.com/flag-day-stories/) so now that is all I can think about.

I was really shocked when I got the e-mail about the Foreign Service this past April. I took the Oral Assessment in September 2010 (I honestly cannot recall when I took the written test, but it might have been February of that same year), and I was excited about passing for probably two months, then the examiner did my background check and I was excited again. In January 2011 I got a letter saying I had been added to the register, but my score was relatively low that I figured I would never be called so I never even checked my ranking on the Consular Register. I kept checking the Yahoo group for a few months but I was pretty sure I was at least 100 people away from being called, so when my husband was offered a government job I stopped checking it completely around the fall of 2011.

Fast forward to April 2012. We have moved across the country for Scott's new job, I just started a new job and am a single class period away from completing my master's degree in history. The morning before my last class I wake up to an e-mail from the Registrar's Office....and I am in utter shock.

I was staying in my parent's house in Colorado so after running upstairs to announce it to my mom I had to call Scott, who was thankfully already awake back in Ohio. I finished my class and we said we would discuss it seriously when I returned home. A long and serious conversation, which this was sure to be, is not a good idea over the phone. I was back in Ohio by Sunday and we had until Thursday to accept or decline the offer. After a lot of talking, thought, and prayer we knew we had the right decision. Foreign Service here I come!

I am still a little in shock. We talk about it everyday now and every hour I have some new piece of information to offer Scott about A-100 class, living overseas, etc. I figure he will tire of it at some point but right now I simply cannot get enough information.

But seriously, that speech is not going to write itself....