Language Training

Only about a month into language training at this point, but so far things are going well. 

My class consists of me and one other person from the Dept of Defense (yeah, Cantonese is not a super popular language). We are in class 5 hours a day and have two teachers, one teaches the morning and one in the afternoon. The other hours of the day are reserved for language lab and self-study. 

So far, everything is pretty great. My classmate and teachers are all fun people and I really enjoy the hours spent in class. It is challenging to find the motivation to study sometimes but that's just part of 'school.' 

I want to say more but all life consists of at the moment is language class and hanging at home. Life is grand but pretty routine right now :)

Finally Fall!

Today is the first time it's felt like fall and it makes me so excited I can barely stop smiling. I had to wear a jacket to take the dogs out this morning and I'm planning on going for a stroll around DC this evening because I get to do so while wearing a hoodie!

Fall also means that I am now in language training full time. I've had two and weeks of class and so far it's going well. It is also ridiculously intimidating and I have no idea how I'm going to pass a fluency test in 7 months. But my classmate is great and my teachers are great so even if its a grueling seven months, it should at least be fun. 

One Year Post-Flag Day

One year ago, on a warm Friday afternoon, I was handed a Washington, D.C. flag and learned I'd be staying in Washington for my first assignment. It was not at all what I expected and I was sure it would be a tough year.

Today, on a warm Friday evening, I left my office after fond farewells with two bags full of stuff that I had to take home. I nearly cried because it has been such an incredible year with such incredible people and I was not ready to leave.

I am so thankful that this was my first assignment in the Foreign Service. I have learned so much, but my biggest takeaway is that sometimes the thing you think you don't want is going to be the best thing for you. I am looking forward to the next step (long-term language training!) and I hope my future tours are as awesome as this one. I have the distinct feeling they will be :)

the silly past

I've had a couple of other blogs in the past, but last week, to my surprise, I found one I had completely forgotten about. I started it in 2004 (nearly ten years already!) and I posted on it as recently as 2010 but for some reason I hadn't thought it about it years.

I can't believe some of the stuff I used to put on there and that I left all of it public. As I was going through changing the privacy settings I was rereading all of the things I used to write about. It was like reading a diary (something I've never bothered to keep in real life) and sometimes I was so vague even I didn't know what I was referring to.

If facebook had been as big back then as it is now I would have been one of those girls that posts angst-filled, vague statuses and then refuse to explain anything. Thank goodness I can hide all my past absurdity behind privacy settings. But maybe I'll read these posts again someday and think the same thing. Hopefully not...

Rebellious Apartment People

I may have mentioned before that the building our apartment is in is an enclosed area so that is almost feels like a community sometimes. Its the first time I've lived in a place like this where I run into the same people in the halls and the elevator and see them around the property (its a big property; gated, with three buildings, two dog runs, a park, a pools, two gyms, etc.)

After living here for about 10 months I have come to a conclusion about my building - we are the troublemakers in the eyes of management. And better than that, my wing of the building houses the real rebels.

(A quick note important for these stories: the air conditioning system in our building is centrally run and is connected to all the other units in the building. They have to all be on cool or all on hot. Its weird, but thats the way it is)

Earlier this year, during the transition from chilly days to warm ones, the management put out a notice that although they knew the forecast was for 80+ degrees (possibly the low 90s), they were not going to turn on the air conditioning for at least the next three days because it might cool down again. They put a notice under everyone's door and pasted one in every elevator. The notice in the elevator in our wing  soon contained my building-mate's feelings.

Writing with many different pens soon appeared. The comments ranged from mild profanity to organized group calling of the front desk to voice our displeasure. The sign was eventually torn down, reposted and finally removed by the management. Much to our surprise, the A/C was turned on the next day. The people had triumphed! (And it never got cool again).

A couple months later (again when the temperature was supposed to be in the 90s), we got a notice that the A/C had broken and it was going to take a couple days to fix. But its ok, according to the notice, the A/C in the gym on the top floor would still be on.

As you can guess, the apartment rebels in our wing were not pleased. Notes were written all over the notice in the elevator on our side (in the other two elevators...nothing was written). We may or may not have added our feelings to the paper. Surprise, surprise, the air conditioning was fixed the same day.

After these two events, people realized this was an effective means to get things accomplished in the building. Soon after another note appeared in our elevator, this time from a fellow rebel. They were displeased with the knocking and pounding that seemed to take place at all ours of the day in one of the apartments in our wing. (I knew exactly what they were talking about and am pretty sure the culprit is the apartment right above ours. Seriously, it sounds like a wood shop or something up there all the time). Again, people agreed, organized calling to the front office, and the culprit is only rarely heard from these days. Very effective.

This week the management is having with the A/C again, so laminated notices about keeping windows closed have appeared in the elevators. Guess which elevator there is not a notice in?

Apparently we are in the rebel section of the building that cannot be trusted with a notice in the elevator and they've laminated the other ones to stop the rebellion from spreading. I like it. We'll see how long they can keep us down....

Less than 2 months

In about seven weeks my first tour as a Foreign Service Officer will be complete. 

That seems both far away and so close at the same time. A number of people I've met while working in the Department are finishing their current tours and moving on. Some are headed to different offices in the building; others are going straight overseas (domestic tours don't get home leave); still others are like me, they will be headed to long-term training. I am really excited about the final group. 

While I have been learning the ins and outs of being a desk officer over the last year, most of my A-100 classmates have been in long-term language training together. 

At first I was bummed to be missing out on getting to know all of them better. They would see each other in the halls or the lunchroom, some even had class together. While they had each other I was in an environment where people had friends all over the building, while I could name the people I knew on one hand. I was worried that when I finally went to training I would be on my own there as well, since all my classmates will have moved on to their overseas postings. 

Now as I approach my training, I am looking forward to it not just because I'm thrilled to learn a new language, but also because I want to get to know all my current co-workers better. 

Almost everyday I find out someone else I work with now will be at FSI with me for the next year. As much as I wish I would have had all that extra time to get to know my A-100 classmates better, I am really looking forward to learning about my colleagues outside of the work place. It's going to be another fun year. 

Good

Every Friday I get an "End of Week" report from our Embassy in Dili, Timor-Leste detailing the events of that week; programs that started, events the Ambassador or other officers attended, the status of bilateral issues, etc. This week there was a domestic violence awareness event. Men of Timor-Leste walked through the streets wearing shirts that said something to the effect of "Real Men Don't Hit Women" and were sponsored by the U.S. Embassy.

There was also a note about an agricultural project that USAID is working on to help Timorese farmers diversify their crops and start selling produce so they can earn an income. Last week there was a note about a project to help pregnant mothers living in rural areas get medical advice and prenatal care.

There were so many reasons I wanted to join the State Department, and this was one of the biggest. There are a lot of negative things in the news right now about the Department and the U.S. government in general, but today I was overwhelmed by how much good there is. There are so many people, like myself, who want to help the world and serve our country at the same time.

From my desk in Washington I help move these projects along and get them the attention they need but I can't wait to get out there and be the person working with the kids who want to learn English so they can get a scholarship to study in the U.S. I want to help a couple get a passport for their newly adopted baby. I want to help parents find the child they fear has gone missing in a foreign country. I want to get a new project started that helps people out of poverty.

Yeah, there is going to be bad. But you can't let the bad outweigh the good because there is so much good.

Rushing Headlong into the Future

When I was a kid I was always excited for the future. I wanted to be older, grown-up, getting to do things like drive a car and go to high school (and then go to college) and then be an FBI agent or whatever crazy thing I thought I wanted to be that day. I was always excited for the next thing and it didn't matter what it was.

Apparently I have not changed at all in this respect.

People always say you should savor the time you have, but I have never really understood how to do that. I can't stop time or hold on to anything for any longer than I can move past the moments I'm done with.

The last couple years have flown by. Like, in a ridiculously fast way. When we first moved to Ohio, I thought we were going to spend years ago. I called people, got involved in the historical society (I was the youngest person by 30 years, they were so excited to have me), got involved in a church, found a house I really liked; I had plans to stay. A mere four months later, I had plans to leave.

I wasn't think about rushing into the future while we were there. I expected we'd live there between three and five years, so I was digging in. Now I find that I really miss our time there. It was a quiet and pleasant life. I wonder if part of my fondness is the peace of mind I had while I lived there and that fact that maybe I was savoring that moment, even though I didn't even realize it.

Now, I am once again trying to rush into the future. Don't get me wrong, what I am doing right now is really great. Sometimes I can't believe they let me work on these issues and talk to Ambassadors and foreign dignitaries. But I cannot wait for what is next. In a few short months my first tour will be over and I will be heading into long-term language training at the National Foreign Affairs Training Center. I am so looking forward to that.

But even once I'm in training, I will want to rush into what is next: finally going overseas for the State Department. I want to hurry my way out to post and get to the consulate and learn my new job and be totally overwhelmed again like I was when I started this tour.

I can't stop wanting to rush to the next thing. And I imagine I am going to be feeling this way a lot in a career where you move every few years.

One year ago today

On April 27, 2012 I woke up in my parent's basement in a room without windows (I called it the "dungeon;" truth is, I prefer it over the adjoining room because I like to sleep in total darkness). I was in Colorado because I was finishing my last class for my master's degree; Scott was still in Ohio because we'd moved there in January. It was a Friday morning and the next day was my very last classroom session for my degree. I was headed back to Ohio on Sunday afternoon.

I grabbed my phone, as I do most mornings, and checked my email. And there was an email from the Department of State. I was invited to be in the July A-100 class for the Foreign Service. I was in shock. I had stopped paying attention to the Foreign Service message boards months ago and I knew I was going to expire off the register in July. In the back of my mind, I always thought it would be nice to hear from them, but I had honestly given up hope.

Here I am a year later. I live in Washington, D.C. and I am a few months away from finishing my first assignment (first tour DC positions are only one year tours). I've met former Secretary Clinton (on more than one occasion) and now Secretary Kerry. I've visited Timor-Leste and Indonesia as a representative of the United States, places I never thought I would see. I got to bid farewell the Ambassador from Timor-Leste at a reception at Blair House (its an awesome place - http://blairhouse.org). Soon I may be working on the credentials for a new Ambassador from Timor-Leste as well as preparing our Ambassador to Timor.

If you had asked me on April 26th how the next year was going to look, it would have included a lot of discussion about rural Ohio and looking into how to get a teaching job out there. Now, my coming year includes learning a language I know little about (Cantonese) and preparing to move to Asia.

It all just keeps getting better and better. I can't imagine what two years from now will look like.

Favorite Things

Do you know why you like your favorite things? Like your favorite color, why is it your favorite color?

I don't really have a favorite color but when I was a kid and someone would ask I would usually say "seafoam green, cerulean blue, and daffodil yellow" because I had three crayons and that is what was written on their sides. And those three colors looked the best together. Silly childhood memories.

One memory I've been thinking of a lot lately is why my favorite flower is my favorite. Spring has come to DC (also a little bit of summer, in April...) and my favorite flower is all over the place. I love it. Daffodils in all different colors and styles are everywhere.

Why the daffodil? It's not because of the crayon, although this might be why I liked that crayon. It's because of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. I used to watch it all the time when I was young, (the original one with Gene Wilder, not this crazy technicolor one with Johnny Depp) and it was so magical. I wanted wallpaper I could lick. I wanted gum that was a whole meal (I'm still holding out hope on that one). I wanted everything in that factory.

There is a scene when the kids are exploring on their own for the first time and Wonka sings a little song while he strolls around. At one point he picks a daffodil and pops the top off and drinks from it like a teacup with a saucer still in his hand. And then he bites the flower like its a biscuit. For some reason, I loved this. And daffodils have been my favorite flower ever since.

I am not sure I could give reasons as to why all of my favorite things are my favorite, but the idea that a daffodil could also be tasty treats makes it my favorite.

Road to Recovery

It has been a tense couple of days but MeiLi is slowly getting better. Today she brought me a toy but she wouldn't fetch it. Maybe tomorrow.

How fast things can change

Shocking really, how fast things can change. It takes no time at all.

A post or two below this one is a picture of my dog, MeiLi, in the bathtub. She's round and happy and stuck, but she's healthy. That picture is so recent. But if I took a picture of her right now, you would see a completely different dog.

Last night MeiLi was seizing and lolling her head back with a completely vacant look in her eyes. She had no idea who I was, where she was, nothing. It was awful.

On Saturday, MeiLi was pretty ill. She was having tremors and extending her legs all the way out and throwing up all her food. She has been sick before, but it was the stiff legs and shaking that really concerned me. By Sunday she was a little improved, but still not her old self. We kept saying, "If she's not better by tomorrow..." then we would take her to a vet. Each day she seemed a little better and by Wednesday she was back to her old self. When I came home from work we played and she ran around (still didn't want to walk very far outside, but she's always been more of an "indoor" dog). I was relieved. The dogs get sick, but they always get over it; it never lasts very long. Except, she didn't eat. I should have noticed that.

Yesterday, she deteriorated fast. She got sick three times and still hadn't eaten anything. Scott picked me up from work and we took her to the vet. They checked her out and diagnosed her with motion sickness, mentioned other possible problems, and sent us on our way. They noted she only weighed six lbs., a full two lbs. less than she normally weighs. In a tiny dog, thats a big deal. But I figured that was it. Glad we took her in.

Six hours later a different dog, the one I mentioned in the beginning, was the dog I was holding in my arms. I was just trying to keep her head pointed the right way and I clutched her little body to me each time she seized up. At 11:30pm we headed to a 24-hour urgent care, got lost on the way there (a super frustrating extra ten minutes that felt like an eternity) and handed frail MeiLi over to be put into ICU.

Difficult hours and hundreds of dollars later we learn she would have died in mere hours had we not brought her in. Her glucose was 24. I don't know medical things, but that is really bad. Really, really bad. That is what was causing her seizing. They found out she has Addison's disease, which is something we will have to treat for the rest of her life. It also makes her very susceptible to problems in stressful situations, which is not ideal when you belong to a Foreign Service Officer.

I always had a little bit of pride in the way our dogs handle moves. In the last couple years we moved four times and they were troopers every time. The drive across the country, no big deal. They settled perfectly in the car and then made the drive from DC to Ohio a number of times too. But Addison's is a genetic disorder than manifests right around the age MeiLi is now. And now we are going to have to examine what situations, like moving around the world, might bring on stress and prepare her with medications.

We are moving to Hong Kong in 2014. But MeiLi is not. It would be too hard on her. We wouldn't be able to medicate her properly and the stress of flying in cargo alone for 14+ hours and then being in quarantine in Hong Kong for 4 months would be too much. We had already decided that they were not coming, but I was holding out a little bit of hope. Maybe something would change and it would be easier and more humane to get them there. But this just clenches it. For the foreseeable future, the United States is the only country MeiLi will ever live in. And that breaks my heart just a little bit.

Exciting Times

I feel like if there is any word I overuse, it is probably exciting. But there are just so many exciting things going on and that have been going on for over a year. I am constantly excited about the future, so I just keep expressing it with the same word! Perhaps I need to invest in a thesaurus.

Anyway, things have been exciting! Non-stop, as always.

With work: I sent out my first cable today! Like, the first cable that has my name as the drafter. And people actually have to read it and carry out some meetings based on it. Thats exciting.

With home: Scott has finally moved here! I walk around all day every day with a silly smile on my face because I know that when I go home the house won't be empty. And for the next few weeks we have the same schedule, which is so exciting.

With the future: We are headed to Hong Kong! I didn't think we were going to get our first choice (again) but we did. I am thrilled. We are thrilled. But honestly, I would be excited to be going almost anywhere. The world is a fascinating place and I can't wait to experience all of it.

In short: life is exciting.

Silly Dogs

One of the joys of owning animals is when they things they do make you laugh.

Lately, MeiLi gets stuck in the bathtub. It's a shallow tub and both dogs used to jump in and out at will. But last week I heard whining coming from the bathroom and there was MeiLi, in the tub, little dog prints around the edge where she'd tried to get out but hadn't been able to. Since then she's been stuck a half dozen more times and I've had to help her out. I don't know if this happens when I'm not home and she just sucks it up and jumps out or what. I might be enabling her by helping her out when I'm home.

Funnier than this, however, is when the dogs put themselves to bed. During the week I go to bed pretty early and they either get in their kennel or on the bed (if Scott is not here) and we go to sleep. On the weekend I stay up considerably later, but the dogs expect their schedule. I go in and find MeiLi already in her kennel, settled down for the night. There is rarely any fuss about getting in bed, but it makes me laugh when they just do it themselves.

Even as I write this...

Stuck in the tub....again...

Breaking News

On the "where are we going next" front, we have news. Well, a little news. So Wuhan, China is not our destination for sure. I found out last week officially that my assignment was broken. I had heard of this happening to other people before and in the back of my mind I felt like until we arrived I wouldn't feel like it was for sure. Clearly I was spot on with that one.

So after I found out the assignment was broken, as I mentioned before, I didn't have a lot of information about what comes next. I talked to my Career Development Officer and she said that they could offer me a full list of all the positions available in the world (yeah, the WORLD. This is the kind of awesomeness I get to choose from) but after looking at my preferences from the last time I bid she guessed I would end up bidding on all China posts high. I told her she was right and could save us both the time; her searching to see what was available and me feeling like I needed to look into all the places on the list.

So here was my list: Hong Kong, Beijing, or Guangzhou. Not a bad option among them. We get to go to China and we get to go in 2014. We talked debated and submitted our preferences for which one we would prefer over the others. This coming week we should find out where we are headed.

While this may not seem like a big deal ("you're still headed to China, how different are the cities?"), its a pretty big adjustment when thinking about our future. Wuhan was more "rural"than these three cities. While it still has a population larger than most major American cities, it is very non-Western. So non-Western that we would have been able to bring a shipment of consumables (any non-perishable foods and other items that we wanted to bring with us). Now we won't get that. Honestly, we were really excited about living in one of the most non-Western options when it comes to the locations of the U.S. consulates in China. Now we will be living in a place where there is a fair chance people speak English, or in the case of Hong Kong, everyone does. Either way, we are thrilled to be going back to China, but now we have to readjust our thinking on what life will be like there.

But hopefully, come Tuesday, we can start looking planning on life in a new locale!

Love

Sometimes I am absolutely overwhelmed by the love I feel for my husband. Like how am I even capable of feeling that kind of love for someone is beyond me. And then to imagine that God loves us even more than that? It's unfathomable.

Silliness of the day

6 1/2 years later, we are finally using the last of the leftover napkins from our wedding. This is what happens when your in-law's family owns a print shop.

The very last Wedding napkin...I can't bring myself to just clean up a mess with it....

In other news, work in DC has been amazing. I've been able to work on interesting projects and meet fascinating people. I can't go into all of it, but eventually I'll get into some of it.

I don't think I ever mentioned where I was headed after my DC tour was over. I bid again last October and was assigned to Wuhan, China. I was supposed to be headed there in summer 2014. If the past tense of this paragraph hasn't tipped you off then let me make it clear: I am no longer going to Wuhan. I found out accidentally on Monday and officially today. No word yet on what the future holds for us, but it's not Wuhan, China.