A Long Weekend

It was a three day weekend, made into a four day weekend by the lovely snow! And what, you may ask yourself, have I been doing?

Why, spazzing out about my post, of course! Bamako, Mali, a fascinating place that is going to become a reality in ten months, holds every ounce of my attention these days. Just to give you an idea, I have sixteen tabs open in my browser right now. They vary from Wikipedia to Youtube to BBC news to various educational websites about Mali. I'm listening to Diabaté Sissoko, a popular Malian musician.

My readings include discussions about the Taureg rebels, al Qaida alliances (but not really the al Qaida most of us know), cultural reference guides, history summaries, and more. I've put half a dozen books on hold at the library and marked a few more on Amazon for possible purchase.

Between bouts of Mali-intensive research, I have written an organizational change paper for class and spent time with my brother, who is staying with me until next weekend. I've also had fun e-mailing with many friends and family about Flag Day and the upcoming year of excitement.

It's been a perfectly lovely weekend, as you can tell!

--Z

Flag Day was yesterday! This is the State Department's informal ceremony notifying new Foreign Service officers of their first posting. I got one of my top choices: Bamako, Mali! My parents and some good friends were there to cheer me on, which was fantastic! 

I will go through seven months of intensive French language training (starting 2/23), followed by a few months of area studies and management training. Then, in December, I'll be off to live and work as a diplomat and management officer for the Embassy there. More on the job itself once I find out!

My schedule is pretty constant, but my plan is to try to find the odd 3-day weekend to visit family and friends as much as possible.

I'm terribly excited about this new career and first posting, and look forward to sharing it with you, readers, whoever you may be, every step of the way. If you've got any questions, any at all, send'm my way. I've probably got many of the same ones, to be honest, but hopefully many things will become clearer in the next ten months! 

Another note about Flag Day: my colleagues nominated me for the Glenn Munroe award, which is named for a past Foreign Service Officer. The description is: "Glenn was a firm believer in the importance of 'esprit de corps.'  He also believed that 'service' was the operative word in Foreign Service, and was committed to serving his country."

--Z

Jitters

It's 6:19am and I'm awake. Well, technically, I'm awake. In a few minutes I'll set out to pick up my carpool buddies, head to the fifth Friday of A-100, and remain as attentive as possible during the day's usual insane schedule. And then, at 3:30pm, after friends and family of more than seventy professionals have gathered in a room in Arlington...

Then, I will find out my first overseas Foreign Service posting. In honor of my schizophrenic mood this morning, a poem:

A Jumble

I want to run and jump and shout!

I want to run and hide and cry.

Excitement, thrill, intensity, anticipation,

Fear, apprehension, unease, dry-mouth.

New friends and colleagues around me,

Old friends and family left behind.

Overlaying everything:

passion adventure dreams.




More in approximately twelve hours...

--Z

A-100: Halfway Through

It's amazing to me that we're already halfway through A-100. Some of my classmates are more surprised that we still have three weeks left. It's a matter of perspective and anticipation, I suppose. In any case, the last two weeks have been a continued stream from the fire hydrant of State Department information, organization, culture, and processes.

My emotional numbness lasted until late in the second week and then somehow started to wear off. In the third week I started feeling less like a drowning elephant flailing around, which is a relief. This week, I handed in my "ranking" of our bid list, which involves marking each of about a hundred possible posts with H, M or L (high, medium, or low). And now it's completely out of my hands! The Career Development Officers will take all of my classes rankings, and their stated preferences (like, good school for kids, or in my case, opportunity to learn a language), and make post assignments. 

Ranking the posts on the bid list was an interesting exercise. First, I had to learn about each post: Where is it? How big is the embassy? What do people at the post think of it? What kind of job is it? How "difficult" is it, and how dangerous? Does it sound interesting? What are the travel opportunities, ability to mix with local communities, etc? And doing this for such a large list was pretty overwhelming. 

With the help of my new colleagues as well as my parents, I came up with a pretty good ranking, though, and once I submitted it, I felt a huge weight lift. Many of my colleagues report feeling the same way. The lectures and lessons are much easier and more fun to sit through now, without the bid list hanging over us. For me, it's nice to be able to become absorbed in the lessons and forget about - or at least, avoid thinking about - where I might get posted. 

Socially, I've gotten together with classmates several times. Last night I organized a very successful Ethiopian dinner, attended by over twenty classmates/spouses!

All is going well... just 13 days until Flag Day...

--Z

A-100: Week 1

My class of 70+ new foreign service officers is a really interesting an amazing group of people, ranging in age, experience, attitude and interests. There are married with kids types, and I can't imagine how they're managing their family expectations! There are also quite a few singles, like me. Every one of them is remarkable in some way!

Monday consisted primarily of in-processing: paperwork, briefings on retirement, medical coverage, and badging, and many welcome speeches and introductions. 

Tuesday was our first day at the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) in Virginia, a very cool campus where foreign service officers get their training, from orientation to area studies to languages. In orientation we are required to wear business formal clothing - for men, this means suit and tie; for women, it means a jacket with slacks, skirts, or dresses - but we're the only ones dressed that way, so we're easy to pick out as newbies. The other folks on campus remind me very much of college students: studying in the halls, listening to headphones, schlepping books and papers from here to there. There's a "quad" area outside with pathways through small grassy hills. The cafeteria offers a nice range of hot and cold, healthy and not, and for many different dietary types. The auditoriums are named "Kennan" and other famous diplomats and Secretaries of State. There are rooms lined with computers and halls lined with comfy chairs sit in while studying. 

On Wednesday we got our "bid list" which shows a list of all possible posts with language requirements and approximate start dates. We have a surprising number of Western posts available: Toronto and Vienna, for example. And then there are the Asia/Africa posts: Mali or Burma or China, to name a few. And in South America there are several too, many of which are in Mexico. There are some surprisingly (to me, anyway) "nice" posts, like Auckland and Bern. We have to submit a 'preferences' worksheet by this coming Wednesday, which gives our Career Development Officers (CDOs) an idea of what factors we consider important. Then we have to rank each post as high, medium, or low, and submit that list in a week and a half. Whew!

Thursday and Friday we learned about various resources at FSI for researching posts, received history and organization lessons, and got to hear speakers from each of the regional bureaus in the State Department. 

Although our days consist primarily of receiving information, by each evening I'm exhausted and go to bed early. On Friday I found out at a happy hour that many of my new colleagues are feeling the same way. 

The hardest part for me in all this, I think, is the idea that I need to pick which countries I want to live in, while having no real idea yet of what it is I'll be doing, day in and day out. More than I expected, I miss my routine of work at NOAA, and the cadre of people that I would work with. Now each day is a surprise and a huge mish-mash of meeting new people (it takes awhile to meet 75 new people, all as confused and excited as me) and trying to make sense of the new information being fire-hosed at me. I also have to keep straight all the usual, personal stuff: what bills need paying, grocery shopping and laundry and correspondence with friends and family. 

It's incredibly overwhelming! There are days when I don't feel in the least excited about the upcoming prospects, when I feel emotion-les and tired, and this is weird for me. I'm generally a "feelings" kind of person and take my cues from what emotions are within me at the moment. The only thing I can figure is that the unknown is making me a bit scared and apprehensive, and once February 13 is over, I'll lighten up a bit. Friday, February 13, is the date when I get my assignment, training requirements, and ship-out date. 

It can't come fast enough for me! In the meantime, I will be learning as much as possible about the State Department, the Foreign Service, and really, about myself in this new role of diplomat. 

--Z

New Year, New Adventure

Just two days left of work at NOAA, then a weekend, and then it's off to the Foreign Service races! I can't believe it's finally here...

The last few weeks have been lovely: 

- lots of shopping with a style-savvy friend to stock up my business professional wardrobe

- the fabulous parental units came up to DC to spend Dec 25-28 with me, during which time we cooked and checked out museums and talked and laughed. It was an excellent long weekend! 

- much pondering, worrying, anticipating, and wondering about my new career path

- meeting other local hires in my Foreign Service orientation class, including returned Peace Corps volunteers, current State Dept employees, and amazing work experiences and personalities

- a quiet and warming new year's eve spent with a good friend eating ravioli and watching movies

- organizing a few welcome wagon activities for folks in my class flying in to DC this week/weekend

And now, it's just a few days away! I've found a group to carpool to training with, which will be nice. Our first day, though, we'll all get to "Main State" on our own. That's the nickname of the Department of State (DOS) main administrative building. There we'll get processed into DOS, including badges and myriads of other paperwork. 

On day two, we'll head for the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) in Arlington, VA, and that's when orientation really begins. I don't really know what to expect!

It's a grand adventure ahead, and I find that saying my goodbyes at NOAA, while bittersweet, also intensifies my excitement about joining the Foreign Service. I will, however, seriously miss the incredible people I've worked with over the past several years. It's the side of satellite technology and weather prediction that goes unseen by most of the public, but I can tell you firsthand that the women and men who make satellite data accessible on a 24x7x365 basis, and get that data to the folks who use it, are a determined, dedicated, funny, and incredibly big-brained group. 

It seems trite and cliché to type this, but I'll do it anyway: it was truly my honor to have gotten the chance to work, learn, and grow at the NOAA Satellite Operations Facility, with old friends and new, government and military and contractor. Thank you to any and all who welcomed me to their team at the NSOF!