Holly in the Foreign Service

Well, I've disappeared into the land of Arabic.  It takes a lot of faith.  Some days I'm brilliant and can talk for 5 hours nonstop.  Some days I look at the paper and it looks like a bunch of squiggles with no meaning.  You just have to have faith that the bad days will be followed with good and just keep plodding along.  Sometimes it's hard to motivate yourself to study in the afternoons, when you're tired and you could study for 8 hours and not remember ANY of the words tomorrow, but in the end it always pays off.  You can always tell the weeks where I've put more into it.  It's not really quantifiable progress though, you just have to assume it's working until that day it all makes sense.  I'm not going to lie, though...some days I come home and go to bed at 4pm just so the day will be over.  I have one book in particular, that while an excellent instructional material, makes me want to shoot myself.  It's approximately 150 pages of, "The president is in the plane.  The president is in the private plane.  The president is in the private plane in the international airport.  The president and the Prime Minister of India were in the private plane at the international airport after successful bi-lateral talks."  After about 40 minutes I just want to run from the room screaming.

I do absolutely love my job, though.  Every now and then I have a wake-up call to what a ridiculous world I live in.  I spent the first hour of my work day last week listening to one girl describe living with native tribes in the Nuba mountains and another girl describe her small fishing village in Gabon in Arabic.  This morning I watched a documentary on Hip Hop in Morocco and then met with the filmmaker.  A few weeks ago I helped with a reception for Egyptian entry-level diplomats.  I forget that other people's lives don't revolve around these topics.  I forget that other people don't have conversations about "soft-power" and "smart power" and "people to people diplomacy."  I forget that it's strange to have the German girl in your class read about the meteor shower in Der Spiegel and then explain to you in Arabic that stars are going to fall from the sky during the night.  My favorite phrase so far is "دمك خفيف" ("damoka khafeef") which means "your blood is light" a.k.a. you're funny.  After 6 hours a day of Arabic, you have to be funny or your head will explode.

I helped host Thanksgiving Dinner in my apartment last Saturday for a bunch of my coworkers.  It was really nice.  We even went around the table and said what we were thankful for.  I love having little impromptu Thanksgivings like that, and I'm excited that as I move from post to post, I'll get to have more.

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The U.S. Government requires employees going to certain "high threat" areas to take a course that we affectionately call "Crash/Bang."  So far this week has been the coolest week of my career.  I got to "crash" cars, "bang" guns, drive an armored suburban, drive an up-armored hummer, see things blow up, skid cars around, and generally do all kinds of awesome stuff.  I cannot believe I get paid to do this!

Well, my training is finally starting to wind down.  Next week I have the "FACT" course, which according to the State Department website: "provides participants with the knowledge and skills to better prepare them for living and working in critical and high threat environments overseas. Specifically, participants are familiarized with the practical skills necessary to recognize, avoid, and respond to potential terrorist threat situations. Participants will demonstrate the practical application of techniques taught in the course and will learn how to: conduct surveillance detection; provide emergency medical care; demonstrate improvised explosive devise (IED) awareness; participate in firearms familiarization; and perform defensive/counterterrorist driving."  I'm not even sure that counts as work.

The week after next I finally get to start Arabic.  It will be nice to have some consistency in my schedule and to know that Arabic is the last hurdle I face before departure.

Life outside of training is great.  A group of us went tubing yesterday down the Shenandoah River.  I managed to escape with only one scraped knee and a fairly minor sunburn.  I need to make an effort to get outside and enjoy the warm weather more before fall starts to arrive.  I've been spending too much time indoors.

Today should be fairly low-key.  I'm thinking I may go for a run and then read by the pool for a while.  Tonight I have to do laundry and pack for my training this week.

Ok, so I've done a really BAD job of keeping up my blog.  This will be an attempt to kinda rectify some of that.

First of all: I got my assignment and will be going to Saudi Arabia.  I couldn't be happier.  I really wanted a chance to go to Saudi and I love the job I'll be doing once I arrive.  This also means I get to learn Arabic (yea!!).

In the meantime, I'm in training 40 hours a week learning different skills.  I've gotten to do some really cool things like tour a nuclear powerplant and tour the research facility at the Smithsonian.  I'll be in training full time through mid-July and then I'll be doing different short-term trainings on different topics.

I'll try to update more, but between training, getting ready to leave, and making contacts in DC I've been absolutely swamped.  Students--I miss you guys!!

Wow...it feels like it's been months since I wrote that last post.  We had class for the rest of the week.  It's been a ridiculously overwhelming amount of information and responsibility.  We did get our bid list (which I can't share with you) and it's been a crazy amount of researching different positions and different locations.  It's hard, because you get an idea in your head of where you want to go, but maybe the job available in that place is not what you want to do, or you wouldn't get to learn the language, or you were excited about experiencing the culture, but all the embassy personnel live on the military base and can't go out.  All the different posts come with different circumstances that can all weigh into your decision.  There are a few things that will probably be listed high on my list that I never imagined I would want to do.  I'll know in about 3 weeks which post I get.

The people in my group are amazing.  We're starting to get to know each other and hang out more often.  Aside from even just my group, you can't imagine how it feels to sit in the cafeteria at the Foreign Service Training Institute.  Everyone in the room speaks more than one language and has lived in multiple countries.  It is an entire room full of some of the most interesting people I've ever met, and everyone is happy to share their stories with you.

Today is dedicated to laundry, groceries, and studying French.  My former French students will be happy to know that I have a French test in the morning (and I'm not sure how I'll do on it).  Like an idiot, I sent all my French books to storage, so this morning I'll be hunting down some more.

Well, the first few days have been great and exhausting.  Lots of paperwork to fill up and lots of information.  I got my official ID badge today, so I look very important. :)  My shipment of stuff from Jackson also arrived today while I was at work, so I've nested a little bit and the apartment feels more like home.  I promise to post pictures of the updated apartment soon.  Tomorrow is my first official training day and Thursday I'll get to see the list of potential post assignments.  Right now, I'm going to BED!

Ok...so updates on the flight and my apartment.  Left the hotel at 6:20 am (I was guest of the day!--because we harassed the girl behind the desk to make me guest of the day), checked in at the airport, and flew directly to DC.  It was all fairly uneventful.  I was mostly tired and had way too much luggage for one person to carry.  From the airport I took a cab to my apartment and checked in.  The luggage was a pain again (and they didn't have a luggage cart), but the place is awesome and the people were very helpful.

The apartment is like a generic hotel room with a kitchen.  The bed is a murphy bed and when you flip it up into the wall, it's an entire mirrored wall (I'm thinking disco).  There was one of everything waiting for me here (trashcan with a trash bag in it, one new sponge, tiny bottle of dishwashing liquid, tiny hotel shampoos, a couple of bottles of water, a single serving of coffee), but by the time I got here I was STARVING...so I went to ask about restaurants and grocery stores nearby.  It turned out, the shuttle to the grocery store leaves at 1 on Sat and Sun and it was exactly one o'clock!  So I spent about an hour at the grocery and came back on the shuttle.  I'm starting to learn I need to think differently without a car.  I should have taken a backpack and bought less stuff.  Anyway, the rest of the afternoon I've been unpacking and nesting as much as I can until my air shipment gets here.  Tonight I'm meeting some of my classmates for dinner.

I know this isn't terribly exciting or reflective.  I'm mostly tired right now and wanted to do a quick update with photos for those who are interested.

FYI: You guys can post comments/send private messages to me on here (or shoot me an email).  I have no idea if anyone is actually reading this.