One week down

I’ve survived what has been explained to us as the worst week of A-100 training in the Foreign Service. We had entire days of filling out forms, PowerPoint presentations explaining the bureaucracy of the State Department, tours of the training facility, tours of Main State (the actual downtown offices), filling out more forms, and countless other little things.

You know what? It was pretty good. So if that is the worst week then I can’t wait for the rest.

There are about 75 people in my class and every one of them is interesting and brings their own unique set of skills and backgrounds to the group. A-100 is largely about socializing and building our first network of contacts and I think I have a good start. Well, after a week of classes and about four nights out socializing, it is hard not to know people. Our class is already developing a reputation with the trainers that will be hard to match for future classes (much to the training staff’s relief, I’m sure.) I would say in our class of 75 we have about 20 languages represented, from Albanian to Setswana. We have people with PhD’s and some just out of college. Some who flew in from Beijing and others who drove in from down the street. One classmate even provided a stirring rendition of the theme song to “Mr. Ed.” (If any of my classmates are reading this, I’m told he also knows the theme song to that dumb gummy bear cartoon so we’ll need to bring that up in class.) All in all, I’m humbled to be a part of the group.

Most of my time has been absorbed with studying the posts on our bidlists and identifying our highs, mediums, and lows. My initial draft will go to my Career Development Officer this week. I think we have it more or less how we want it, but if there are any FSO’s reading who want to add their input on the following, I welcome it: Jakarta, Kinshasa, Seoul, Abidjan, Nairobi, and Mexico City.

We had the rare opportunity for a brand new A-100 class to almost see the Secretary of State this week. Well, almost for me anyway. I believe a few of my classmates actually had a quick glimpse. We were in a class at Main State when the doors to our classroom were suddenly propped open by a few of our orientation staff. I didn’t pay much attention, but there was a sudden rush of people walking by in the hall and then they closed the doors again. Apparently, Madam Secretary was in that huddle of dark-suited men with guns. It all happened very quickly, but I trust that she saw how hard I was working and I’ll be up for promotion soon.

Blog Note: Along with all of the other great blog links that you see along the right side of the site, I have added a link to Globehoppers. It’s a great Foreign Service blog written by a family currently in Togo. Anytime I think the process seems complicated with just the two of us, I can read about doing it with several children and feel fortunate. Check it out.