The Adventure Begins (soon)

8/30/06

To My Dear Ones,

As most of you know, I have been pursuing a goal for the last two years, and it has finally, like a dream, come true. On April 8, 2005, I sat down with 17,000 other people in testing centers, classrooms, and embassies across the US and around the world to take the Foreign Service Written Exam. About 4,000 of us passed. Of the 80% of those who went on to tackle the grueling, all-day practicum, the Oral Assessment, about 20% passed. And I scored in the top 25% of those passers. Today, I found out that within the next three months, I will be invited to join the Diplomatic Corps of the US Government as a Foreign Service Officer. I will be going to work for Condoleeza Rice, to work in Embassies or Consulates around the world for the next 25 years. Having already found my first heart’s desire in Fred, I have now been granted my second heart’s desire.

It feels like a miracle. I have spent the last six months agonizing over whether my health would be good enough to grant me a world wide medical clearance…required for acceptance. I knew the Top Security Clearance wouldn’t be a problem; my life has been too boring for that to have turned up any problems. When I was in high school I wanted to go to college and study International Relations and join the Foreign Service. I didn’t go to college until just a few years ago. I owe Mary Morman a great debt for encouraging and enabling that to happen. And, thanks to one of my wonderful mentors at school, Dr. Robert von Dassanowsky, I rediscovered this old and faded dream, and decided once more to pursue it. I started researching it almost 2 years ago. The more I learned, the more I knew this is exactly what I want to do with my life. And now, I’m going to get to!

Luckily, I get to take Fred with me. And probably the cat, too. Fred has also been taken with the idea of doing this work, although he has chosen to go for the slightly less onerous position of being an Office Management Specialist. His clearances aren’t done yet, and he may have to re-apply due to “timing out” but he’ll get there soon. And then we’ll be what they call a “tandem couple.” I’ll work on the management aspects of embassy work, facilities, finance, supervising foreign nationals, and he’ll be the assistant to an Ambassador or two, probably.

Where will we go? Well, Kabul, Afghanistan is not out of the question. More likely Africa or perhaps China, as that is where Dr. Rice has stated she will be shifting the focus of Diplomacy for the future. If we’re lucky, we’re really hoping for Eastern Europe, the Baltics, Central Asia (the former Soviet Republics, now referred to as “the –stans”) or even Seoul, Korea. We’ll be moving every 2-3 years, and I’ll be looking forward to learning a few new languages, and getting completely fluent in the ones I graduated with my degree from UCCS in. We’ll find out exactly where our first post will be about 6-7 weeks after I start training.

So, we’ll be moving. We’ll be leaving Colorado Springs, although we’re not going to sell our house right away. We’re going to try renting it for the next two years and see how that goes. I think we’ll be trying to keep our “home residence” as Sacramento, using my mother’s home as our “legal address” for tax and voting purposes. And, hopefully for occasional ‘home leave.’ It looks like I’ll probably be starting in January, with the class of 80 or so other new Officers on January 8th in Washington DC. If something changes, like a budget freeze or something, then that could be delayed to March or later.

We’re also shedding things. We’re getting rid of one or both of our cars, half of our furniture, most of our clothes, and even (gasp!) some of our books. At an average of ½ pound per book, our collection currently weighs in at over half a ton. And there are weight limits to what we’re allowed to bring along, wherever we go. If there is something you know we have (this is especially, but not exclusively, for family, and things we may have from other family members) that you would like to have—let me know, and we’ll see what we can do. We’ll especially be paring down the knick-knacks.

We don’t know how long we’ll be in DC. We don’t find out where we’re posted until the end of the 6-8 week training class, which is referred to as “A100” by everybody. So, if I get assigned to a post that requires language proficiency, which I hope to, and is likely, we’ll be there 6-12 months. If we get assigned to an English speaking post, we’ll be there 4-6 months. Fred is looking into a transfer with his current company, Waste Management, which has several offices around DC. He’s also keeping open the option to temp. He’s going to need to get ACL surgery on his knee before we go, which means he’ll be sidelined for at least 4 weeks at some point during all of this, too. In the meantime, he’s started his medical and security clearances for the OMS Position, and will retake the ‘test’ for it next spring when it’s offered again. It’s possible he could even be hired before I’m sent to post…which could make it interesting!

We’ve been pretty poor at keeping in touch with lots of you. In fact, I’m afraid with the computer changeover I did last Spring, I lost a lot of home and email addresses and phone numbers. So, I’ve started this blog, which you have found. There's a way that I can email you to let you know whenever I add something to it, and as soon as I figure it out, I'll let you know. We'll be using this one to post photos and a running monologue on our new lives. Please drop by once in a while, and make it a dialogue! And, along with all the other organizational things I’ll be doing in the next 90 days (that sounds so much shorter than 3 months!!!) I’ll be making sure I get all the addresses, email and street, phone numbers, and other contact information for all of you. With no TV in Botswana (I presume) we’ll have letter-writing time!

The next four months will probably be like a whirlwind. Which is a bit frightening, considering how quickly time already seems to pass these days! So, please help us keep in touch. Call, write, email. We count ourselves lucky to have you in our lives, and don’t want to lose that connection.

Love,

Robin