He Said: A-100 Week One

I apologize for the delay in posting, as I'm sure there are many of you out there that have been waiting anxiously to hear about what has been going on. To say the least, this week has blown by. I cannot even believe how much has been crammed into so few days and tomorrow morning the craziness begins.

Wednesday marked the official beginning of the training to actually becoming a Foreign Service Officer. The first day of class brought the first exercise of many to practice our public speaking skills. After general announcements and housekeeping, we spent the rest of the day introducing our classmates to each other. I was completely humbled by my classmates. There are some truly amazing individuals and unique backgrounds in our class of 92... this will be an interesting 7 weeks. The second and third days of classes consisted mostly of briefings on how the State Department operates overseas. We also had the honor of hearing two former Ambassadors speak on their experiences overseas.

The real pinnacle of the week came on Thursday when we received the BID LIST! For those that don't remember, this is the sheet of all the available posts for our class. We are required to bid on every post, giving the Department an idea of where we'd prefer to go... I say "prefer" because in the end it's up to them. Don't forget, we signed up to be "Worldwide Available!!" Steph and I were so happy to see a number of Spanish speaking posts on the list. Additionally, there was an extremely diverse selection of posts from across the globe. No matter where we end up, I am confident that we will be happy based on what is available to us. Flag Day is April 10th... I will be sure to let you all know where we are assigned as soon as possible that day.

As I just mentioned, Steph came out to DC this weekend to attend spouse training. It was so nice to have her here experiencing what I have been going through first hand. She also had the opportunity to meet many of the other spouses and partners. I think meeting others who are going through the same things that we are and validating what we have been feeling was a real breath of fresh air for us both. This is such a unique experience and honor; the ability to become apart of an amazing community with whom to share the highs and lows is just gravy. In addition to both our training classes, we spent the weekend conducting research on the available posts and how we planned to bid each one. We're not quite done, but the draft is not due until Wednesday. Later next week I will be sitting down to review my bids with my Career Development Officer (CDO). Steph will be joining us by phone, as the State Department does everthing it can to accomodate the wishes of family into the decision making process.

I will try to update every fews days to let you all know what has been happening. I could never have imagined how busy this time would be, but after the bid lists get turned in, I should be able to have some more free time after class each day.