He Said: Swearing In, the end of A-100

Wow, what a whirlwind these past seven weeks have been. As I look back, it's hard to imagine where Steph and I were just a short few months ago, heading down such a different path. Today, after my parents, Steph's parents, and Steph were all safely on planes back to MN, I took a little time to go for a run. When we used to live in DC, running around town was one of my favorite things to do. Where else in this world could you run for 40 mins and see a number of national treasures and landmarks along the way. On my run today though, I realized how truly changed my life has become, and that Steph and I have now entered a completely different world, exposed and aware of so much more. Along my route this afternoon I encountered both the Saudi Arabian Embassy, and Swedish Embassy. During the more than three years that Steph and I lived here before, I had never come across either. As I ran by today, it was strange to think that in six short months, I too will be working in an Embassy

This past Friday, I was so lucky to be joined by my parents, Steph's parents, and Steph for my official swearing in as a Foreign Service Officer. After a short reception with my classmates and their families, we filed into one of the auditoriums at the main State Department building. What a treat we had for our ceremony. Not only were we able to hear Ambassador Bill Burns, currently the highest ranked Foreign Service Officer still in service, but we were also honored with the presence of former Secretary of State, Lawrence Eagleburger, the ONLY FSO to ever serve as Secretary of State. Secretary Eagleburger actually administered our oath after giving a short speech. In his remarks, Sec. Eagleburger choked up a bit after mentioning how proud he was, and how proud we should all be to have the opportunity to represent the greatest country on Earth. I must say, this short moment encapsulated all my feelings for this journey we are about to endure. I am so proud of my country and so honored to be able to serve in a capacity where my actions could make a difference for America. Below is the oath I took, and above is a picture of me taking the oath of service.

"I, Brian Beckmann, do solemn that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God."

Tomorrow I begin the next phase of my training. I will spend the next three months learning Spanish full-time. It's so cool to think that learning a new language will be my job. What a great opportunity. It's also a little nerve wracking to think that I need to get to a certain fluency in the language to be able to do my job. I'm looking forward to it and think that I'm motivated enough to study hard.

He Said/She Said - Caracas, Venezuela Here We Come!

We apologize for the slight delay in posting, but as you can guess, the last 12+ hours have been pretty crazy. It is official... around October we will be heading to Caracas, Venezuela for two years.

Those we have talked to have been wondering how we're feeling about this assignment. We'd be lying if we didn't say we were very happy and a little disappointed at the same time... not to mention completely shocked. It turns out that a few positions on our list had been removed and duplicate assignments had been added. So, when Caracas had already been assigned we were blown away to see another Venezuelan flag come out and to hear our name announced.

Venezuela will be a good post in that Brian will learn Spanish and will be speaking it quite well by the end of the tour. As a Vice-Consul he'll be interacting daily with the public handling visa requests. The political atmosphere with Hugo Chavez will also make the situation interesting to witness first hand. One of the biggest challenges we anticipated with Venezuela will be the challenge of finding work for Steph. The political situation has caused many multi national companies to leave Venezuela and there may not be many opportunities outside of the embassy. We will have to wait and see what the situation is really like as we really start to dig into the opportunities.

Venezuela is a beautiful country with opportunities to see Angel Falls, Margarita Island, and eat lots of Arepas. We are excited about our new adventure and hope to see many of you there!!

He Said: The Flag Day CountdownI

I can't believe that we're finally here... the night before Flag Day. I didn't mention that it was coming up in my last posting because, well frankly, I was too tired when I was writing and it would've taken up way too much space. Now, here I am, the night before Flag Day, waiting for Steph and my parents to arrive. I'm going to be so glad to see them, especially Steph. I can't believe I haven't seen her in an entire month. I'm very much looking forward to having someone else in the apartment for a bit. I just don't think I'm that good at living alone.

The week leading up to Flag Day has definitely gone quickly. On Monday and Tuesday our Core Skills Rotation continued. Team Monroe spent the two days learning about and practicing our public speaking skills. On Monday we spent 8 hours reviewing tips, tricks, and elements to be used for all kinds of public speaking. We even got down to reviewing appropriate, off-the-cuff, presentation practices. On Tuesday we actually delivered speeches we wrote t6:he night before. My speech was about freedom of the press and was delivered to a fake audience of journalism students in Venezuela. They videotaped our speeches for us to review on our own and I was pretty happy with my performance. In fact, the instructor told me one portion of my speech was "perfect." Too bad I ruined the 6 and a half minute speech with a two minute conclusion. In fact, I actually delivered two conclusions on accident... apparently a "call to charge" is a good enough ending and you don't have to wrap the speech back to the intro if you do that. Unfortunately, I did both... oh well!

The last two days have been filled with some wrap-up and policy sessions. I can definitely feel my classmates getting anxious. I can't blame them. I'm so ready for tomorrow to come. To think that in less than an hour the next two or so years of our lives will be set. It will be good to finally know and be able to look forward.

I know that many of you are going to be extremely curious about where we get posted. I promise that we will try to get to a computer tomorrow to post where we're going, but we'll get something up by Saturday morning for sure.

The Flag Day ceremony will take place in the late afternoon tomorrow. The ceremony is expected to last about an hour, which is pretty impressive considering our class is over ninety people! The ceremony consists of the Ambassador in charge of our placements raising the flag of a country. Sometimes they announch the country the flag belongs to and sometimes they leave it up for the class to announce. Once the country is identified, the Ambassador lists the jobs and people from our class that will be heading to each post. After receiving your flag and getting your picture taken, we have the opportunity to review the packet of information that tells us when we'll be leaving and what our next round of training will be. There's not much to the whole thing as you can tell, but obviously there's a lot riding on that short hour.

That's about it. We'll be sure to let you know where we'll be for the next two years of our lives. Wish us luck!!