Our next assignment!

A few weeks after handshakes, I'm finally getting around to announcing our next assignment: Mexico City! I will be a deputy consular manager in a rotating position- my first midlevel assignment. I will gain some really excellent experience in multiple consular units.

We will arrive next summer. This time, since I speak Spanish, we sadly won't have an extended period of time in DC. Just home leave and a few weeks of management training.

We are so excited about so many things- MEXICAN FOOD, quick flights home to the U.S., beaches and other travel opportunities, speaking Spanish again, learning more about Mexican culture, returning to Puerto Vallarta where we were married years ago, seeing more family and friends during our tour since we will be so close, MEXICAN FOOD, being able to find anything at post (we have Costco, Walmart, Crate and Barrel, etc), I could go on and on...

The Mexican Flag in food 

Midlevel consular bidding was challenging and dragged on for nearly four months in my case (I started researching posts in July and we received the handshake offer on November 9). But I got a great job out of it, so I really can't complain.

One thing I find interesting is that even as I'm celebrating Mexico, I'm mourning the loss of other posts that I came to love over the months of research. In particular, Bratislava and Helsinki (if you are reading this and got this job, please let me know! I'm really curious who was assigned). We bid a bunch of small European posts where I would be the sole consular officer/consular chief. After two large posts, this kind of job makes sense for me, but they were highly bid and I decided to push Mexico City when I did not hear any feedback from those jobs, other than polite thanks when I contacted them. I later heard I was on the short list for a few of these countries, so I'm hopeful that someday I will get the chance.

Every country, every job has its pros and cons. If we had gotten a European post, we would have spent 6-11 months in D.C. learning a language I probably would never use again after that tour. My kids would grow up with a smattering of different languages but not really be bilingual. We would have some great time in the U.S. with our family, but then be rather far away for three years. I'm sure we would have seen family a little more than we do here in China, but those countries are still a day's travel away. We would have most likely lived in a house, which I long for after five years in apartments. We would have lived in a smaller city and done some traveling around Europe, which neither of us have seen extensively. On the other hand, my job as the only consular officer would have made it harder to take vacation.

Instead, we got enormous Mexico City, with its direct 5 hour flight to Washington, San Francisco, NYC, and many other places. I will have many colleagues with whom to share the responsibilities (and therefore, vacation time hopefully won't be as difficult). My kids (and husband?) will likely learn Spanish pretty well in those three years- I hope to be able to call my kids bilingual when we leave. We will see our families and friends a lot and be able to travel home at a moment's notice. Mexico City is a cosmopolitan city with wonderful museums, parks, restaurants, and more. We will be able to explore Mexico as well as perhaps the U.S. southwest. However, we will likely live in an apartment, though we don't know yet.

Like I said, pros and cons, pros and cons.

So much to do...

I'm having some serious blog guilt right now. I haven't posted about all our trips and my son's birthday, haven't gone through the hundreds of photos to send to our family, just behind on things.

I leave for a TDY (temporary duty) in London in about 1.5 weeks, and I have two major work projects to finish in my spare time, while also working in NIV for 2 weeks (where they are swamped and under staffed) and trying to wrap up cases in IV (where they are swamped and under staffed).
 
I wanted to stay late today to work on said projects, but was slammed by an allergy attack this am, which caused me to sneeze every two seconds while interviewing applicants. Rather embarrassing and miserable, not to mention gross. Going home was not an option! But staying late was not either.

We submitted our bid list on Sunday, so in the back of my head I'm wondering where we will be posted (my guess: China) and when we will know. I'm counting the days. Hoping to hear by early next week.

So, I have a few minutes w/o the kids at home...I'm going to go organize some photos or something.

Bidding on our next post!

Just got back from R&R last night. I have so much to blog about- M's birthday party from before we left and of course our wonderful visits with family and friends. For now, though, I want to blog about something of interest to many: the bid list for our next assignment!

The summer bid list came out 2 days after we arrived in Oregon, which means I have to beg forgiveness from my husband's family for basically disappearing into the computer for most of our visit. Yes, it seems as though we just arrived at post, but we've been here 10 months tomorrow and we bid approximately one year before arriving at our next post.

We can only bid on jobs that match our timing. Each job has an identified arrival date, with some jobs requiring bidders who already know the language and others including time for language training. We are eligible to leave post in August 2013, and most languages start training in Sept. 2013, which works well for us. However, if a job starts in Sept. 2013 and requires Russian language, I can't bid on it since I don't speak Russian.

The first thing we noticed right away is that almost none of the Spanish-speaking countries match my timing. Only about 10 jobs do, and they are not places we would love to go. I had been having an internal debate for months, wondering if we should try to stay in a Spanish-speaking country for the sake of my kids, who are speaking beautiful Spanish right now. One of my goals as a parent is to ensure that my kids speak at least one other language fluently. If we went to another Spanish-speaking country, they could go to a Spanish-only school and might have a chance of holding onto their language after we left (they would be 7 and 9 when we left post #2).

The bid list mostly resolved that debate for me. I am told that it's better for my career to work in a new region of the world and learn a new language. It's possible that we will still be assigned to one of the Spanish-speaking countries on my list, but now we are hoping we'll go to a new part of the world. We'll return to WHA (Western Hemisphere Affairs) for a later assignment.

I think the list is pretty awesome. However, we will bid in the second cycle, or tranche, as it's called. People serving at more difficult posts (20% hardship differential and above) will bid first, their posts will be assigned and removed from the list, and then those of us with 0-15% hardship differential (Santo Domingo is 15%) will be able to bid on what's left.

We don't mind hardship- in fact, a lot of our favorite posts have 15-25% hardship differential. We aren't looking to go to Western Europe. We are hoping for EAP (East Asia and the Pacific) or SCA (South and Central Asia), with a few random posts in other parts of the world. We would like to go to FSI for a while, since I like learning languages and most importantly, my parents live in the area.

However, we don't know what that final list will look like. I won't know until early July what we can bid on, and then will probably get my assignment in mid-July. So much time to wait!! Wish us luck.

Out of our hands

Well, the bid list was submitted yesterday. Less than 2 weeks until Flag Day (1/31), when we'll find out our fate (for the next ~2 years, anyway). I have a feeling it will pass pretty quickly. I don't really want to wish the time away, because that will mean wishing A-100 away, and it's really a pretty cool time.

On Friday, I met with my CDO (Career Development Officer), the person in charge of assigning me to a post. My husband was able to participate by calling in. I felt like it was a good meeting. She listened to us and our concerns, learned more about me and my skills, and prepared us for a post using my Spanish. We tried not to get too bogged down in dozens of priorities, focusing on just one: we'd like to avoid a Mexico border post with our young children, because of the dangerous atmosphere. She was kind, but cautioned that a border post might be exactly the right fit for me, as the timing might work out perfectly with the amount of Spanish training I need. She also noted that we might be able to go to other Spanish speaking posts, which was good news, as I thought many of the posts were designated for people needing a full course of Spanish.

[it is so hard to write this without revealing post names! Or revealing prohibited information! I understand why many bloggers go private.]

I should add that there are many advantages to serving on the border, and that if we're assigned there, we will make the best of it. I really love Mexico, and feel so sad that the violence is escalating to such a degree. Every post has its pluses and minuses, and in the end, I didn't end up doing too much research on posts. I read a few pages on most of them, and then just trusted that wherever we're assigned, we'll figure things out and make our way.

In the end, we had 21 high posts, 17 lows (danger/unaccompanied posts, D.C. jobs, and Econ posts), and the rest mediums. Our highs include varied posts that would allow me to learn quite a few different languages. Anything could happen on Flag Day. We just have to wait and see.

A-100, week 2

I have been trying to update this blog for days, but things are kind of chaotic around here. As many have said before me, A-100 is intense. There is homework for upcoming classes, online tests to complete, committee work to do, lots of socializing going on, and of course, the bid list to research, over and over again. And there is, of course, my family. It's fun and exciting, but very busy.

My husband has been totally amazing and I am really grateful to him. He has supported me and put my work first these last few weeks. He has stayed home with first L and then M when they spiked fevers, since missing A-100 is not an option for me. He has talked with me about the bid list non-stop for a week.

The kids are doing very well at FSI daycare. I feel a little left out, since my husband was the one to help them adjust the first 2 days and I don't really know what's going on there (a first for me). Now that I have the lay of the land at FSI, I'm mostly doing drop-off and pick-ups, but my husband helps a lot. I've taken them a few times on the Oakwood shuttle, and they love that. The A-100 schedule is diverse - some days you are at Main State (or start one place and end up at another) or another location downtown, so it's tricky to coordinate kid transportation.

And then of course, there is the bid list. For those who don't know, we received a list of approximately 70 posts. Each one has an ETA, language level required (some have none), and type of job indicated (Political, Economic, Consular, Public Diplomacy, or Management). We have to bid each post high, medium, or low, according to a list of 3 priorities. Here are ours:

1) Family friendly: relatively safe, affordable cost of living, adequate schools
2) Timing: we'd prefer a post that leaves after June, though there are a few irresistible early posts (in many cases, this means I'd be learning a new language, except for the Spanish posts for which I'd get a little more training)
3) Job: I prefer a Consular or Management job

Bidding is really a challenging exercise. I'm glad they ask us to identify our priorities and form a bidding strategy around them, as that practice really does help you flesh out what is important and helps you consider posts you may never have thought about before. Before I joined, I thought of bidding in regions- I'm really going to focus on Latin America, or I'd like to explore East or Southern Africa. But the list required me to think differently, which is why I think I was disappointed at first. The timing and job type really make a difference, and the posts are quite diverse.

Since I received the bump-up points for Spanish, I was automatically scheduled to take the full Spanish test. I scored a 2/2, which means I need about 12 weeks to get to a 3/3, according to FSI. I think this assessment is just right- I need some work, especially in reading comprehension, to get to a 3/3, and I definitely don't want to go to post and be expected to do Pol/Econ work without a better professional grasp of the language. So I look forward to learning more, if applicable.

I also took an informal French assessment (a quick test) and did well enough that they are scheduling me for the full test. That will be painful, as my French is extremely rusty.

There is so much more, but it's late and I need to get some rest. More this weekend, I hope, with photos, too.