Well, that was fast! In this whole journey to be a Foreign Service Officer, I've been warned that waiting, delay, and uncertainty is the norm. So after passing the oral exam back in November, I figured that getting my medical and security clearances complete and through the system would take a few months. Even with a current security clearance, I assumed that the holidays and the general slow trod of the bureaucratic machine I have come to know so well would put me on the register sometime in January or March. So I was pretty stunned last Friday when I got a letter (not an email) letting me know that I had been placed on the register exactly 30 days after passing the oral!
The upside is that all of the process stuff is out of the way and all I have to do now is concentrate on learning Russian. But the downside is that right now I have over 50 people ahead of me, with more being added as they pass the oral with higher scores or add language points. But, if I pass the Russian phone test sometime in the next year, I would probably end up in the top 5, pretty much guaranteeing me a spot in the next class. Of course, I could still get called up into an A-100 without the language points with the black box of budget + hiring needs + other factors (need for last minute class fillers) = an offer. This equation means that you're number on the list isn't always the end all be all. But I'm not one to rely on chance, so я буду учить русский язык.
The upside is that all of the process stuff is out of the way and all I have to do now is concentrate on learning Russian. But the downside is that right now I have over 50 people ahead of me, with more being added as they pass the oral with higher scores or add language points. But, if I pass the Russian phone test sometime in the next year, I would probably end up in the top 5, pretty much guaranteeing me a spot in the next class. Of course, I could still get called up into an A-100 without the language points with the black box of budget + hiring needs + other factors (need for last minute class fillers) = an offer. This equation means that you're number on the list isn't always the end all be all. But I'm not one to rely on chance, so я буду учить русский язык.
