I guess the new year came over a week ago, but anytime is a good time for end of the year reflection.
2012 was a crazy year. I started the year knowing that I had passed the Foreign Service Exam and had been placed on the register, but I had not idea how fast the rest would happen. By the end of February I had been invited to join the 167th A-100 class. I had several months of waiting, which included telling my old job that I was leaving (I was pretty sad about this) and taking a full month off to enjoy life before the foreign service chaos began.
Come May I was 100% ready to start my new adventure. I was stuffed into a tiny classroom with 90-something other bright and shiny new FSOs. We listened diligently to briefings and presentations for 5 long weeks while we anxiously waited for our futures to be announced. I met some great people and am excited to hear all the stories of my classmates who are already out there in the world, do real live work (gasp, the thought!).
Flag Day came and my dream job was handed to me, just like that. With many more months of training, it seemed so distant and impossible. But the following months flew by and before I knew it I was celebrating the halfway mark of my language course over beers in Norway, in Norwegian. Now the year of a new start, a new career has ended and I look forward to this new year of all things Norway. With the number of weeks until I head-out now well into the single digits, all these things that were long-ago power point slides are becoming reality. Pack-out. Language Test. Pre-Departure. Ahhhh! It's going to fly by so fast.
http://servicecentered.blogspot.com/
2012 was a crazy year. I started the year knowing that I had passed the Foreign Service Exam and had been placed on the register, but I had not idea how fast the rest would happen. By the end of February I had been invited to join the 167th A-100 class. I had several months of waiting, which included telling my old job that I was leaving (I was pretty sad about this) and taking a full month off to enjoy life before the foreign service chaos began.
Come May I was 100% ready to start my new adventure. I was stuffed into a tiny classroom with 90-something other bright and shiny new FSOs. We listened diligently to briefings and presentations for 5 long weeks while we anxiously waited for our futures to be announced. I met some great people and am excited to hear all the stories of my classmates who are already out there in the world, do real live work (gasp, the thought!).
Flag Day came and my dream job was handed to me, just like that. With many more months of training, it seemed so distant and impossible. But the following months flew by and before I knew it I was celebrating the halfway mark of my language course over beers in Norway, in Norwegian. Now the year of a new start, a new career has ended and I look forward to this new year of all things Norway. With the number of weeks until I head-out now well into the single digits, all these things that were long-ago power point slides are becoming reality. Pack-out. Language Test. Pre-Departure. Ahhhh! It's going to fly by so fast.
http://servicecentered.blogspot.com/
