I got my offer to join the FSI!!!

And, ladies and gentlemen, I am now the proud owner of one fabulous e-mail offer to join the United Stated Foreign Service as of March 28th, 2011. YUPEEEEEEE! THIS IS HUGE!!! I intend to accept the offer the moment there is someone out there to hear me say it--to my utter dismay, the wonderful person who extends the offers had left her office early today because of the freaky snow storm we are having, and so I have not yet confirmed with her that I am indeed joining the FSI in March. All in good time!
I feel truly honored and freakishly excited! It will be SO strange to go through FSI as part of my own class during A-100 orientation, now that I know the institute so well and when awesome events like Flag Day do not have the same adrenalin charge for me like they would for the others.

Washington, DC has been covered with inches of snow thanks to an awesome storm that has started this afternoon. All of us under the warm wing of the government cross our fingers and pray to the skies that we get to go to work/class tomorrow late. I have only recently learned about the wonderful website of the Office of Personnel Management, which helpfully informs you every morning whether the government is "OPEN" or "CLOSED." Neat-o!

The past few days have been spent in domestic recovery for me and the Diplomat, which has included heavy doses of the Australian Open (we have watched every single game of the damned tournament due to complete and utter boredom and certain love of the sport), some episodes of House Hunters International (turns out Mongolia rocks and Sweden is rather pretty), frenetic knitting (no, I am still not done with that sweater), and learning Bengali words written out on little flashcards, strewn all over the house (courtesy of Son). I am feeling better after the weekend, even though I still sound like a chain-smoking and slightly asthmatic wolf, and the Diplomat keeps coughing like a retired old lady, spending her Social Security check in the Atlantic City establishments.

The Diplomat has all of a sudden taken the matter of Bengali studying disturbingly seriously and has developed a really irritating new habit of coming up to me casually and attempting to engage me in conversation in bad Bangla. I am all for immersion, but this is pushing my language barriers. Especially when I am counting complicated patterns on an endless sweater sleeve.

Also, I wanted to alert those of you living in the capital city area that even though Restaurant Week wrapped up this weekend, many places have extended the deal for this week as well. Check out here which restaurants are participating. I actually did go out last week to try out the menu at one of the participant restaurants, and joined a friend for dinner at the West End Bistro at the Ritz-Carlton. I even dressed up the part, combed my hair and showed up practically on time. Apparently, my friend omitted to make a reservation, and after a futile 10 minutes at the bar, the hostess came up to us and told us about two VERY interesting and hot places she had for us, if we wanted them. She kept assuring us that the places were quite unique and offer interesting views--well, they sure did, they were at the countertop of the cooking kitchen...So, there I was, in my fancy short dress, high heeled boots, combed hair and all, happily hoping to escape the notion of a kitchen altogether, perched on a barstool at the kitchen countertop, watching clumsy boys toss salads and roast steaks and what have you, while two obnoxous portly fellas were yelling incomprehensible orders to them. Was it hot? Sure, esppecially since we were seated right underneath the heating lamps for the food. Was it interesting? Yeah, if you find the process of demystifying complicatedly arranged food plates interesting. But mostly, it was smelly. Very, vey smelly. To top it all, my friend (who is my age) was not allowed to order wine since she had forgotten her ID at home but I did not even get carded. How's THAT for an insult...

Well, I am off to digest my new awesome news and some bubbly and to keep on knitting the last parts of the sleeve. My next post with be the next installment to the How to Become a FSO series, dealing with the QEPs.