In Arlington, all quiet

Ok, nothing interesting is happening in our lives right now. I mean, NOTHING!
I am knees deep in Bangla study since my exams are approaching fast--I take my BEX on Thursday, and my final FSI test on March 11. Gulp...
We had our second round of shots for Dhaka on Thursday, which excited me to no end since ANYTHING out of the routine life excites me nowadays--I mean, how pathetic your life has to be for you to be excited on account of a rabbies shot? Son took it like a man, and all three of us walked out of the FSI clinic with lollipops sticking out of our mouths.
Another noteworthy event in my life was the realization that Son can draw an awesome circle. I am not saying that he is the next president of the United States, but I am putting it out there that he has some skills. According to the milestone charts for his age, that is pretty darn advanced. Apparently, so is balancing on one leg (see here , and so I have been making the poor child stand around the house on one leg just to see if he can. He could. I guess he IS presidential material after all...
Tonight, I sent the Diplomat to have beers with his FSO buddies. He was giddy with anticipation and warned me that he might come home pretty late. I rolled my eyes, put Son to bed, ordered Chinese, studied some Bangla until the food came, and then started two of my most favorite things--eating Singapore rice noodles and watching Grey's Anatomy. As I was just relaxing and getting into the show and the food, the Diplomat came home, grinning silly like a tipsy Cheshire Cat. It was only 10.30 pm. I guess one's standards for a "late night out" slowly deteriorate with age. Turns out he and two other devoted hubbies like him went to a neighboring bar and spent the majority of their time talking about babies (so I was told). Um, wha'?

Finally, tomorrow will be a pretty thrilling day--I will spend 8 hours at FSI taking the very useful class of U.S. Protocol and Representation Abroad, along with a bunch of my wife friends, and then will go to a potluck party with my fellow FSO bloggers! I cannot wait to learn how to address the Ambassador's wife or how to seat people around the table. THAT would have been rather useful to me last weekend when we hosted a dinner at home. It must have been a good dinner though regardless of my table seating arrangements since the guests came at 8.30 pm and after a pleasant Scotch nightcap and a cigar smoke left at 2 am. Which would have been OK if Son hadn't woken up at 6.30 am a mere 4 hours later. Cheers!

Vaccinations and Fly American!

This past week saw us take yet another step to bring us closer to Dhaka--we went for the first round of our required vaccinations. We got shots for rabbies, Japanese encephalitis and a bouquet of hepatitis. I was practically excited as the vaccination brought some much needed diversion in our Bangla obsessed lives. The problem with them is that your arms' muscles hurt like mad the following couple of days. Right next to the Health Clinic at FSI is also the travel center, so while wrapped in my excitement, I decided to pop in and inquire about possible routes to Dhaka.
Now, if you must know, governmental employees must "fly American" which means that we can fly only on a US carrier as long as the government is paying for the ticket. Clearly, plenty of exceptions exist since I am not entirely sure any American airline flies to Burundi or Gyuana. Or Bangladesh. It is just not THAT much of a popular route, you know. For that reason, our flying options are a tad restricted. We were told the exciting news that since our total flying time exceeds 14 hours (for a total of 18!), we are allowed a one-night stopover with a choice of London, Frankfurt or Abu Dhabi. For personal reasons, we chose London. And then we got the slightly underwhelming news that from London through Dubai and then through Sylhet (Bangladesh) we would fly Biman Bangladesh, the Bangladeshi airline. Our immersion then begins in London. I must admit, I was hoping for something like British Airways or Lufthansa or Swiss Air for a connection. My consolation is that first class is only $500 more expensive from coach and I think as a parting gift to myself, I might purchase us an upgrade as (oddly enough) none of our credit card miles work with Biman. All I could find on the Internet regarding Biman is that "at least the food good." So, at least the food is good!

This is a busy weekend, filled with entertaining at home and running in the park for both Son and the Diplomat. I am engulfed in Bangla as my exam is fast approaching. Ack!!!!

A night of Bengali

Where did this week go already??? I cannot believe that it is Wednesday already.
We had a pretty fun weekend here. On Saturday we took Son to the birthday party for the daughter of good friends of ours. After the initial shyness and trying to insert himself underneath my dress, Son joined the festivities once the kids started running around like mad thanks to the sugar high. He then went on to alternate between whining to have me make bubbles for him, to stuffing his face with more cupcake and broccoli (who am I to say no?). An hour later we left to go to the Bangladeshi Embassy, where we were invited for some undefined festivities that night. Turned out that the Embassy was celebrating the so-called "pitha" which is a sweet type of bread/cake typically eaten in Bangladesh in the winter. The Embassy was filled with men and women, all of which were particularly colorfully dressed, and a million frenetic children (most likely thanks to the pitha eating). 3 seconds after we entered the festively lit Embassy, a man met us, introduced himself as the DCM (Deputy Chief of Mission) and promptly whisked us away to meet the Ambassador. The Diplomat actually knew the Ambassador who had given a speech at the FSI few days before that, and the two struck a lively one-minute chat. The DCM seemed quite excited to see us both--he realized that the Diplomat was a US Foreign Service officer but when I started speaking to him in Bengali he was completely awed. We then explained to him that we were indeed spouses and we were BOTH in the Foreign Service, which confused him to no end. It turned out that the Bangladeshi foreign service does not allow tandem couples.
I proceeded to speak (possibly atrocious) Bengali left and right to the utter bewilderment of all. The final touch was when someone ushered me to write something "memorable" on a white board. The person before me was Chinese and he wrote something undoubtedly nice in Chinese to everyone's delight. I suppose I was expected to write something in English but I wrote Bangla instead--I am happy to say people were floored.

Monday's Valentine's Day was spent at home because the Diplomat decided to cook a special meal for me. We sent Son to bed, and sat down to a candle-lit dinner of mussels and a giant bottle of champagne. Half an hour and half a bottle of champagne later, while giggling and digging into the mussels, we felt a presence--turns out, Son had quietly opened the door of his room and was lying on the floor, staring at us. He did have a very diabolic look on his face. We rushed him back into bed and proceeded to finish the bottle. Which we later regretted because Son up at 5.30 am and categorically refused to go back to bed. Happy Valentine's to you too!

The power of No and strange occurences

Lately Son has developed the maddening and absurd habit to say alternatively "yes" and "no" to things. It drives both me and the Diplomat mad, while it does not seem to strike Son as odd. It goes something like this:
Son: I wanna mango juice!!!! (irritated look and whiny voice)
Me: Here it is! (pulls it out of the fridge with a wide smile, happy to oblige)
Son: Nooooooooo (rolls on the floor)
Me: Fine (puts juice back, trying to look calm and superior)
Son: Wanna juice!
Me: Here (takes juice out, tries not to strangle Son)
Son: NOOOOOOO (rolling and stomping)
Me: Fine, I don't care (puts juice away, walks away in a huff pretending to be composed)
Son: I wanna mango! I wanna mango!I wanna mango!I wanna mango!I wanna mango!I wanna mango!I wanna mango!I wanna mango!I wanna mango!I wanna mango!I wanna mango!I wanna mango!I wanna mango!I wanna mango!I wanna mango!I wanna mango!I wanna mango!I wanna mango!I wanna mango!I wanna mango!I wanna mango!I wanna mango!I wanna mango!I wanna mango!I wanna mango!I wanna mango!I wanna mango! (rolls around the ENTIRE apartment)
Me: Lalalalalala, what a nice day, lalalaaaaaaa.....(looks up towards the ceiling and tries to study Bangla nonchalantly)
Son: I wanna mango! I wanna mango!I wanna mango!I wanna mango!I wanna mango!I wanna mango!I wanna mango!I wanna mango!I wanna mango!I wanna mango!I wanna mango!I wanna mango!I wanna mango!I wanna mango!I wanna mango!I wanna mango!I wanna mango!I wanna mango!I wanna mango!I wanna mango!I wanna mango!I wanna mango!I wanna mango!I wanna mango!I wanna mango!I wanna mango!I wanna mango!

Me: (Wonders what life in a cave, alone, feels like...)

Son: I wanna mango, I wann.....(very quietly) mama, I peed myself.

Me: Of course you did, with all that screaming (gets up with a sigh and head full of cave dreams).

Son does this nowadays all the time, with everything. He does it mostly when he is mopey or in a bad mood, but sometimes for no reason at all. Please, tell me it is stage and it will pass away as of next week because it takes a whole lot of diplomatic resolve not to toss a mango juice bottle in his direction in moments like that.

Today has also been a day of some peculiar occurrences. For starters, the Diplomat cooked dinner. Well, to be correct, he took a pre-marinaded chicken from Trader Joes and fried it for at least 10 minutes, but at least it was him, not me! Then, after dinner, I took the happy, content, full child to run in the lobby of our building while I check the mail and chat with the doorman/woman. These little 10-min excursions are our little tradition, during which Son thinks that I generously invite him to assist me with the junk mail, which he laboriously and diligently throws in the recycling bin. The truth is that I take him out to help with dinner digestion and to expend any residual energy from the day since he proceeds to run like mad for 10 minutes in circles around the lobby. As he was running tonight, and I was conversing coherently with him in high literary Bulgarian, a man standing there turned to me, and asked me whether I was speaking Bulgarian. I was and I asked him whether he was from there as well. He told me that he had spent there a number of years as an economic consultant for the EU and in fact had a 3-year old daughter there, whom he visits 4-5 times a year. It all sounded so surreal.

I have now sighed up for the A-100 160th class gmail group, sponsored by the welcome committee from the 158th FSI class. The group serves to answer questions from and share the excitement of my eager and anxious future colleagues. Since I have been part of FSI since September as a spouse (or an EFM, an Eligible Family Member, as the DoS colorfully calls us), it has been somewhat odd to try to think of myself as part of a class of my own! To an extent, I feel a bit robbed of the experience--for example, I will not have the thrill of my own Flag Day. Then again, given some of the post choices, I will gladly give up that thrill...And so I have decided to make up for it all by attending every single happy hour out there! And there are A LOT!

How to Become a Foreign Service Officer: Part III--the QEP personal narratives

You have now taken the FSOT, and then you have spent the next two or so weeks trying desperately to remember some of the questions that you think you did wrong and google them obsessively for answers. Then you spend a week checking messages on the FSOT yahoo boards where everyone speculates wildly when the results will come out. You begin fearing that they will come out at a point when you have absolutely no access to Internet--the State Department is so advanced nowadays that it has a website where you can log in to get your Congrats/Regrets letter. And so you find yourself sitting at Heathrow Airport, on your way back from a skiing trip, with a screaming Son who is running around the airport windows gesticulating at planes in utter delight while all you can think of is that most likely the results are out and you have no way of getting them. And then, in a stroke of genius, you pull out your cellphone and turn it on (thank God, you have a GSM) and yes, there it is--a message from a caring Diplomat who has nobly gotten into my email account in New York, seen my results and left me a voicemail in case I check it at my stop-over in London. Thank you! You proceed to scream, "YES, YES, YES, I DID IT, I AM SO F..ING AWESOME" while the elderly British couple next to you at the airport look at you disapprovingly in a VERY reserved manner.

The next step is the writing of several personal narratives for review by the Qualifications Evaluation Panel (QEP). You have about a month to submit your essays, which generally address you intellectual, interpersonal, communication, managerial and leadership skills. No, I cannot publish the questions, come on now! There is a character limit of 1300 characters per essay, which includes spaces. It is shockingly little, about 200 words or so. And it takes forever to polish and fit within the limit. My suggestion would be to start writing right away. The idea is to take examples from your life that demonstrate such skills. The examples do not have to be you leading the UN in spontaneous liberating action somewhere in Africa, or being Dalai Lama's right hand, or writing the next shocking physics theory or speaking 36 languages, including Martian and negotiating peace with the little people of the Moon. The idea of the essays is to show that you have enough common sense, stamina and emotional maturity to live abroad, communicate with people different from you, show some initiative and creativity when things go hairy (and I mean situations like when you have to deal with the notorious Washington bureaucracy, not like riots in Egypt, which I would gladly take over the bureaucratic process) and retain your sense of humor while doing all of that.

Be creative. Don't try to guess what the reader wants to hear. If the question explores your intellectual skills, do not necessarily dwell upon your heroic efforts to solve Fermat's Last Theorem before you were beaten to it by Andrew Wiles. Write instead about some problem you had and the awesome creative, last minute solution you found to it. Interpersonal skills will deal with your ability to communicate with people different from you. Again, don't rack your brain for examples from your ground-breaking water project in the villages of the Zanzibar, where you learned to speak Kiunguja in a matter of weeks and danced with colored sticks around the ceremonial fire every night (unless you actually have, in which case more power to you!). Talk about your crazy Argentinian roommate, who danced tango while sleepwalking and covered his walls with soccer posters, your Wisconsin colleague and his cheese-eating habits at work, or your prim British inlaws.
Whatever you choose to write about, keep it simple and VERY much to the point. You will have so little capacity to write that every unnecessary, albeit colorful detail, will have to go.

Do not underestimate the QEP essays--they are a very important part of your application. Start writing right away. Keep thinking of better and better examples. Ask you grandma. Ask your boyfriend/spouse/best friend for such examples. People sometimes know us better than we know ourselves. And then ask someone to read your creations. After you have read them over 345 times, your judgement about their literary and stylistic quality might have suffered just a bit. Take the criticism in stride. Re-write. You are awesome! Submit. Do not panic. Wait.

In other news, I have officially accepted my offer to join the March 28 A-100 class. I will be a proud part of Class 160!!! I also received my salary offer, which was surprisingly good and made me instantly go online and search for small but meaningful gifts to buy for myself. Finally, for those of you taking a BEX language test and finding yourself later on desiring to change the language to another one for whatever reason, I learned the following very important tidbit--you can swap languages for bonus points (if the languages carry the same or more points, obviously) until you actually join FSI. So now I am fervently studying Bangla and count on your joint well wishes and some mad luck to pass on March 3. In a demonstration how fervently I am studying, I am taking tomorrow as a mental day off. I promise to think to myself in Bangla all morning. Or not.

The difficult art of sharing

This has been a pleasant weekend, filled with happy activities for Son. Who would not share. For any promised benefits. Under any threats. Whether or not the person requesting the sharing is his best friend or an attractive stranger. The answer is a firm and whiny "no." On Saturday afternoon, after his nap, the Diplomat and I took the bouncing-off-the walls child to Barnes and Noble, where the good people of B&N have set a train table with tracks and wooden trains of the Thomas variety. Hundreds of children get to play with them on a daily basis and in the process wipe their snotty noses/drooling mouths on the unsuspecting trains in a happy and endless exchange of winter germs. Barely recovered after a week of debilitating flu, the Diplomat and I stared meekly at the bacteria-infested train table and then at Son, who was holding a train in one hand and a muffin in the other, and then simply gave up. Son needs to build immunity after all, right? Both of us had dragged Bangla homework in the hopes that while Son plays idyllically with some new-found train buddies, we can study. Not so much. 5 minutes into the visit, Son immediately took possession of the only three trains on the table and hoarded them in his hands (which already had 2 cars of his private collection in them). Anybody's attempt to wring out A train from his cold, stiff hands was met with unadulterated hostility and outright displeasure at the audacity. Utterly embarrassed under the reproachful gaze of mommies-whose-children-apparently-share-everything, I proceeded to loudly explain to him how he really needs to share. He flatly refused and poignantly took the trains behind a column of children's books, where he sulkily hid for almost 2 minutes. He re-emerged and through some (rather cruel) threats, involving the fate of his entire car collection at home, he reluctantly gave up one of his trains to a boy waiting at the table. His facial expression suggested that we might as well have been removing his liver for donation.
And on Sunday morning, I took Son to the Washington, DC Building Museum to see the LEGO exhibit and create some mischief with his best buddy E, while I chatted about nothing with his parents M&M. It was our first time in the museum and I have to whole-heartedly give it huge thumbs-up!! It is heaven for children--it has a so-called "Building Zone," which houses all types of building-type toys for kids, including the ubiquitous train table, a play house, blocks of all sizes and what have you happy children paraphernalia. A lot of that stuff gets taken out of the play area into the main area of the museum, which is one vast courtyard with a fountain the middle, where children can and were running around, screaming, laughing, pulling hair, stacking blocks, picnicking on the carpeted floors and in general having a jolly good time. We also went to the special LEGO exhibit, where the museum has provided mountains of lego pieces for everyone to construct their fancy. Son was entertained for over 20 mins without even noticing my absence--I had veered off to watch the exhibit of giant models of buildings constructed from millions of LEGO pieces by possibly really bored adults without jobs.
All was going stupendous until it was time to eat. I procured some sandwiches, a brownie and a fruit cup with the intention that the latter two will be shared by the two kids. It soon turned out that I had been rather over-optimistic. Son categorically refused to share even a single grape with his best buddy E and sat sulking in his seat. Soon Son announced that needed to go poopy. We got up from the table and M made the tactical mistake to reach out to the fruit cup while it was still in Son's sight. Freaked out by the possibility that all the soggy, sad-looking fruit will be eaten by some scruple-less people, Son immediately denied the need to go to the restroom, climbed back into his chair, pulled up the fruit cup and hurriedly and systematically began to chew each piece lest some was left behind for others to stealthily consume in his absence. Exasperated, I took the cup with us to the bathroom as he clearly needed to go. Needless to say, I discussed the concept of sharing with him ad nauseum--he simply gave me a look like I had lost my mind. To tell you the truth, I also hate sharing. Sigh...

In other news, since I got the offer to join the March A-100, I have not been able to get in touch with the person who extended the offer, or with anyone else in the registrar's office for that matter, regardless how many times I tried to call last week. And I called A LOT--any self-respecting stalker would envy my persistence. Stay tuned.

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.