Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Stuck in the "List" Phase

The March Foreign Service class (the one immediately preceding mine), just got their onward assignments last Friday. The two people I know in the class are going to Togo and India. This means that we are next! In 1 month and 4 days, I will begin my first day of orientation. Almost exactly a month after that, we will learn where we are going next.
I have been inventorying our household goods (HHE) trying to get a fairly complete list of all the things we will store. This will help with any insurance claims and also because it could be over a year until we see the stuff again. It’ll be nice to know what is in there. My dad tells me it’ll feel like Christmas when we finally open the boxes again!
I can already feel the toll both moving and the baby are having on my nerves. (In case you don’t know me that well, I tend to be a worrier. I worry when I should be sleeping.) Last night, the baby was moving away around 9:30 pm, prime falling asleep time. I was so excited because I could feel it from the outside and stayed awake so that S could feel it too. (I have the unfair advantage of feeling it move inside me.) Lo and behold, it went back to sleep before S’s hand made it to my belly. But for far too long after that, I stayed awake waiting for it to wake back up so S could feel it too.
To end this post, I will note that being a list maker has helped for both of these transitions. My life has been taken over by various types of lists, “to do,” “registries,” “inventories,” etc.

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

S and I have had over a month to procrastinate our moving and packing. The nice thing about our move is that the State Department sends a moving crew to pack and load all everything. The trouble with that system is that you cannot pack anything and must leave it in piles until the movers pack it for you. We currently have a large pile of stuff in our living room that we will not see again until we get to our first overseas location. Our poor baby shower attendees will have to endure the mess and may even need to bring their own chairs…
S and I have to sort all our belongings into five categories: 1) Stuff that will travel to DC with us in the car; 2) Stuff that will fly to DC and arrive 2-3 weeks after our arrival (450 lbs max!); 3) Stuff that we want overseas with us, but won’t see until we arrive at our overseas location; 4) Stuff we want to store until we are posted to DC or leave the Foreign Service; and 5) Everything else (Goodwill, garage sale, Craigslist, etc.). Some of our family members are better at sorting than others, but I won’t mention any names.

I can’t believe we have less than three weeks in Seattle left. The last few weeks have been filled with goodbyes already, good thing we started our goodbye dinners already!

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Welcome to the World Streett Journal!
This blog will be a chronicle of the Streett's journey in the Foreign Service. E first began her march to enter the Foreign Service in 2006, a failed, handwritten FSOT (Foreign Service Officer's Test) attempt. After a three year hiatus, E attempted the new computerized FSOT in October 2009. Passing both the FSOT and QEP (Qualification Evaluation Panel) stages, E failed the FSOA miserably in May 2010. Although discouraged, E took the FSOT again in February 2011. E passed all three stages by October 2011.
E was added to the register (list of candidates who have passed all states in score/date order) in early February, and received an invitation to the May 2012 class on February 28th. E was 12/59, pretty good odds. Many blogs discuss the quick turnaround between the offer date and reporting date, however, the Streetts had almost 3 months to prepare. It is exhausting to prepare and maintain a certain level of excitement/enthusiasm for 3 months straight.
To top it all off, the Streetts just found out they are expecting their first child in September! E is not excited about the prospect of spending a hot, humid summer with a large baby bump. But the Streetts are worried thrilled about becoming new parents.
Please join in this adventure. Both E and S will be contributing to the blog, so you can hear from both the FSO and the trailing husband side. (S doesn't like the term trailing spouse, so who wrote this post?)