Sorting stuff

So, how many states have you been in this morning? Well, thanks for asking! I've actually been in 4 states-- 5 if you count DC-- all before 10:30 AM!

I had an appointment in Hagerstown, MD, to go visit our storage stuff out there. When I was looking at the map last night, I realized that Hagerstown is in the really narrow part of Maryland, right where West Virginia and Pennsylvania squeeze together to try and pinch off part of the state.

I'd never been to West Virginia or Pennsylvania before, and the opportunity to add 2 more states to my repertoire with such minimal effort was really too much to pass up. So, once I'd finished visiting my storage stuff, I drove for 5 miles in both directions (WV first and then north to PA), and checked those off my list!

West Virginia is lovely. It's Wild and Wonderful, if you want to know. I'd seen pictures of the Smokey Mountains and the Blueridge Mountains, and I might have seen some of those. Or they might have just been small hills. Out here in the East, it's hard to tell.

Pennsylvania is a hoot. I was there for about a minute and saw a lovely RV parking lot and a street called Mason-Dixon Road. It's right on the border, which I believe is the Mason-Dixon line.

I would make a fantastic tour guide.

And about our storage, it was very exciting. I went to a warehouse that looked remarkably like this:
I peeked down the aisles for a crate with loads of metal magnetically stuck to the sides, but that must be a different storehouse. Oh, and the rows were much neater and straighter. But otherwise it was straight out of Indiana Jones.

The last time I'd seen this storage stuff was when we were living in Boise in 2009. After Boise, we packed it all up and took it to Washington when we lived with Kevin's parents. I saw some of it then, but 75% of it was just stored in boxes in their crawlspace. Then we took a carload of our things to live in New Mexico, and the rest of everything stayed in Washington until Kevin got this job in DC. Then some movers went to Washington, loaded up our things, wrote esoteric labels on the boxes, and shipped them to storage here in Maryland.

I was excited to see our mysterious storage.

Our things were stored in two shipping crates. Our crates were set aside, and my job was to sort the packages into 3 piles: export to China as HHE (household effects), keep in the warehouse as longterm storage, and take with me today. Most of the items were identifiable, and it was easy to decide where they went. Our kitchen stuff and nice office chair will come with us to China, as will most of everything. Our dining room chairs, larger furniture, microwave, and vacuum will stay in long term storage. And my goal for the day was to take my baby stuff home with me. Easier said than done.

I'd narrowed it down to about 4-5 boxes.

This was based on the labels, which were "linens," "clothes," or "stuffed animals." And let me tell you, it wasn't just stuffed animals in that 50-lb box! It was a big guessing game, since I wasn't allowed to open and repack any of the boxes, but I was pretty sure the baby stuff might be in one of those.

(Note: On my way out, the warehouse man said that he always recommends you be there as the movers are packing your things, especially so you can have some say in what gets written on the boxes. I certainly wish I had done that-- but I didn't know I'd be having a baby and certainly didn't know I'd be moving to China just 2 months before she got here!)

Maybe it was my huge pregnant belly, or maybe it was the tears of frustration that I was trying to keep from falling, but the guy actually let me open a few of the boxes. Three, to be exact. Don't tell anyone!!

Two of them did have my baby stuff in the bottoms, which means I got most of what I needed. I'm pretty sure I'm still missing the box of newborn clothes, which is super frustrating, but at the end of my visit, there was a light at the end of the tunnel.

We don't leave for China for another 3 weeks. But now that our storage stuff has been sorted, they said they'd go ahead and ship it the next time a truck goes out to the docks-- maybe Monday or so. This means that the HHE will arrive in China 3 weeks earlier than I'd previously thought. I don't know for sure, but it's possible that it will show up before the baby does.

All summer we've been drifting around, waiting for Kevin's security clearance. This has been fun to explain to everyone (So, we're waiting for a security clearance. No, he's not working for the lab. No, he doesn't have the job yet. No, we're not sure when he will.)

Quick! Clean up before the guests arrive!

Eeek! I've signed up to host the State Department Weekly Blog Round-Up here at my blog, and I have so much to do! It's the same feeling as when I invite tons of people over for a party and then realize I have to clean up the junk in my living room, sanitize the bathrooms, buy and prepare food, and maybe even throw together some hasty, cheap decorations.
I need to straighten up my blog, and thankfully this doesn't require rubber gloves or nasty chemicals. I need to update my header. I'm not living in Washington state, and I am now living in New Mexico. Therefore, a subtitle of "Wait, this isn't New Mexico!" is a little more misleading than appropriate these days. I should probably rearrange, add, and delete some of my gizmos to make my blog more reader-friendly (instead of a narcissistic to-do list). But we'll see how much of that actually happens.
I'm going to have to start proof-reading my my posts. Sometimes I just ramble and then post. That has got to stop. This is the part that's like cleaning and sanitizing my bathroom. Yes, I should do it all the time, but it really only happens when I know guests are coming.
Also, the readers of this State Department Round-Up are generally people tied somehow to the Foreign Service. I'm going to need to write about the Foreign Service once in a while (or several times this next week) to make people think I actually have a reason to be hosting this. As of right now, it seems a bit random; New Mexican restaurant reviews, Independence Day festivities in my home town, poetry recommendations by my little brother, and high school reunion recaps don't exactly say, "I blog about the cool and exotic things I do in the Foreign Service." I'll have to make a case for myself.
And what is this State Department Round-Up? It sounds really fancy and official, doesn't it?! Well, after Kevin passed his oral interview and the possibility of our living an adventurous life in the Foreign Service got that much closer, I started scouring the internet to find blogs written by people already living that life. I found many, and as you can imagine, there was so much information, it was a bit hard to process! Hundreds of people write blogs from all over the world, and it would be impossible (and crazy) to try and keep up with all of them-- or even all of the interesting ones!
Then I stumbled across this blog round-up, where a woman named Kolbi had scoured the internet herself and put together a "best of" highlight reel of that week's Foreign Service blogs. It was just what I wanted to read. If I wondered what it was like moving here and there, well, here are three families who just moved this week. If I wanted to read specifically about a certain part of the world, well, here is a blog by someone who lives there and loves to take pictures and/or write fantastic vignettes showing what life is like. I've become a true devotee.
Since it is so much work, however, and someone kind (alas, kinder than I) realized it was a ton of work for one woman, many people have been taking turns hosting it at their blogs. No one signed up for last week, and I missed it-- enough to make me sign up for hosting it myself.
Eeek!
So here we go. Please pardon my mess while we undergo a few renovations!

What's going on

By some accounts, there's not too much happening in my life.
For example, neither Kevin nor I is working right now, and we just spent 3 weeks in Hawaii. There was not a lot to do after a while, so we had to just go sit on the beach some days. It's all right, you can stop hating me now. Because in some ways, my life is incredibly busy.
Just on Tuesday, we got word that our medical clearances went through. For the Foreign Service, you (and all your dependents) have to have a very thorough medical exam, which is then evaluated in Washington DC. They do this so they can send their employees all over the world where there may or may not be adequate or advanced medical care. I'm not really sure if they'd still hire you if you had a chronic medical condition, or if they'd just send you somewhere non-third-world. At this point, it's not something we need to worry about, as the most serious medical problem in our family is Penny's eczema and food allergies. No biggie. Send us wherever. And on Tuesday, they gave us notice that they are ready to do so.
This morning, Kevin had a 3-hour security clearance interview. I watched Penny for most of it, but from the parts I observed, it was a long, lawyerly interview asking about 10 different ways if he's ever downloaded secure information onto his iPod. Is he sure he's never downloaded it? What about onto a disk? What about sending it as email? Are you sure? It was very thorough. But in Kevin's ever-positive attitude, he commented that it is a good overview of what he should never do as a Foreign Service Officer.
So now that the interview has taken place, we're still waiting on the rest of the clearance. They have to go talk to people everywhere Kevin's lived in the last 10 years, which has been overseas in China and Taiwan a few times. Still, since he's not a shady character, it should go pretty well, and in a few months, they should invite him to come to DC for training for a few months.
Meanwhile, this week we're moving to New Mexico for a while. I got a summer job there at a day camp (woo hoo!), and then in the fall, I'll be doing my student teaching there. So I'll be there through November.
This move to New Mexico makes the 5th state we've lived in this year. We finished in Utah last May, moved to Boise, then Washington in January, Hawaii in April, and now New Mexico. Even if you don't count Hawaii (and I didn't get a library card, so how official can it be?), it's still an impressive 4 states in one year. They say that 3 moves is worth a fire, and at this point, we are moving to NM with only what will fit in our car. It's kind of refreshing to have so little tying us down.
But on the other hand, it will be nice to be able to settle down a little bit once Kevin gets his job. He will do training in DC for a few months, and then we'll have overseas assignments that last from 2-3 years each. I can't imagine there are many people that are looking forward to that as a relief from moving so much. But I am!
We have a busy week ahead of us, and we've been busy packing. And when I say that, it's a lie. I bought Spells (see left sidebar toggle wingbat thingie), and I've been reading that these past few days. Since Penny keeps needing my attention (what? I can't just go read for several hours at a time anymore?), I didn't get a good feel for the book. I was noticing that I felt like it was really choppy and it didn't flow as well as the first one. Then I realized that I read the first one in one fell swoop, and this one I had to read in 2-3 page chunks. I'm going to reread it before giving an actual review. I really liked some parts and thought some were a bit scandalous. It was a fun read. But that's not my review.

I want to be Julia Child

A while ago I posted that I'd watched the movie, Julie and Julia. I wrote about the bits that inspired me to be a better blogger. And even if I didn't follow through with those plans, I at least thought about it. But that's not what inspired me the most about that movie.

Julia Child was the wife of a diplomat stationed in France at the time the movie starts. I remember a scene in particular where she is complaining that the other diplomats' wives do nothing but go buy dresses. Now, while you're stationed in Paris, the fashion capital of the world at that time, it makes sense that you'd want to buy a dress. But when you live there for three years and all you have to show for it is a closet of fashionable dresses, for me it would be a waste of three years.

That's where the cooking lessons come in. Julia Child decided to enroll in cooking school and master French cuisine. There are also scenes of her walking through the marketplace talking to all the shopkeepers in ATROCIOUS French. She is tall, loud, and stands out like a sore thumb, but it doesn't seem to faze her in the least! She presses on, and eventually her French improves a bit and she has made friends with the other chefs in her cooking class. She collaborates on her cookbook with a couple French ladies, and by the time she leaves France (to be stationed in Oslo, Norway), I'm sure she misses France-- and not just for its dresses.

I have no aspirations to write cookbooks in every country I visit-- necessarily. But I do want to leave the circle of "dress shoppers" once in a while and get to know the people of the country where I'm living. I want to learn new languages. I want my kids to have friends who are different from them. I want them to see the world, and not just the Foreign Service housing that can be so comforting yet confining. Basically, I want to leave my comfort zone.

Maybe I'll learn how to cook in foreign countries. I'll tell you about it if I do. Maybe I'll have dresses made in France. If I do, I'll have pictures to show for it. In a way, I want to be the one out swimming where some people just want to dip their toes in the water, or even worse, lie on the beach ignoring that there is even any water.

I'm really looking forward to Kevin's career. Can you tell?

And when they make a movie of my life, should I have them cast Meryl Streep or Amy Adams? I'm still torn. :)

The whole story

I have this problem where I tell an oft-rehearsed story, and because I'm so familiar with it, I leave important bits out and just assume that people still follow me.

So let me tell the whole story of the Foreign Service job.

Back when Kevin and I lived in Beijing, we went to church with a bunch of other foreigners living in China. Since our church isn't one of the 5 religions officially recognized by the government, the foreigners could meet together, and the locals could meet together, but we couldn't have meetings together. So most of the people we knew from church were also expatriates. Many of the Americans there (and also Canadian, Swedish, Estonian, and a few others) were working in the Embassy there in Beijing. They had a really cool lifestyle where they lived in places around the globe for a few years at a time, manning the embassies and consulates. They lived lives of adventure, and their kids got to see the world. Also, the kids went to great schools where all their classmates were also very motivated students who got a lot of support from their parents at home. What a great environment to grow up in!

As Kevin slogged through law school, he realized more and more that he wanted a job that worked with people in a greater capacity than just helping them make more money. I don't think he has a very argumentative or aggressive personality, and so being a criminal lawyer didn't seem to fit his personality very well. As he was working at his clerkship up in Boise (last October to be specific), he decided to take the Foreign Service Exam. It it a free test that many people take to see if they have what it takes to become a Foreign Service Officer (these are the folks that work in Embassies around the world... just want to connect those dots for you). It's an exam that tests your knowledge of geography, American history, government, management, economics, technology, Therapists, and potent potables. Ha ha. Seriously, though, it tests you on just everything. How do you study for this? People often ask that, and Kevin had a great method for it. He memorized the presidents of the United States and the major events and achievements during that president's term. He studied for several weeks, took some practice tests online and from the library, and watched several documentaries from the library. Oh, and he has been learning a lot in his last 27 years, too. That helped.

He passed the exam, and then he got to wait a few months. In the mean time, he had a telephone interview to gauge his Chinese language ability. Verdict: he speaks Chinese. The application people reviewed his application, resume, and credentials, and eventually invited him to fly himself out to Washington DC for the Oral Exam.

In order to study for this Oral Exam, Kevin worked super hard. He researched the exam on the internet. Some people post about their experiences taking the test. There are Yahoo groups for people who are taking it. He met up with a study group in Seattle. He practiced telling stories to illustrate how qualified he is for the position. He practiced interviewing. He wrote practice essays. As a certified procrastinator, I was amazed at his consistency and determination. Kevin is amazing.

The actual exam went something like this:

Show up at the building wearing a white shirt and tie. Out of the 5 people that passed the Oral Exam on the same day as Kevin, 4 were wearing a white shirt and tie. The 5th was a woman, and she was wearing a white shirt, no tie. The guys wearing blue shirts didn't pass. I'm sure that's not the only reason, but it's worth mentioning.

First they did the group exercise. That's where each examinee is given a few projects to present to the others. After presenting their projects, they all work together to figure out how to fit the projects into their given budget.

Then there was the interview. They asked him questions, and he was able to use several of the stories he'd prepared. He did have to ad lib for one story, and that was the one they heckled him on, asking a ton of follow-up questions.

After lunch, they had the essay section. They were given 30-40 pages of information (some were charts or emails, so they weren't that long), and they were supposed to summarize the info in a memo, and then give the best solution to the problem that was presented. Kevin said that his brain was kind of fried at this point, and he wasn't able to do this section as well.

After this part, they called him in to an office and told him he'd passed and would have to do a bunch more paperwork. So it wasn't until much later that evening that he told me how he'd done. I would like to say I energetically whooped into the phone and danced around the room. What the heck, I will say that's what happened! It sounds like a good reaction.

Now we're in an interesting situation. Kevin has a career, and once the security clearance goes through, he will have a job. That might take 6 months or even a year. Until then, we just kind of wait.

When Kevin finished his exam, he got a certain score. It was high enough to pass, and since he speaks Mandarin, he gets some extra points. So he has a pretty high score. This means that he's pretty high up on the hiring list. So once his security clearance goes through, if he's in the next group of new hires, he'll get called out to Washington DC for training. As I understand it, in training he gets to see which embassies are hiring that year. Then he makes a bid for his top choices, and the embassies get to choose him. Or something like that.

Once he gets a job, then we'll go tootle off to China or Australia or Timbuktu (which is a real place, by the way) for a few years. Every post lasts 3 years, and then you go somewhere different. The State Department arranges your housing and lets you ship a certain allowance of stuff wherever it is you go.

Kevin will work in the embassy doing visa interviews and taking care of stupid Americans that go and get arrested in foreign countries. Stuff like that.

Come see us when you get a chance!

DC continued

As I was saying, we went and saw the sights of DC. You'll notice a gray, overcast sky in all our pictures. The day before we got there was sunny and 60 degrees. The same can be said of the day we left. Oh well.

Here I am in front of the Washington Monument. I visited this in 8th grade, and so I was able to be the tour guide and tell Kevin about how when they were making it, they had to stop for some war or something, and then when they resumed they used marble from a different quarry, or it had changed color or something. But you can see it part-way up.
Kevin thanked me profusely for such insight. It wouldn't have been obvious otherwise. I wear Kevin's law school shirt to feel smart.

And here is Kevin in front of the WWII memorial that I wrote about yesterday. Isn't it beautiful!
After painting the town red (albeit a dreary, grayish red), we headed back to our friends' house. We were staying with our friends Andrea and Dave, who are both going to school in DC. They are awesome not only for letting us stay at their casa, but they took us to and from the airport, put up with a tired baby who didn't sleep through the night, and found some really cool things for us to do.

Penny was marvelous for the first couple days. Our flight from Seattle left super early, and we had to pull Penny out of bed at 4:00 AM. I wasn't looking forward to starting our trip that way. But she stayed awake until the first leg of the flight, where she took a 45-minute power nap. Then on the final leg of the flight, she took another power nap. But all the rest of the day, she was bright and cheery. In fact, she didn't even cry on the plane but was giggling and entertaining everyone. Maybe we should wake her up at 4:00 AM more often! Ha ha ha, um, no.

Sleep-deprived-but-happy baby!

The second day was when we toured around, and Penny stayed awake and cheery for most of that. There were no strollers allowed in the museum, so Kevin and I took turns carrying her. Eventually she fell asleep on my shoulder for another 45-minute power nap. Then she was good the rest of the day. Amazing!

That night we went to dinner with Andrea and Dave. We went to a Moroccan restaurant with amazing lamb, couscous, chicken shawarma, and this amazing sweet and savory meat pastry thing. Plus there was a belly dancer. She was pretty good, I guess, but she got nothing on Penny's belly.

On Sunday, we all went to the Chinese branch for church. Then in the evening, Andrea and Dave invited some friends from their ward over who were in the Foreign Service. He was working in the same area Kevin will be, and they had a couple young kids, so it was awesome to be able to talk about their experiences and what they learned and how they managed living overseas with little kids. At that point, we were still talking hypothetically, but it was so valuable to talk to them now that it's actually going to happen.

On Monday was Kevin's exam. I think I'll ask him to write a guest entry and talk about his experience. Penny and I just took it easy that day. After her amazing feat of going several days without adequate sleep, I didn't want to push her any more.

We did take an outing to the nearby park, where Penny learned how the swings work.

At first she was happy but not terribly comfortable with them.Then she got used to the idea and loved her adventure at the swings.

Kevin's new boss

The nominal purpose of our going to Washington DC was for Kevin to take and pass the Oral Examination for the Foreign Service. Final verdict: check and check! Kevin took it, and Kevin passed! Now who's awesome?!

On Saturday when we got to town, we took the Metro into town and first scoped out the building where Kevin's exam would be. It's a good thing we did. First we got off the Metro and went the wrong direction. Then we had to search around a little while to find the building, which was behind and around the corner from a large apartment complex. That's something you want to do a couple days in advance, not as you're frantically trying to be early/on time for an interview.

Then we met up for lunch with Neil and his wife, Rebecca, at the International Spy Museum. (!!!) First of all, lunch was great. Deep fried and marvelous. Over a lunch like that is a perfect place to catch up on old times, back when your arteries were still supple, and fill each other in on what we're doing these days.

This is us at the Spy Museum Cafe.

The International Spy Museum is pretty awesome. It displays a bunch of spy gadgets (lipstick, ring, pen, and umbrella guns, a James Bond car), and there's a air duct you can stealthily crawl through. Kevin and Neil would make terrible spies, based on their stealth skills.

Eventually, once your arms are tired from carrying your 25-lb baby or you're just tired from being 6 months pregnant (Becca), they have little movie clips and stuff, showing you how loose lips sink ships.

I learned a lot. I look around at shopping centers and airports trying to find all the cameras that are doing surveillance. They're always watching, you know. ;)

Even though the day was drizzly and rainy, that was nothing to us Washingtonians. Once we'd done the Spy Museum, we said good bye to the Petersons and proceeded to paint the town red. We saw the Constitution at the National Archives, walked on the Mall past the Washington Monument, to the World War II Memorial. That is a BEAUTIFUL memorial, and I'm really surprised it wasn't made before now. I think it's my new favorite monument.

More later.

Washington D.C. baby!

Last month Kevin took the Foreign Service Officer Exam, and last week we found out that he passed! It's an incredibly low passing rate (about 20-30 percent of applicants), and Kevin and I are so excited about this!

This is just the first step, however. Since he got his results, he's had to write some personal narratives and have a Chinese language phone interview. He aced both of those (in my humble, unbiased opinion), and now he just gets to wait. The next step would be to get invited to come to Washington D.C. to participate in an oral exam sometime this spring. We really hope that happens, but if for some reason it doesn't, we have a trip to Disneyland planned as a backup. I never thought I'd say this, but I hope we don't go to Disneyland.

When Kevin took the exam last month, he spent a lot of time studying for it beforehand. If it were me and I were taking it, I wouldn't know where to start. I'd figure that since it's such a random test, I'd just study random things randomly. Kevin had a systematic approach, though. A large part of the exam was based on US history, politics, and culture. Talk about broad! Kevin decided to memorize all the US presidents and the major events in each of their terms. And if you think about it, that covers just about all of American history. Plus it give him a nice backbone to keep events chronological and organized in his mind.

Another thing Kevin did well was to use his time wisely. I generally tend to procrastinate everything. If I were studying for the Foreign Service Exam, I'd be surfing wikipedia the night before the test, hoping to come across some useful tidbits of information. If I had to turn in some personal narratives by a certain date, I'd be "writing them in my head" for a month but not actually turning them into words until the night before they were due. But Kevin is awesome and turned them in two weeks early, after polishing and perfecting several drafts first.

If I were the Foreign Service, I'd snatch this guy up.

Everything but the Potent Potables

Tomorrow Kevin is taking the Foreign Service Exam. He's been studying a lot, but it's kind of a Jeopardy-type test. You just have to know everything. I think he'll do wonderfully, and I'd like to request that you remember him in your prayers tonight.

And tomorrow morning.

Thanks!!

Foreign Service

Now that Kevin is done with law school, everyone's question for him is, "So, in what area of law do you want to practice?"

There is no short answer. Well, there's no TRUE short answer.

Right now he's working as a court clerk for one of the judges here in Boise. He's learning a lot and says that it feels like the first year of law school all over again-- tons of work and a HUGE learning curve. I know it's hard to deal with a job that's so challenging, but I also know that challenging usually means rewarding by the end of the day (or week, or month). I'd much rather have a challenging-but-rewarding job than a boring and fruitless job.

So that's the job for this year.

Next year is in the air. Should he stay in law, he wants to be a litigator for a while. I guess those are the guys who actually go to court and argue for their clients. He had been talking about being a prosecutor or defense attorney, but this is all Plan B.

Plan A is to join the Foreign Service!

The Foreign Service Exam is in October, and it's basically like a game of Jeopardy, minus Alec Trebek and the money. There is a lot of random stuff they test your knowledge of, and it's very competitive. Only a small percentage of the test applicants move on to the next level of interviews. Thankfully, though, Kevin is one smart dude, and he has a lot of knowledge. It should come in handy. I think he may pass.

If he passes the test and then the interviews, we would be moving to Washington D.C. next year for a year or so of training. Then after that he will get sent to work in an Embassy somewhere in the world. Every three years you get transferred somewhere else.

When we were living in Beijing, about half our ward was working for an Embassy. And they were some of the most amazing, friendly, well-educated, and family-centric people I've ever met. Now, I realize that you can be all those things WITHOUT working in the Foreign Service, but I loved the idea of it. Your family moves around a lot, and so while your friends and neighbors are important (and you have to really be outgoing and proactive about meeting them!), the one true constant in your life is your family. I saw brothers and sisters who were friends with each other, and that is something I would love to have in my family. And these kids got to experience the world. We'd have discussions in Young Women's class at church, and one of the 13-year-olds would say, "Well yes, and while we were in Vietnam, we got to....While here in China...." It was pretty amazing.

And above all else, it sound so cool! So exciting! So exotic!

But now that reality is setting in and I realize that within a year I could be living in Washington D.C. preparing for a lifetime of jet-lag, I'm starting to get nervous. It's not the bad-feeling, I-shouldn't-be-doing-this sort of nervous. It's more like the "so much for ever having a backyard garden" type of nervous. It's the "what if they send us to somewhere that has lead poisoning, racist people, or violence?" type of nervous. It's the "I grew up in a small town and went to high school with 95% of my presechool class, I never moved, and I loved every bit of it" type of feeling, knowing that my kids will not have that. They won't have a "hometown."

And the saddest realization: I won't be able to bring my grand piano as I tootle around the world.

It's daunting.

It's scary.

It's intimidating.

I'm so excited!