Any Day Now

If ACT holds true to form we February test takers should hear the news in a day or two. After receiving an initial email from ACT regarding the issue during my essay I haven't heard anything new from them. I am assuming they were waiting to see if they even needed to grade my essay or not. I don't think anyone really knows if one of the two essays was a practice prompt for future tests.

So we shall see, and hopefully the drama was much ado about nothing.

Groundhog Day

Well took the FSOT and after hearing all of the grousing from earlier test takers was pleasantly surprised. While I can't say that I understand the sorts of things they ask you it certainly wasn't any different than what I experienced last year. In fact, I thought it might have been a little bit easier.

I am 2/2 in terms of glitches when it comes to the FSO process. When I took the OA last year we had a problem during the CM. It was by no means a material sort of incident, but not something that you should have to put up with during the most grueling part of the OA.

I read the first essay prompt and was pleasantly surprised that it was pretty straight-forward and start banging on the the keys. I was really happy with my first two paragraphs and had about twenty minutes to go when, poof, it was all gone. I have the proctor take a look at things and she didn't have any idea what to do. By the time we figured out that I was hosed I only had about nineteen minutes left.

I did my best with in the remaining time, but I guess we'll see if it was good enough. Since we had to write two essays I can only hope that essay #2 was the one being tested.

D minus 1

I wasn't sure what to even title this blog post as I head into the FSOT tomorrow. I went into the process last year knowing that I wanted to do something geo-political, but didn't have any really strong feelings about the State Department. Going into the test last year I honestly had no idea how I would do, but felt that the BIO and JK section would be my strengths and the EE and Essay would be the wildcards.

I wound up doing OK on the test. As you learn going through this, once you pass one hurdle it is more about what is up next. The value of your past performance sort of exponentially decays. Then at the OA nothing else matters except what you do from about 8:30AM - 3:00PM.

Since not making it through the OA (5.2), I have spent more time abroad and have had more exposure to State and USAID. I have realized that the realities of both of those organizations are much different than the perception of what you think you will actually be doing. Especially when it comes to USAID. Knowing what I know now, I am still taking the test tomorrow, but I am viewing the opportunity and the process much differently.

Good luck to everyone taking the test and just remember that this is an imperfect process, but the process is the same for everybody.

Round Two

It is time to get focused on the final prep for the FSO Written Test. I take it on the 10th so I still have a few days. I did well on all of the sections last time except the EE. I don't remember my exact scores, but they were something like 58/59 on both the JK and BIO, a whopping 48 on the EE and an eight on the essay. I have been spending most of my study time reading grammar books and writing essays. The idea of writing two essays isn't all that appealing, and it has been hard to get motivated for this to be honest.

Muslim Engagement Parties, Speaking Arabic, and the FSO Process

As I am about to start round two in my quest to make it all the way, it was difficult to not be a little bit discouraged after reading many of the stories from the most recent group that just received their QEP results. You can never quite tell how revealing the results are from the Yahoo board since you don't know just how representative that sample of candidates is of the overall pool. Needless to say, it didn't sound very good. On top of that the last person from our study group finally took the OA and unfortunately did not make it. No one passed on the day she took it which doesn't bode that well either. Oh well, all you can do is try.

So last night I attended an engagement party for the brother of one of my co-workers in the office in Amman. We had a small gathering in their home first and saw first-hand, Arabic musical chairs. It was a very traditional home with two separate entrances and sitting rooms for male and female guests. When you enter a home you are always offered a small cup of green, bitter coffee, and as the lone non-Arab I was offered the best seat in the room. I was until the parade of village elders arrived and the game of musical chairs started as we slowly danced our way from chair to chair to give the prime seats to the older guests. So by the end of the night I was just standing in a corner.

I thought this was the extent of the evenings activities and about thirty minutes into it I heard the women start the Arabic sort of chant that you often see in movies and I guess that was the signal to hop into our cars and move on to the next stop. So the long convoy moves out and we stop at the village Diwan. The Diwan was/is a local gathering spot that in older times the local village would meet nearly every night and just sort of hang out for several hours and then go home. Now they are used for parties like this. It had two large rooms for women and men and two small prayer rooms as well.

After going through a massive receiving line of the bride-to-be's family we all sat down. Then a random selection of the oldest guests stood up and said prayers blessing everyone. Then it was more bitter coffee, pepsi, and finally Kunafa. Not once did I see the bride.

So as we are hanging out several of the men start talking to me and are surprised at my level of Arabic. Then they bring their sons and ask if I will give them all an English lesson. So for the next hour I would ask them questions in Arabic and then they would have to translate it into English.

These are the sorts of things you just can never experience unless you speak a language. Now how does this relate to the FSO process? Well as someone much smarter than me said, "timing is everything." It looks like that statement certainly applies to the FSO process. With the current situation, if you can even make it to the OA and pass it, I am not sure you can get an offer unless you speak a language and/or have serious veteran's preference points.

I know not everyone can just go hang out in the Middle East, India, or China for a month, but if you view it as an investment in your future career than maybe it is easier to justify. I thought I had great narratives for the QEP last time, but after my experiences in the West Bank and at the party last night I just might have to swap out a story or two if I can make past the written test again.

The idea of grinding through two essays isn't very appealing, so first things first and time to start doing back to back essays for the next two weeks. Otherwise it will be back to the drawing board again.

Some Pictures from The West Bank

Back from Jerusalem and The West Bank

Just got back from three days of exploring. Most of my friends and family thought I was nuts to go, but their impressions are based upon what they on US TV, and yes I have a few FOX-news types in my family. The ability to speak Arabic really is a huge advantage and I was able to go and see things that most "tourists" never do. Also, most officical U.S. representatives just can't go check things out. I spent some time with several friends who are West Bank/Gaza and they can never enter Gaza and rarely enter the West Bank. That is really interesting because many times they never see their projects and with the limited or "bizarre" access they do get it makes me wonder who is really on the ground observing and processing things.

I'll write more later and post some pictures of the West Bank and some of the new settlements that are going up. Very tragic regardless of what side you fall on this issue.