One year later

July 16, 2012.

That was the day I joined 90 other new diplomats-in-training for the first day of A-100. We had our photos taken for official badges, listened to welcome speeches, and perhaps nervously wondered who we'd eat lunch with. (Also like high school, I'd picked out my First Day of School outfit days in advance.) One year later, some officers are finishing their first DC tour, while others are still in the final days of pack-out after a long slog of language study. I'm 8 months into my first overseas tour.

It seems tradition on many FS blogs to share your application story. Here's mine, which all took place while grad school was ongoing: 

February 2011 - take the written exam

(Bunker Hill Community College, Boston)

March 2011 - submit Personal Narrative Questions

(reach back to Yunnan work experience)

(summer 2011 - State Dept internship - not required for applicants)

 (prep prep prep for Oral Assessment)

October 2011 - Oral Assessment

(so much gratitude to those who helped prepare)

 February 2012 - passed security clearance and entered the POL registry

(false start offer for 166th A-100 in March)

April 2012 - accepted offer for the 168th A-100

(whew, gainfully employed upon graduation)

If anyone reading this is in the application process right now, keep pressing on! I don't know why some of us pass through quickly and doors unexpectedly close on others. A few highly gifted and respectable people I know did not pass the OA when I'm pretty sure they would have been awesome officers. 不明白。不、不明白。

* * * 

Last summer during A-100, my friend Hillary had given me some literal mustard seeds to plant in faith for better days. I'm sad to say they didn't last long - the sun on my porch was too strong, or I didn't buy a big enough pot, or I simply forgot to water them. They sprang up and withered away. 

This spring I tried again. I bought a small white rose and a tiny potted flowering tree and placed them on the porch. They were lovely for about 3 weeks, and then they withered away too. Arg!

So my friend Jeanie came over one day and took a look, and her verdict was "it's bad, but something might still be alive." She went to work pruning the dead branches, cutting deep deep down. I watered a barren stump of a tree for a while, wondering if there was any point. And then one day, it happened - new green leaves sprang forth.

Deep, radical pruning. Ripping off dead branches. Can it be done in the heart too?

Currently listening to: "Beautiful Things" by Gungor

Independence Day in Shanghai

This year is the 237th anniversary of 13 colonies declaring their independence from Great Britain. At the same time that Thomas Jefferson was contemplating the universal rights of man in a new nation, a much more powerful nation was reaching a cyclical peak. 

In 1776 the Qianlong Emperor of China was presiding over a time of prosperity, amassing piles of silver, jade, and rare art, and dismissing Western emissaries as barbarians. Qianlong's armies were active on the border, conquering the Dzungar Khanate and re-naming it Xinjiang, quashing rebellion in Lhasa, but failing to conquer the Kingdom of Burma. So much and yet so little in China has changed since then.

Where do China and the US stand today? There are plenty of other people making names for themselves on this topic. Last week, we just had a great party together. 800 guests at the Ritz-Carlton Pudong heard our Consul General liken the accepted rules of inter-state relations to the game of basketball, where teams from different countries all come together for fair competition. Whether our host country guests appreciated this or not, I don't know, but everyone was excited about this:

Yao Ming showed up!

Guest were also surprised to discover that we have Marine Guards here in Shanghai: 

My job was control officer for the Harvard Krokodiloes, an a capella group that sang the national anthem. They were a pretty good-natured bunch.

Vocalists from the Shanghai Music Conservatory sang the Chinese national anthem. They were quite impressive - strong and almost martial voices, but a clear and lovely tone at the same time.

The night closed with Harry the Hawk and the Atlanta Hawks' dance team doing Smooth Criminal:

The big, bold nature of the NBA in the middle of the glitzy Ritz-Carton was an interesting combination - perhaps much like Shanghai itself. Happy 4th of July!