How did I get here?
One night, Carole and I were out having a drink and having
one of those “What are we doing with our lives?” conversations. It must have been a bad week at work.
We both have good careers.
Carole was a well respected teacher, and I am IT manager. We have a very nice house. We have a good life. But the thing we really love, the things that
really sets us apart from most of our friends and family, is we love to travel. And not taking a cruise or going to a
resort. We like to go to third world
countries or other strange destinations.
We like going to places no one we know has been, or sometime, even heard
of.
The problem is that travel cost money, and we only get to do
it in short busts when my vacation time allows.
As a teacher, Carole got lots of vacation time, but it was not flexible
if we wanted to go at a different time of year.
So we started thinking about how we can change our
lives. We looked at other options like
teaching English. But I also checked out
the State Department’s web site and found a couple ways we could work for them.
So for an Information Management Specialist position on the government's job web site. That was a big chore. It took hours to complete. I submitted it by the deadline and waited. Right after the deadline passed, I got the news: My application was...REJECTED.
I had not included my collage transcripts. I have been out of school for 25 years. Did they really want to know how I did in my COBOL class in the mid 1980's? Government being government, you had to follow the instructions precisely. So I had to wait a year to reapply.
This time around I did it right. After the deadline passed, I was told everything was in order, and it would be reviewed. Months passed before I was finally invited to Washington for an Oral Assessment. The interview in Washington was several hours, and included face to face interview, computer testing and essay writing. But in the end I passed.
Next I had to have a security background check and medical clearances for both Carole and I. Pass and Pass.
Next step, a final review and onto the register. The register is a ranked list of everyone who has made it to this final stage. When the State Department decides its time to have a class, they go to the Register and invite people in the order of their rank.
In February 2015, I go invited to the class beginning at the end of March. After almost 2 years, we suddenly only had a little over a month to get our affairs in order. The invitation came while we were away on vacation, so we lost a week of that time.
So in the past week, we have given notice at our jobs, listed our house for sale, started ridding ourselves of excess belongings, and organizing what remains.
The next month will be crazy!
