Too Many Things to Report…..
Man, where do I start. Obviously it’s been a really long time since I last put anything up on this blog. I guess I’ll start by commenting on the previous post, the one about us going to Pretoria. We’re not going there anymore. Instead, we’re on our way to Bangkok, Thailand.
The short story of what happened is that the position I was assigned to in Pretoria was abolished as a cost-cutting measure, but no one informed the people who put the bid list together. So it was listed as a possibility, but whoever was assigned there wasn’t going to end up going. Another shining example of bureaucracy at its finest…
In order to get us an assignment, my Career Development Officer (CDO) told me he was going to give me a list of posts comparable to Pretoria to choose from. The problem with that is whose definition of comparable is he going to use? The region? Differential?
He ended up giving us 3 posts to choose from: Bangkok Thailand, Sana’a Yemen, and Luanda Angola. What would you do? Meredith and I thought we were going to get 5 or so that were similar, which would have required us to do some research to make our selection. We were wrong. I got the email with the choices, and not 10 seconds after reading it, we knew we were going to Thailand. Some people might like the hardship posts, and every Foreign Service person I’ve talked to has said their best tours have been in small hardship posts. I don’t deny that and would like to do one of those one day. In fact, I have to if I want to get promoted. But you don’t pass on Bangkok. It’s one of those ‘flagship’ postings, one where people compete furiously to get there. Had we not taken it now, getting it in the future would have been a tall order.
We are very excited about Bangkok. It is one of the great cities of the world, and Thailand a very exotic locale to live in for 2 years.
In other news, I was tenured the other day! This means that the State Department thinks I can serve effectively for my entire career. Basically, they think I’m good enough to keep me on. This is a good thing.
Check out our Flickr site (link on the right hand side) soon, we’ve been on several trips since the last post on this blog. We’ve had a ball.
The last thing we need to do before we leave Turkey: visit Istanbul one more time.
The title of this blog will soon change to ‘Adventures in Thailand.’ The Foreign Service is pretty cool…
