First, I want to wish Mara a very happy birthday. I'm usually pretty bad at remembering birthdays and the like, but I'm trying to get better. Happy B-day, Mar!
Second, I submitted our bidlist yesterday, so I guess I can share it today without jinxing it. Here's to hoping!
Before I get there, tho, I should explain that we have agonized over this list since July 1. We've culled through post reports, real post reports, post profiles, wikipedia articles, diplopedia articles, post info to go documents, and more to try and cull a list of 550+ positions to 20, with no repeats.
The first thing we had to do was figure out what the requirements were, and then what matters most to us; we broke this into professional considerations and personal considerations. Mind you, since we have to send this to my career development officer, we focused on my professional considerations in our summary, and Katie's in our research.
Our requirements were that we had to find a consular position for me. We also had to find one with timing that works out perfectly and includes home leave, consular training, area studies, and, possibly, language training. Those requirements took us down to about 180 positions.
My professional considerations were already mostly included in the requirements. The only other major professional consideration we had was the size of the post (yes, size does matter!) to try and find something different. Since I've worked on the Middle East for 10 years, we wanted something somewhere else, although, if any really good ME positions had worked, we would have considered them.
Our personal considerations were that we wanted to find a place where Katie could continue her career development, preferably in the private sector, but possibly as a State Department contractor. We wanted to find a place where we can take the dogs (which meant no Jamaica, among other places).
So, here's the list. CON means it's a consular position, the - means it's a rotation, POL = Political Officer, ECON = Economic Officer, and the IROG in Curacao means it's a do a bit of everything. We ranked the top 9 high, 10-16 medium, and 17-20 "Low", but we might go to any one of these, or, if the Career Development Officers (CDOs) don't like the list at all, somewhere else entirely. I like our chances for several of these, tho.
1. Amsterdam/CON
2. Warsaw/CON-POL
3. Buenos Aires/CON
4. Bucharest/CON
5. Santiago/CON
6. Lima/CON
7. Tijuana/CON
8. Bern/CON
9. Curacao/CON-IROG
10. Athens/CON-ECON
11. Frankfurt/CON
12. Montreal/CON
13. Toronto/CON
14. Panama/CON
15. Merida/CON
16. Guadalajara/CON
17. Brasilia/CON
18. Hong Kong/CON
19. Belgrade/CON
20. Belmopan/CON
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Bad Bloggers! Bad!
I can't believe it's been over a month since we last posted a blog. I guess we've been busy.
We've spent most of our free time doing research into our next post. Yup, we've been here for not quite 10 months, and we're already trying to figure out where we're going next. We got the list of available positions on July 1, and it got pared down again about 10 days ago. On Monday, we finished our draft bid list of the top 20 places that we'd like to go. We submit the final next Wednesday. Hopefully we'll know where we're going by mid-September.
I know everybody always wants to know what's on our short list, but I don't wanna jinx it. Let's just say that countries in the Middle East, Africa, Central and Southeast Asia aren't, but the rest of the world is pretty much fair game. How long we'll be in DC, and when, depends largely on where we go next.
The dogs are still misbehaving, but I think they're acting out of a desire for more love and attention. They sort of listen at least some of the time. They haven't grown much bigger, but they're still chewing up their toys. We're not giving them any more ropes or rubber toys - the pieces end up all over the house. They're also not allowed on the couches, but they think it's a game to jump up on a chair and wait for us to tell them to get down. We've tried putting aluminum foil on the couches; it worked until they started eating the foil. Katie often tells them, "It's a good thing you're so cute." It really is nice to have them waiting for us when we get home. They follow us around the house, and often seem torn as to which of us to follow.
No pictures this time, maybe later.
We've spent most of our free time doing research into our next post. Yup, we've been here for not quite 10 months, and we're already trying to figure out where we're going next. We got the list of available positions on July 1, and it got pared down again about 10 days ago. On Monday, we finished our draft bid list of the top 20 places that we'd like to go. We submit the final next Wednesday. Hopefully we'll know where we're going by mid-September.
I know everybody always wants to know what's on our short list, but I don't wanna jinx it. Let's just say that countries in the Middle East, Africa, Central and Southeast Asia aren't, but the rest of the world is pretty much fair game. How long we'll be in DC, and when, depends largely on where we go next.
The dogs are still misbehaving, but I think they're acting out of a desire for more love and attention. They sort of listen at least some of the time. They haven't grown much bigger, but they're still chewing up their toys. We're not giving them any more ropes or rubber toys - the pieces end up all over the house. They're also not allowed on the couches, but they think it's a game to jump up on a chair and wait for us to tell them to get down. We've tried putting aluminum foil on the couches; it worked until they started eating the foil. Katie often tells them, "It's a good thing you're so cute." It really is nice to have them waiting for us when we get home. They follow us around the house, and often seem torn as to which of us to follow.
No pictures this time, maybe later.
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