Still waiting...

Well, I haven't written anything in awhile...I was waiting until the 10th when I found out where I was going, but that plan was thwarted. On the 8th, they told us that we'd all be getting American flags at graduation because they were unable to assign the majority of our class. That was disappointing. So, graduation came and went...Chris came to DC for the weekend, so that made it enjoyable. We had a nice dinner on Friday night, saw 'I Love You Philip Morris', had a delicious crepe at Eastern Market on Saturday morning, made a trip to Ikea....oh yeah, and Chris brought me a cat! Tiger is now a city cat with Wally. I think they've readjusted to being together now.

This week has been wonderful. We moved into our cubicles on Monday - my home is in the Bureau of Food Security. I've had some great meetings that have really helped me figure out what my purpose in the agency is and what I should be doing for the next year or so. I'm hoping I'll get my assignment by Christmas...check back soon!

Pics from graduation to come!

Settling in...

I haven't blogged in awhile...mostly because I was at home for Thanksgiving and have been working on unpacking since. As of this evening, I'm down to 3 more boxes left to unpack. I'm still working on finding homes for everything that I've already taken out of the boxes, but it's slowly coming together. I'm hoping it will all get done in the next 3 days because Chris is coming for my graduation ceremony on Thursday.

I can't believe that my initial 5-week training program is just about done! This Friday I'll find out where I'm heading for the next two years of my life. We've been warned that they're having problems placing all 60 of us right now, some some of us will be getting US flags at the ceremony and finding out our assignments later. I know that the agriculture group is among those that are having problems being placed, so I have my fingers crossed that someone has claimed me by this Friday.

I've been spending most of my time outside of training working on the apartment, so I don't really have any exciting stories...

I'm sure everyone has heard about the debacle of WikiLeaks publishing thousands of cables from U.S. Embassies around the world. Since the published documents are classified information and we've all signed agreements not to utilize classified information outside of approved methods, government employees are prohibited from accessing them on WikiLeaks, so I've only seen and heard what's been reported on the news. It's been a big topic at our training lately because it will severely impair our ability to interact with foreign governments, not to mention it endangers the lives of both US government employees and those who have been working with us. I can understand people wanting the government to be more transparent, but the way that this was done is going to have a huge impact on how the foreign service agencies are able to do their work. It angers me to think that someone single-handedly endangered the lives of hundreds of thousands of foreign service workers, most likely without even thinking about the consequences. But anyway...

Photos of the finished apartment to come, as well as graduation pics...visit my Facebook page to wager your guess as to where I'll be assigned! The winner will receive an undetermined prize from me!

Time to unpack - and Myers-Briggs

I am now in the process of moving in - finally! The apartment looks like a mess, but hopefully it'll get cleaned up when I get back to town on Sunday morning. In the meantime, today at training we learned our Myers-Briggs Type Indicator so we could talk about interpersonal skills and our communication preferences. I am a ENFP - extraverted intuition with introverted feeling. Okay, so that doesn't mean much, but when I dig into the description, I think it fits pretty well....here's the quick summary...

ENFP's tend to prefer what might be over what is. They approach the world with optimism and trust, taking risks others might avoid. They find new challenges more appealing than what is known and verified.

ENFP's focus on possibilities and people's potential. They like to talk with their network to find out what people think about an issue. They prefer collegial relationships, shared rewards and consensus in decisions. They are warm, flexible and encouraging leaders, and can be energetic followers when treated with respect. 

ENFP's value meaningful relationships. They want to make the world a better place. The focus on developing potential in others, finding a purpose in life, and bridging differences. They want to be authentic.

ENFP's like to work with general direction and freedom to accomplish the task in their own way. They like frequent feedback and appreciate supervisors/teachers with warmth, enthusiasm, and humor who provide individual recognition. They enjoy verbal communication and are typically verbally fluent; however, they become awkward when they need to express their deepest values.

When they feel frustrated and misunderstood, they become scattered and have trouble focusing on the task at hand. They fail to follow through on their decisions - become rebellious and excessively nonconforming and ignore deadlines and procedures.

Energizers: variety, challenge, being taken seriously and valued for competency and skills, freedom to innovate creative and effective solutions

Stressors: being disrespected, competence doubted, overloaded with details, supervision that is too close and communicates distrust and doubt, too little outside stimulation, rules that inhibit the creative process

When ENFP's are stressed, they withdraw, shut down and avoid people. They become passive-agressive. The generate possibilities with no data or follow-through. They become convinced that they have medical problems that don't exist.

Okay, there's more, but I think that's enough. If you know me, I think it fits pretty well. For those of you who from NCGA, perhaps this explains why it just didn't work out for me...

Here's hoping my career at USAID is a better fit!

Uggghhhh!

Well, this morning was interesting. I had my appointment to go visit the storage facility at 9am. In order to get myself out to Manassas, VA (about 40 miles away), I had to rent a car. So I chose a lovely blue Prius from Zipcar that lives at one of the last Metro stations on the orange line in Virginia. I loved driving the Prius! If I ever buy another car, I'd want an electric car like the Volt or the Leaf, but I have a feeling foreign countries won't have the infrastructure to make that work. So maybe a Prius...? But I digress...

So I arrived out at the storage facility and they took me to my stuff - three very large crates, which were surprisingly mostly full. They sat me at a table with the inventory that the packers had made and a group of three guys began pulling out items, calling out the number on the box, and I told them whether it stayed in storage or came to the apartment. First, I was surprised at how much of the stuff is coming to the apartment...it sure looks like a lot, but really, I guess it's mostly kitchen stuff and clothes. Second, and most disturbing, my BRAND NEW desk is broken. And I mean, irreparably broken. Grrrrrr! I'm hoping it's just this one thing and I don't have boxes of broken things waiting to further disappoint me when I open them. So, I asked my HR guy what to do and he directed me to the claims department, where I will no doubt be required to fill out paperwork and wait...and hopefully eventually get reimbursed for the things that are damaged. Luckily for me, I have the receipt showing that the desk was purchased about a week before the move, and I have pictures showing its condition, so hopefully there won't be any disputing that they broke it. We'll see....

Tonight I'm having my grocery order delivered for the first time. I'm interested to see how this works out.  For $7, the grocery store brings my stuff to my door for me within a 2 hour window. I got free delivery for my first order, but I'm pretty sure this will be the first of many times I'll use their service. To ride the Metro to and from the store is $3.20, plus the time I spend in the store and the hassle of having to carry everything (and buy only what I can carry). This is great because I ordered huge bags of cat food and litter, cases of soda, etc. which I would never be able to get home without a vehicle.

Oh, and last night I had dinner at a wonderful little Vietnamese restaurant with my friend DaNita, a former NCGA coworker here in DC, followed by some fro-yo. It's always so nice to get to hang out with people outside of my training class! And if you come visit me, I may be taking you to Saigon Bistro, so be prepared...

Lovely weekend

Week 2 of training seemed to drag along for some reason. On Wednesday, we went out to the Foreign Service Institute in Arlington. It was fairly interesting - learned more about medical services overseas at post, educational options for your kids, and what kind of resources are available to families overseas. They definitely take excellent care of foreign service officers and their families. We had another happy hour over in Rosslyn afterwards, which was fun. Thursday and Friday we did some group projects and heard about a few more programs and benefits.

Yesterday I decided to go out and see a movie by myself, so I saw Morning Glory, which I really enjoyed. Afterwards I took a quick trip down to Filene's Basement and found myself a pair of flat black boots, which I think will officially allow me to fit in in this city. I got home and made myself a real home-cooked meal. 

Yummy chicken pot pie!

I had to improvise since I don't have any baking dishes yet, but luckily the skillet I bought was oven-safe, so it worked out just fine.

In other news, tomorrow morning I go to Manassas, VA to access my storage unit and sort out what's coming to the apartment. They'll deliver Tuesday at noon! I'm going to have to recruit some help to put my bed together and move some things around...we'll see how successful I am with that.

Also, Wally now insists on sleeping under the covers with me. It's cute, but annoying...

   

Wally is spoiled!!

I don't know what he's going to do when I'm away for four days at Thanksgiving....

I also got a very nice package in the mail yesterday from my friends, Chuck and Cris France! 

I'm particularly excited about using the Star Wars bandaids...and being able to open the bottle of wine when my stuff gets here on Tuesday!

Today brings cleaning in preparation for the delivery, grocery shopping, and dinner at a Vietnamese place with my friend DaNita, who works for NCGA here in DC. Should be a nice end to a lovely weekend.

Stuff is Here!

I have to say, having wireless in my apartment make life much better! Also, I got word yesterday that my stuff has finally arrived in DC! I'm still working on scheduling my time to access my storage unit (which is an hour drive away from my apartment in Manassas, VA) and then a time for everything to be delivered. Hopefully this will all happen before I come home for Thanksgiving next week....

That's right, I'm coming home for Thanksgiving! I figure it may very well be the last time I get to be home for Thanksgiving for a number of years, so I may as well take advantage of it while I can. We're finishing training early on Wednesday, so I'll be in early Wednesday evening and flying back early Sunday morning.

Today was my first rainy day in DC. I have never seen so many dogs with raincoats! It's cute, but also slightly disturbing.

Tomorrow we have a field trip to the Foreign Service Institute in Arlington for the day. It'll be nice to be somewhere other than the training facility we've been in for the past week.

First week = Done!

So I've made it through a week of training and feel like I'm learning a lot. The first three days or so was all about benefits and taking care of paperwork. Did you know that there are 207 health care plans available to government employees? It's overwhelming. Luckily, foreign service officers have a unique opportunity because we can change our plan every time our permanent duty station changes (ie, when they send us overseas and when we come back to the US) in addition to the yearly open-enrollment season and other typical qualifying life events. I'm pretty sure I chose a good plan, but if I am unhappy, I'll be able to change soon enough.

We had a DLI 15 happy hour on Wednesday night at The Laughing Man Tavern, which is just a couple blocks from the Reagan building. We have a fun, social group of people in the class, so it was fun to get to know some of them better. On Thursday I was off for Veterans' Day. I spent the day ironing and hanging up all my clothes...sounds awful, I know, but I was so happy to do it! And Saturday night I met with the sister of a former coworker and her husband for dinner downtown. It was so nice to have a conversation with someone outside of training! Hopefully we'll hang out again in the next couple months before they move away.

It was a gorgeous weekend here...mid 60's and sunny. I walked down to the grocery store this afternoon, which was so nice. I rode the Metro back, of course, because I can't haul all those groceries on a 20 minute walk.

Oh, and the best news, I have wireless in my apartment now! I feel like part of civilization again. Hopefully I'll be blogging more in the future since it'll be more convenient that having to go down to the common areas.