In week 11 we reached a milestone, completing the first quarter of our Burmese language course. The following week (week 12) marked a turning point of its own as our two classes merged into one for the first time.
Month: November 2024
First Quarter Achievement Unlocked: Learning Burmese, Weeks 10-11
The end of last week marked a significant milestone: we achieved 25% completion of our 44-week Burmese language course.
A Year Out From Sixth Tour Bidding: The Daydream
I’m not bidding in this current cycle. I already have my assignment to Burma that starts summer 2025 — hence my current long-term Burmese language training to prepare. But fellow FSO friends in the last year of their current posts are bidding for their onward assignments. Soon, their wait will be over.
Trail Quest, Part II: Collecting Pins
As I mentioned in the first post of my Trail Quest blog series, in 2020 I inadvertently started a bid to visit all of Virginia’s 43 (and counting) state parks with a pandemic isolation-era visit to Mason Neck State Park (MN). The site of friends’ kids’ birthday parties and impromptu weekend gatherings over the years, Mason Neck as our first state park was familiar, and probably – as the state park nearest our home – also the only Virginia state park we’d ever been to.
At that time, I was only peripherally aware of the state park system in Virginia. I didn’t realize how many parks existed, where they were, or how nice they were. We hiked outdoors in lots of places, but in retrospect they were northern Virginia’s abundant local parks or bigger-visit national parks. Occasionally I would see a sign for a state park off interstate 95 while we were on the way to somewhere else. But in 2023, I discovered Trail Quest.
First Progress Evaluation: Learning Burmese, Week 9
Last Friday marked a date I’d circled on the calendar during September’s first week of Burmese class: November 1st, our initial Burmese speaking and reading progress evaluation.
Collecting Postcards 