Tag: Love and Life

Quickly Clockwise: Learning Burmese, Weeks 41-42

by pennypostcard • June 26, 2025 • 0 Comments

For the last two weeks, it has felt like time is moving more quickly by the day towards our upcoming PCS. An international move requires an annoying blend of small detail management and big picture perspective, all of which eats up extra time and energy you don’t have while working full-time.

During the final stages of our 2013 wedding planning, I would often awake from nightmares of walls covered with clocks, their hands spinning clockwise out of sync and with absurd rapidity. I don’t think I could ever care as much about a PCS as I did our wedding, nor do I think the stresses are equivalent.

But my strategy of trying to keep on top of a myriad of details — lest they pile up and overwhelm me later — generally serves me well.

Foreign Service, U.S.

Moving Ahead: Learning Burmese, Week 40

by pennypostcard • June 8, 2025 • 4 Comments

Week 40 was the week where we could finally say, “We’re moving to Burma next month.”

And also, “Less than five weeks left of language class.”

Psychologically, each time we’ve advanced to a new stage in the program—moving from single-digit to double-digit weeks, hitting week 20, week 30, and so on—has felt like a milestone. And none more so yet than week 40.

Foreign Service, U.S.

Break on Through (to the Other Side): Learning Burmese, Weeks 38-39

by pennypostcard • June 1, 2025 • 0 Comments

During Week 38, I finally completed my fourth and final informal progress evaluation, which had been rescheduled twice from Week 36. It went fine overall, and I was placed in the lowest band of the ‘on-track’ category.

I dislike the evaluation process — the discomfort of being on the spot, the way FSI tries to measure learning for curriculum it doesn’t uniformly teach across language departments, and the eternal conflict between students needing to prepare topics for the test vs. acquire the tradecraft language skills we actually need to do our jobs. But for the time being, the system is what it is and it’s still better than no language training at all. With only five weeks remaining now until my formal End of Training test, I’ve accepted that I’m going to need to focus on studying more than I want to (or really have time to) in the coming period.

As we enter the final stretch — the weeks that start with a “4!” — and complex sentences are churning a little more easily out of my mouth, at least it feels like I’ve broken on through to the other side.

Foreign Service, U.S.

Talking Points: Learning Burmese, Weeks 34-35

by pennypostcard • May 7, 2025 • 1 Comment

Last week and the week before, I was struggling with burnout in Burmese class while also trying to focus on preparing for our upcoming move overseas. Now that we’ve entered the final stretch—with only single-digit weeks remaining in the program—two acronyms have begun to loom larger: the EOT (End of Training) test and our PCS (Permanent Change of Station) move.

Foreign Service, U.S.

A Message From Beyond, Part II

by pennypostcard • May 5, 2025 • 0 Comments

This post is the second half of a story from 2023 that I began to write last week. If you haven’t read the first half, I recommend you do so first so this post will make sense.

Foreign Service, U.S.

A Message From Beyond, Part I

by pennypostcard • April 27, 2025 • 3 Comments

I want to take a break from the intensity of Burmese study-related posts and tell a story I’ve been meaning to share since 2023. It’s an emotional story, sad, and long, but I think important, so I will tell it in two parts. This is the first part.

It’s fair to say I am the type of person who relies more on science than I do faith to explain what I experience in life. Most people who know me would probably describe me with words like serious, rational, skeptical, judicious, and methodical.

However, I have also long believed there are things we don’t understand about the human experience. In my opinion, sometimes things happen that we cannot simply explain (or explain away) with facts. Some things we simply feel, and intuitively believe to be true, even if we cannot prove it. This is a story about something like that. It’s a story about a message from beyond.

Foreign Service, U.S.

Earthquake and ချယ်ရီပန်ပွဲ (Cherry Blossom Festival): Learning Burmese, Weeks 30-31

by pennypostcard • April 6, 2025 • 0 Comments

Calendar year 2025 has continued to present a strange mix of hardship and beauty. Over the past two weeks of Burmese class, the cherry blossoms around Washington, DC’s Tidal Basin reached peak bloom—just as a devastating earthquake struck Burma, killing thousands.

Foreign Service, U.S.

Midpoint Breakthrough: Learning Burmese, Weeks 21-23

by pennypostcard • February 16, 2025 • 2 Comments

As we reached the halfway point of our 44-week Burmese course recently, I felt an increasing awareness that significant changes lie ahead. I’ve also felt a renewed determination to meet the challenges of our important work. [Author’s note: I wrote and edited this post two weeks ago, before the State Department news of a personnel Reduction-in-Force was reported by the press.]

Foreign Service, U.S.

Last Christmas Stateside, Until…?

by pennypostcard • January 25, 2025 • 0 Comments

As I prepared for my second Burmese language progress evaluation last month, I also was getting ready for a special Christmas at home in Virginia. The reasons it was special were twofold. One, my dad (and later my stepdaughters) were planning to visit from out of state; and two, it would be the last Christmas V and I would be in the United States, potentially for years.

Foreign Service, Travel, U.S.

Year in Review: 2024 Blog Stats and Recap

by pennypostcard • January 11, 2025 • 1 Comment

In 2024, when I wasn’t making the most of my time outdoors, I managed to publish 35 posts, conclude my fourth tour handling international parental child abductions in the Office of Children’s Issues, and begin long-term training for my next assignment at the U.S. Embassy in Rangoon, Burma.

I also wrote a series of posts chronicling Foreign Service-related topics, including the centennial anniversary of the Foreign Service, the machinations of retirement and sixth tour bidding planning, and my best tips for success during FSI language study.

Foreign Service, U.S.

Trail Quest, Part I: Get Outside

by pennypostcard • October 22, 2024 • 2 Comments

One of the best things about serving a domestic Foreign Service tour is proximity and access to all the wonderful aspects of life in the United States. In contrast to many overseas assignments challenged by air pollution, security restrictions, or lack of infrastructure, northern Virginia boasts a nearly endless array of activities with no such hindrances.

One of my favorite things lately about living in Virginia has been enjoying its beautiful nature.

Foreign Service, Health, U.S.

Distance Vision, Part III

by pennypostcard • October 18, 2024 • 1 Comment

In early January, I had eye surgery to free myself from glasses and contact lenses. The procedure was called refractive lens exchange, or custom lens replacement (CLR, pronounced like the word “clear”). During CLR, an ophthalmologist removes the natural lens from behind each eye and replaces them with synthetic interocular lenses (IOLs). In my case, like cataract surgery without the cataracts.

IOLs can never develop cataracts and are free of the age-related hardening and clouding that begins in your 40s. This lens hardening causes presbyopia, which means you may need reading glasses, even if you’ve had LASIK in the past to correct astigmatism. CLR restores the eye’s original refractive ability by dealing with all of your vision problems on the back end. Usually, CLR patients no longer need any vision correction.

Although my first CLR corrected most of my astigmatism, it took three further surgeries to bring my vision up to its present point: clear at all distances. I would have been dumbfounded to know back at the beginning that it would ultimately take four procedures to permanently correct my vision. But fortunately it was all covered by the initial price I’d paid and today I have no regrets.

Foreign Service, U.S.

Into a Bigger Bowl: Learning Burmese, Week 1

by pennypostcard • September 11, 2024 • 3 Comments

Last Tuesday – after the Labor Day holiday – over 650 shiny new students with language-designated onward positions arrived at the Foreign Service Institute to begin language training. I was one of them.

Foreign Service, U.S.

To Its Rightful Place

by pennypostcard • August 23, 2024 • 1 Comment

I believe that when someone passes away, especially at a young age, those who knew them have a responsibility to share their memories with the deceased’s family as much as possible. Once a person is gone, memories of them become incredibly precious. Whether something tangible like photos, letters, or mementos, or intangible like stories and reflections, every memory becomes part of a finite legacy—everything that remains is all there will ever be.

Every mourner experiences the loss of a relationship with the deceased that was theirs alone: irreplaceable, and deeply personal. Each person who loses someone loses a unique version of that person only they knew, and in some way, part of themselves along with it. Sharing memories, even if painful, forms part of the lasting echo of the individual. It helps to preserve their essence in the hearts of those left behind.

Foreign Service

Lucky FSO Numbers: 50 and 20

by pennypostcard • August 11, 2024 • 1 Comment

Earlier this month, I celebrated 19 years of federal service, which includes over a decade at the Department and the remainder split between my time as a Peace Corps Volunteer and my federal civilian roles at the Voice of America and Peace Corps Headquarters.

My federal service anniversary milestone brought to mind two significant numbers for Foreign Service Officers (FSOs): 50 and 20. Often referred to as the “50/20” rule (spoken as “fifty and twenty”), these numbers signify an FSO’s retirement eligibility.

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