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.
Tag: Washington DC
Last Christmas Stateside, Until…?
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.
Year in Review: 2024 Blog Stats and Recap
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.
Know the Signs
In addition to ending my fourth tour and traveling to the west coast to see family, I did two other important things in Washington, DC in June. I had an opportunity to march in the Capital Pride Parade as a volunteer for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP), and I went to a work-related training on atrocity prevention at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM).
Both the volunteer work and the training provided opportunities to reflect on important signs we may see that things are going wrong – before it’s too late.
Zero Miles Later
Yesterday I ended my fourth tour in the Office of Children’s Issues. And as I’ve mentioned recently, in an end-of-tour first, I will be PCSing to exactly nowhere in the coming days. Since my orders are from a domestic assignment to an overseas assignment via long-term training, we’ll spend the next year living in our same house. I’ll just pivot from working in DC to working in Arlington. I won’t be entitled to PCS Lodging or per diem as I train up for my one-year assignment to Burma.
I’m telling myself it’s just a bonus that we won’t have to move three times in three years.
May Flowers
May was a month of celebrations, from the visit of my eldest stepdaughter, to a 10-year anniversary with approximately one-fifth of our original A-100 class, to marking the centennial anniversary of the Foreign Service on the rooftop of the Watergate in Washington, DC.
An End of Tour First…
…At least, for me. I am about three weeks away from finishing my fourth tour in the Office of Children’s Issues in Washington. I’m in a busy period of time at work. But it hasn’t escaped me that at this point during every prior tour, I was working and buried in preparations for Permanent Change of Station (PCS) moves.
By comparison, my to-do list now – while never finished – seems manageable. I do have some trepidation about going into 13 months of full-time training, particularly 10 months of Burmese language class. Going from 60% remote to 100% in-person will pose challenges too – logistical, mental, and personal. But for the time being, I’m grateful to wrap up a tour for the first time without the stress of an overseas PCS move looming days away.
Happy Centennial, Foreign Service
May 2024 marks the 100th anniversary of the modern United States Foreign Service. It doesn’t mark the beginning of American diplomacy, which traces back to the beginning of our young union, but rather the passage of the Rogers Act of 1924. The Rogers Act, also known as the Foreign Service Act of 1924, joined the diplomatic and consular services of the United States. (Personnel of the former staffed embassies and legations around the world; the latter primarily promoted trade relations overseas and assisted distressed U.S. sailors – a precursor to today’s American Citizens Services consular work.)
The two services had evolved separately under former Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, and in merging them the provisions of the Rogers Act created a more merit-based Foreign Service. The new structure provided more reliable pay, a guaranteed rotation process to keep officers from “going native” in their countries of assignment (complete with mandated stateside home leave between foreign tours), and updated policies around officer selection, promotion, and retirement.
Postcard from Spring in DC/VA
The first day of summer arrived earlier this week and brought oppressive humidity and rainstorms to the DC metro area. Fortunately, my mom had planned her recent 10-day visit to see us right before spring officially ended, and we had plenty of near-perfect weather to enjoy the fun activities this area offers in spring. Although both V and I were too busy at work to really take time off, and I was in the middle of SIP bidding, I can’t say the days at home were boring! They were more for recovery, as we packed in plenty of fun non-working hour events and made new memories with my mom. I shared with her my dad’s joke from his 2018 visit with my stepmom to us in Australia: “I’m going to have to leave your place in an ambulance.” She laughed because we still have limited chill when it comes to entertaining visitors.
Her visit was also a good reminder to us both to better embrace the touristy benefits of being posted to DC for a domestic tour.
Year in Review: 2022 Blog Stats and Recap
For me, 2022 was a profoundly strange year, filled with ups and downs. We finalized adopting our cat and moved from Mexico to Virginia, I succeeded in my 100-lb weight loss goal, took a road trip to Florida, started my fourth tour in Washington, DC, and visited the west coast three times in one year. I got promoted, saw my favorite band live, took fun beach trips with my husband, and took a family trip to Europe. But I also was knocked off-center by the traumatic death of an old friend, struggled at times to learn my new job, and dealt with illness – both my own and that of multiple family members.
Mental Health is Health
I’m continuing to catch up with blog posts from a few months ago to bring us to the present day. September 2022 marked one year since the death of my longtime friend T who I met in 1998 and who was my boyfriend off and on for a few years while I was in college. It hardly seemed possible a year had elapsed, since I’d only learned in April that he’d already been gone for seven months. It still felt new and unfathomable to me. In an attempt to find answers and process his passing, I’d gone to California in May and visited his grave, worked on a memorial plaque, and found lots of books and podcasts about suicide and grief.
In honor of T’s life and September being National Suicide Prevention Awareness Month, I tried some volunteer activities I’d hoped would help me feel like I was doing something that mattered. I couldn’t help the one person I really wanted to try and help, so maybe I could help someone else. But I slowly began to understand I couldn’t “action” away my grief with memorial or suicide prevention activities, nor did “grief brain” allow me the ability to take on a lot of new information or tasks. As time passed and my shock wore off, I actually felt worse as people were expecting me to start feeling better. I saw I needed to take a step back to process. Because grief is an individual journey and everything you feel when grieving is normal and OK, even if it doesn’t meet others’ expectations or even your own.
Who’s Who at Main State: A Scavenger Hunt
Last fall, our team in the Office of Children’s Issues paused our regular international parental child abduction casework and bilateral portfolios for a daylong retreat. In addition to team-building exercises and an in-depth examination of our processes to see where we might improve internal coordination and workflow, we also took a 10-minute walk over to the main State Department building near 23rd and C Streets in northwest Washington, DC.
FS Domestic Tours: New Neighborhood, New Equilibrium
As I have surely mentioned in the past, Foreign Service Officers receive housing as an employment benefit while serving overseas or while stateside for training. However, when actually serving in a domestic assignment, whether it’s a year, two years, or more, officers have to arrange and pay for their own housing. And a domestic assignment usually means a tour in Washington, DC – – one of the most expensive regions of the country. Many officers (and in particular single officers who have to manage on one salary) try and delay a domestic tour until they are well beyond entry-level pay for this reason, but it cannot always be helped.
Blurry Summer
I am months behind in my blogging. We are somehow now less than two weeks from the end of 2022 and yet – writing life-posts chronologically as I prefer to do – I’ve most recently only written about my May/June road trip to the west coast.
As I have dealt with personal and family illness, workplace disappointments from Juárez, the January curtailment halfway through my Mexico tour, and confusion from the suicide of an old friend for most of this year, this blog has not been the platform to write about some of the darker grief on my mind. I’ve had good blog posts in draft for months, on topics from our late summer trip to the Balkans, to getting promoted in the Foreign Service, to a follow-up to my wildly popular post about Foreign Service housing, all in various stages from partly-done to mere sketchy outlines.
Federal Service: 17 Years and Counting
Earlier this month marked 17 years of federal service to my country. 🇺🇸
Three agencies, five countries, two states, two embassies, one consulate, and countless duty stations and TDYs. It has been a wild ride. Hopefully I have at least a few years left in me before the bureaucracy drives me nuts and I have to retire and do something else!
Collecting Postcards 