70 BOA: Slowing Down, Gearing Up

I have the feeling that I'm slowing down in my preparations for the OA. I haven't attended a study group session in, what? some three weeks, not since the hypotheticals party. I intended to start up again this week, but a friend I see once a year is visiting town.

Meanwhile, although I have the feeling that I'm doing less, when I think about it, I realize that I'm not. I've been reading Bush Hat, Black Tie, (see above), the memoirs of a Public Diplomacy Officer who worked in the 1950s-1960s, in Nigeria and France, among other places.

I also spent a good part of Friday with a friend, working on anecdotes for the Behavioral section of the Structured Interview. And I finally printed out all the documents I've compiled for study -- including the now infamous Case Management exercise. I say infamous because of late, survivors of the OA have said on the Yahoo Forum that the study files there are much, much less complicated than the actual test files. If that's true, then I'm in trouble. The CM is also the only exercise where you have an "opportunity" to demonstrate your skills (or lack thereof) with quantitative analysis. Quantitative what? I think I'm becoming more worried about it, than I was about the hypotheticals, the behaviorals, and the group exercise all rolled together -- and that's saying something.

Sometimes I feel as though I'm in totally over my head. It's not that I don't think I could do the job -- I do. It's more than I wonder whether, or how well, I'll be able to demonstrate that fact. But I guess that's what everyone wonders, don't they?

With the anecdotes, for example, I had such trouble coming up with specific examples. I told my friend, "It's like trying to remember the last time I put salt on my food. Helping out or running here and there to assist people, or my kids, it's just a normal part of my existence -- as it is any mother's -- that it's hard to think of a specific instance that would stand out."

At some point, I do begin to wonder whether ignorance isn't bliss. It's easy to become terrified, easy to focus on all one's weaknesses instead of strengths, easy to act as though -- well, as though you were a young college freshman again, easily falling into the trap of losing perspective -- something you should have well gained when you reach my age.

I finally registered a hotel room for the OA, by the way. Amazing how just that little act makes it even more real -- as though it weren't real already.

I've been reading Career Diplomacy, as is highly recommended by just about everyone, from the DIR who ran our OA Prep at SIPA, to those who've passed the OA. However ... I have to say that I find myself shying away from it, in part, I think because it breaks my heart. I'm not sure why. I don't really want to read about pay raises and promotions, etc. The information is only useful if I pass the OA; until then, it's simply a painful tease. Maybe not the best way of looking at it, but apparently that's how I feel.

Kitten here has suddenly decided to curl up next to me and act all lovey-dovey. She wants to be fed. She pours it on when she's hungry. Otherwise, I don't see or hear her. I need to get up, anyway. Have to get ready to go out for dinner.