Slightly Obsessive, You Say?

The Shadow Register was quiet all last week. No one reported any (second-round) offers. I waited and waited and then on Friday checked my rankings again to see if there had been any movement. Well, yes, there had been. I'd moved up -- by exactly one slot.

Grrrr! Teeth-grinding time.

ONE SLOT??? What does that mean? 

Could it be that only one new acceptance had come in since the last time I checked (an entire week earlier)? Or could it be that the overly-busy folks at State simply hadn't had the time to update the Register?

In late May, my rank was 27. Checked two days after the first round of offers went out, my rank came in at 19 and therefore reflected at least eight acceptances. The latest rank of 18 would make it nine. That leaves a lot of offers (publicly) unaccounted for. And that could mean the possibility of more offers,  couldn't it? 

Oh, tell me it would!

I want to think positively. I want to be confident. I want to hold my chin up high and keep a stiff upper lip! And there have certainly been moments when I've managed to do exactly that. But please note that I said "moments." Not minutes, or even seconds, but moments. The rest of the time I try not to think about it. As a matter-of-fact, I spend an inordinate amount of time trying not to think about it. It's exhausting.

This business of sitting on the Registers is ...  well, it can certainly tinker with your sanity, can't it? For example, if you're like me, then you don't consider yourself particularly adept with an Excel spreadsheet. But you suddenly find yourself very adept at designing fairly complicated formulas and charts to track your progress on the Register. You assign a green zone and an orange zone and a red zone to the rankings -- those ranges where you're most "likely" (or unlikely) to get the call. And you scour the board for rankings related to previous offers, then double check the dates to make sure those numbers don't reflect a different time, a different reality -- that they're still relevant to your situation, to right now. You do all that and plug it all in and admire your pretty handiwork and then ... 

Well, then you collapse. You realize that you can do all the calculating you want, but unless you're ranked in the single digits, you can't be sure of anything. Even then, your optimism is affected by an awareness that you're incredibly vulnerable to a host of factors beyond your control.

So how am I feeling today, at this moment? Optimistic, I'd say. Irrationally, perhaps, but still happily.

We'll see. This week should provide definitive answers. 

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September? No Offer, Not Yet

People on the A-100 Yahoo forum started reporting offers last Monday, June 27. None of those highly desired emails from State arrived in my mail box, unfortunately. And yes, I'm bummed. I admit it.

I think my rank before the offers for the September Class went out was around 25 or 27. Actually, it could've been much lower down on the Register, since I hadn't checked my rank in a month -- and a lot can happen in that amount of time. Long story short, I checked on Wednesday and learned that my new ranking was 19/180. This was the result after all consular offers for the September class had been sent out. (I've read that ranks don't change when the offers go out; they're only updated when people accept an offer and are then removed from the Register.)

If any of the initial offer recipients declined, then we'll learn about it this week, I hope. Usually, second-round offers, when there are any, are sent out the week following the first round.

I would so love to get an offer, but I'm steeling myself for another week of silence, and then months of watching my rank slip.

But, in the meantime, I'm sending out my best wishes and congratulations to those who did get an offer. One of the most touching and meaningful stories is that of NJT. I'm so happy to hear that NJT has gotten an offer -- finally. This person has gone through a lot. My heartfelt blessings go out to the winner and family.

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A Commitment to Blog

I think it's about time to admit to myself that my Foreign Service dream might never come true. You might look at my last officially notified ranking, #27, and think, "How can it be that high and she still be worried about not being chosen?" Well, if it's one thing I've learned, it's that nothing is guaranteed about this business of getting into the Foreign Service. Ranking has all the stability of a yo-yo in constant motion and scores that would guarantee an invite at one point fall far short of the mark at another.

So, I've been thinking about my blog. I'm not really a blogger. The tendency to share my thoughts or activities doesn't just come to me that naturally. However, I decided to start this blog for a very specific reason and promised myself I'd make a special effort with it.

When I first started applying to the Foreign Service, I was thrilled to find blogs by working FSOs. My main focus, however, was on their early entries, the ones where they talked about the process of becoming an FSO. Many of them were quite sketchy there, so I started looking for blogs that were written by candidates, that detailed the lengthy and agonizing struggle that some -- not all -- people go through to get this job. I was hungry for information about the FSOT, the QEP, the Orals, etc., and how it felt to take each step. But I found very few blogs like that. Most people, it seems, only begin their Foreign Service blogs when they actually join the Foreign Service, right after getting the A-100 invitation, when they know the adventure is about to begin. There seem to be relatively few of us who start their FS blog well before there's a guarantee of anything. I hoped this blog, for better or worse, would help fill that niche.

So now, I'm sitting here and thinking. Suppose I don't get in? What will I do about this blog? When will I stop writing it? I think I'll stop when my candidacy ends. I hope that the blog will segue into a Foreign Service career, that I will get to write the next chapter, about life in the A-100, but if I don't, then I will at least write until July 2012. That's when my candidacy is to automatically terminate. I will leave the blog up after that and be available to answer questions or respond to comments, if there are any. I hope that whether I get through or not, this blog will help those who are walking a similar path.

(Gee, I get all goose-pimply just thinking about this. It reminds me of an Indiana Jones kind of thing, where somebody finds himself in some unexplored and unfamiliar part of the world, then spots a skeleton in the corner of a dark cave. There's a message in blood on the walls and the skeleton's bony finger is pointing the way forward --> That way!) :-)

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