We’ve made it through another $56 in February with…drumroll…$2.90 to spare! Well, at least according to my calculations, which, this year, did not count oil, because I was lazy. Or spices, because I never count spices during this thing (one little jar lasts all year!). So, I suppose if we counted the oil or the spices, we were probably actually over budget by a few dollars. I, however, don’t care. We made it, and once again, were viscerally reminded of the difference between want and need.

I certainly want that chocolate bar during some stressful times. But I absolutely do not need it. I went through my most stressful week at Halfaker during the first half of February, and there was no comfort food, no stress relieving candy, no cookie breaks. I still got the job done, and well, without the instantly gratifying reward of whatever I happened to be craving at the time (chocolate!)

A couple of shout outs to the food that got us by this month: 2 roasted chickens at $0.89/lb turned into somewhere around 30 meals (soups, stews, and chicken pies). No knead bread is always a winner a $0.07 per wonderful ‘artisan’ loaf. The wonderful snickerdoodle is a lifesaver at $0.04 per 2 inch cookie. Finally, the most important thing we ate all month, and my lifesaver when it came to making sure dinner was on the table on those weekday nights when no one had any time to cook: the empanada. Wonderfully flaky and stuffed with nutritious and delicious chicken, black bean, and spicy tomato chickpea fillings, the empanada kept us sane, and kept my evenings free of the stress of planning a cheap meals. All that and just $0.33 cents each. Fantastic.

Health-wise we’re all good. Chad lost 7 lbs and I lost 6. Hopefully we’ll get some of that back in muscle since Chad can start running again, and daylight savings quickly approaches. Sunlit evenings mean I can start biking to work again in a few weeks. I’m very excited, poor Adelaide hangs forlornly in the garage, waiting for me to take her out again. Soon!

Maybe next year, depending on what we’re doing, I’ll improve my blogging frequency during February and write more about it. We’ll see, that’s a whole ‘bother 11 months away, and I’ve got other things to do between then and now.

I think that this third year is definitely the easiest, for three reasons. One is all of the lessons learned from previous years. I’m much better prepared and equipped to plan and make nutritionally dense foods that will keep us going the entire day. The second is that it had been a while since Chad and I last ate until we were too full, and this has helped us from feeling as hungry as we did that first year – our stomachs are just smaller than they have been in the past. The third and most delicious reason is empanadas. At the end of January I spent way too many hours making 41 empanadas with 3 different fillings (black bean, spicy chickpea, and chicken). However, that investment of time made this month’s dinners a breeze. All we have to do is bake them in the toaster oven for 30 minutes and we end up with a tasty, nutritious, satisfying meal. One of these days I’ll remember to take a picture.

There isn’t much of a point to this post besides checking in with the world and musing a bit about just how much time goes into making an activity like this work. And since this is my blog, I think I’ll just keep going.

My apartment smells very strongly of chicken. This afternoon I roasted the second of the two roasted chicken I bought at Costco last month, and now the bones are simmering in the stock pot with the leftover aromatics from the ‘ends’ freezer bag. That freezer bag is/was full of onion ends, carrot peels, mushroom stems and the leftovers of herbs and things. In a couple of hours, I’ll have the stock necessary to make the kale, potato and chicken soup we’ll be eating for lunch next week. The chicken for the stew comes from half of the roasted chicken, the other half got mixed with some parsley for this weeks roast chicken, pita and hummus sandwiches lunch. Total cost for 10 days of weekday lunches for the two of us: $10.88.

Total time is another matter. Yesterday I made the pita and hummus, I suppose the total time for that was about an hour active cooking time. The roast chicken was probably 45 minutes active time – mainly because it takes a while to completely carve and cube a roast chicken. I’m guessing that the soup will take about 30 more minutes active time, mainly for chopping onions and kale, then also for watching it to make sure it doesn’t over cook. Finally, I’ll probably make at least two loaves of bread this week to go with the soup, which will be about another 15 minutes active time. Total active time for 10 meals: 2.5 hours active time.

AH, but it’s the INACTIVE time that adds up. Chickpeas for the hummus had to soak overnight. I use the No Knead Bread method recently popularized by Mark Bittman, which take a full day and a half to rise and rest before baking. Chicken roasts, then rests, for a total of 2 hours and stock simmers for 3 to 4 hours. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not watching that pot boil, I’m writing this blog post from the comfort of my couch. It’s the inactive time is what makes the month possible (and delicious).

For example, a 1 pound bag of chickpeas is $1.69, whereas a 16 ounce can is say…$0.99 (give or take). A pound of dry chickpeas, once cooked, can fill at least four of those cans, at a savings of $2.27. It’s not a whole lot of money any other month, but that’s over a days worth of food for Chad and myself. Pennies add up quickly when you’re counting every one of them. Also, personally, I think that food that that takes a long time to cook often ends up tasting better – but that could just be me.

So! To finish up this meandering post, $11+2.5 hours active cooking+a couple of days inactive cooking=10 days of delicious lunches for me and Chad.

And, of course, since it’s a rare and unnatural occurrence, we took some SNOW pictures.

Update! Chad and I walked over to the Masonic memorial on Sunday to watch the people sled, ski and snowboard. There are pictures of that in the snow album too!

So what am I talking about? For those of you who come here for Foreign Service related information, the next month might be a bit of a departure from the norm. As the URL, pictures, and other blog posts suggest, this website is about the VonHinkens, that means me, my husband Chad, and whatever might be going on in our lives that we like to write about. In February, that means we talk about extremely frugal eating. This will be the third year Chad and I embark on an experience/experiment that involves us spending $56 on food for the month of February. If you want, you can read about $56 in February 2009.

Whenever we bring up this tradition (does three times make it a tradition?), people say at least one of the following three things: ‘that’s not possible,’ ‘how?,’ and ‘why?’ Let me give you the short responses:

“That’s not possible!” To this I say HA! Back in 2007, when we did this the first time, I wanted to do it primarily to find out if I could. I can, and I can even come in under budget. So yeah, there is a little bit of pride, and a little testing to see if I can still pull it off.

“How?” It takes a lot of planning. A LOT. Coming in on (or under) budget is an extreme logistical project for me. Chad is very supportive, but he’s not the one cooking everything from scratch. And I mean it when I say from scratch. Beans come from dry, I make my own stock (if I’m going to use it), sometimes I’ll make yogurt, cottage cheese, and breads (including pita – it really is very easy). This takes a lot of time and frankly, I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to do it this year. This year I’m working for a company that keeps me pretty busy, and there’s the faint possibility of travel for work during the month, but we’re going to try anyway. We’ll see what happens.

“Why?” This is most complicated and least tangible answer. There are a lot of reasons that might not make sense to anyone outside of our little family of two. At first it was to see if we could. Then the money saving aspect, especially when we were trying to pay off our credit cards, was really attractive. However, our reasons have grown more philosophical as we continue – it has become an exercise in mindfulness.

During February, we are much more aware of what we eat, what goes into our food, and what we put in our bodies than we are in any other month. We are also more cognizant of how much we consume, and this is not limited to food. While Chad and I are already pretty light eaters, February reminds us of what it’s like to be hungry. The annual reminder makes us hate waste of all kinds, and since we don’t want to hoard anything, we don’t acquire more than we need.

I won’t be blogging quite so often about this year’s $56 in February, I’m not going to have the time. Also, it’ll probably be a big repeat of last year, and that can get boring. But I’ll post now and then about how we’re doing. Here’s a quick spoiler: we’ll be eating a LOT of empanda-pasty-samosa-pie type of food. Cheap and delicious!

• The SOI should concentrate on why you want to join the Foreign Service, not about why you’ll be an awesome FSO.
• Steer clear of “I want to travel.” This may be why you originally joined, but just wanting to travel gives the impression that you don’t completely understand the demands of the career.
• Be succinct and follow directions. You get an electronic copy of the document to ‘use the space below.’ Don’t go over a page and make sure the document is readable. There are varying opinions on whether or not the template is required – I say play it safe.
• Have several people read and give you feedback. My study group was essential for this. The document below is probably the fourth draft. I was very lucky to have the feedback from my group as well as from Chad, who is a wonderful editor.
• I’ve read of people writing their SOI the night before in the hotel (or even the morning of!), either because they left theirs at home or forgot to write it. If you can work that well under a short timeline, congrats, for the rest of us, make several copies, email the document to yourself, make sure someone else who can fax it to you is available, etc, etc. Don’t show up without it.
• Tell your own story. It doesn’t have to be something glamorous or earth shattering, but it should be about you. My SOI was very personal, and I think that made a difference.

Statement of Interest:

Please us the space below to describe why you want to become a Foreign Service officer.

I have always known that my career of choice would be one in service to my country – I have no doubt that my upbringing as a daughter of an officer in the United States Marine Corps contributed greatly to this knowledge. During a High School band trip to Europe I became more aware of the world around me and, wanting to know more, I chose International Relations as my major course of study in college. Another student first told me about the possibility of a career in the State department as a Foreign Service Officer and I immediately knew that this career path, which combined my interests in International Relations with serving the United States of America, was the one I wanted most to pursue. However, as I researched the process of becoming a Foreign Service Officer, I faced a dilemma: what cone should I choose? All of them held some appeal, but I could only choose one. I decided to delay taking the Foreign Service Exam for a few years in order to discover which would be the best fit for me.

Late in September 2007, after my wedding, I finalized my choice of cone as Consular. We were married in on the Big Island of Hawaii, and all of our guests were on vacation far from home. The next day, on their way to the airport, my friend and her three young children, my godchildren, were in a terrible car accident. The two youngest children escaped with barely a scratch, but their mother was seriously injured, and the oldest, my 8 year old godson and reluctant ring-bearer, died before the helicopter could reach the hospital. When a nurse confirmed the worst she let me grieve for two minutes, then reminded me that I had a friend worse off than I was, and two children to take care of. I did what I could for my friend. I calmed her down to the point where she could be flown to the main hospital on Oahu for surgery and arranged for my father to travel with her. My husband liaised with the police while I filled out paperwork and made difficult phone calls. The surviving children would be coming home with us. We both made sure the children ate, and when they were finally released, the nurses worked with me and arranged for us to borrow two car seats. We had rented a two bedroom condo for our honeymoon, and luckily, the second bedroom had two twin beds for the kids. Friends who were still in town from the wedding babysat while we went in to town to replace the shoes, clothes, pull-ups, toiletries and car seats that had been lost that morning in the accident. As they left us to settle in for the night, our friends told us that the kids were very lucky to have us taking care of them.

Over the next few days of phone calls, arrangements for the transportation of the remains, and changing of flight schedules, I realized that my friends were right: my goddaughter and godson were very lucky to have us take care of them, and my friend was lucky to have my husband and I make these arrangements. I briefly thought of what would have happened if they had been alone, and while I have faith in the County and State of Hawaii to see the children safely home, it would have been much more difficult for them to be taken care of by strangers. Eventually, my mind wandered back to this question of what direction I should take with the foreign service, and I understood that everything I had been doing over the past few days was ultimately the same thing an embassy’s Consular Section would do for any American abroad. I thought of some of the other duties of a Consular Officer: screening visa applications, assisting with adoptions, provide guidance with legal situations. A Consular Officer never stops providing some kind of aid or assistance to American citizens. Even under the worst of circumstances, I know that I always want to be in a position where I can help people. Realizing this, I also realized that I would best serve my country and its citizens by serving as a Consular Officer.

There are several practice exercises in the files section of the FSOA Yahoo! Groups, I recommend going through them all, extra never hurts. The most realistic exercise is the Ndungane exercise. It’s also the most complex, and will probably take the longest to complete. The basic structure of the CM is as follows: You get a big binder that may include some country information, embassy (or consulate) correspondence, and letter from someone high up in the embassy roster with instructions on what they want in the memo you will write. Here’s my bulleted list of general advice:

• There are different schools of thought on the best way to construct the memo, figure out which one works best for you. Personally, I work best by outlining and writing as I read, and it’s easier for me to make sure I finish on time.
• You are writing a MEMO. Take a quick look at how a memo should be composed and mimic that (google is your friend and word has decent templates).
• A nice touch may be to have the memo be From the name of the person the instructions were addressed to (but if you forget and sign your own name, that’s okay too).
• Don’t forget the pleasantries. One of the first things I wrote was my closing couple of sentences, complete with signature. That way, if I ran out of time, I still ended nicely.
• Follow Directions if the instructions want recommendations, don’t forget to make them, if they want a summary, just give a summary.
• Read Between the Lines The instructions may ask you to recommend how to solve a personnel issue, and you absolutely should make that your priority, but if you read the emails in the packet and everyone’s worried about how your department is going to make it’s numbers or meet the budget, by all means, point it out and make recommendations. You might find that the course of action you suggest may solve two problems at once.
• Make your recommendations up front (if you’re asked to provide them). Many times, the first paragraph or two of a memo is the only thing that will be read. While this isn’t necessarily the case for the CM, remember your audience should be a high ranking member of the embassy staff who may have 20 other memos to read before lunch besides yours. So make your recommendations in the first paragraph, then spend the rest of your memo backing them up.
• Keep it short – there will probably be a two page limit. Don’t push those boundaries and stay succinct.
• Pay attention to the numbers, especially if there are dollar signs in front of them. The CM is all about the Information Integration and Analysis and Quantitative Analysis dimensions (among others…), so analyze those numbers!
• Don’t forget to keep an eye on the clock.
• If your computer suddenly decides to use a different keyboard setting and you find yourself unable to type your memo and you can’t find anyone to help you, then by all means, use that scratch paper and keep going! Oh yes, .

The Structured Interview (SI)
As has been noted before in many places on the Internet, the SI is divided into three parts: Motivation, Hypotheticals, and Past Behavior. Really though, the structured interview is where you’ll really be assessed on the The Thirteen Dimensions. When it comes to motivation, your Statement of Interest (I’ll post mine at a later date) is good practice to get you ready for this section. However, you absolutely must be able to articulate your motivation for becoming a Foreign Service Officer. Practice out loud: in the car, over dinner, while taking a shower, or sweeping the floor. Practice to your cat, dog, fish, iguana, spouse, beau, swain, best friend, waitress, or the guy next you on the Metro. The only place I would caution against is on a plane – don’t be that guy.

For the Hypothetical Situations, practice with your study group. This will not only give you some much needed practice (there’s never enough!), but also introduce you to how many different people would address the situation.

For Past Behavior, you will need to be able to give an example in your life that corresponds to one of the thirteen dimensions. The examiners may not say as much, but you’ll understand what they’re looking for. When I started studying, I took some advice from the FSOA Yahoo! Group and started to write down examples from my past when I exhibited one of the dimensions. From there I created something of a monster. It’s a mapping worksheet that helped me figure out some good example experiences from my life, and which dimensions applied. Then, because I’m just a little crazy, I called it The Thirteen Dimensions Worksheet of Fun (MS Word Doc). Give it a try if you like, it definitely helped me sort out my experiences so I was ready to share them on the day of my assessment.

And now for some more general advice:

• If they offer you water, accept.
• Smile, sit up straight, and be polite.
• Make eye contact with both instructions, even if one is staring down at a clip board and is not (seemingly) paying any attention to you (this is pretty common).
• Be honest, don’t just say what you think they want to hear. The examiners are all FSO’s, and diplomats are trained to recognize when someone is being fake.
• At the end, they will ask if you have anything else you would like to add. Don’t over think this (unless there’s something you really want to say), a simple “I’m really happy to have had the opportunity to come here today” will suffice. If your exam happened to fall on the only day of real snow of the entire season, remember to thank them for coming in to run the assessment when the rest of the Federal Government is taking advantage of the liberal leave policy (that’s how I closed…).

Personal Preperation
I’ll end this overly long post with a few of the things I did to mentally prepare for the Oral Assessment.

• Keep to your routine. If you have coffee every morning, don’t skip it. If you’re like me and get overactive on with the merest hint of caffeine, this is not the day to have double americano.
• Try and get a full night of sleep. Hopefully someone won’t be shoveling the sidewalk under your window at 4am. Ugh.
• Wear a suit, preferably one that fits you well and you feel good in. Ladies, break out the pants suit to avoid unfortunate free shows – they will not help you pass the assessment.
• Bring something to do while you’re waiting. I brought cards – it’s too bad no one knew any good card games. *sigh*

AIM HIGH and Do Your Best My final bit of advice should be simple, but I’m going to elaborate anyway. Just because a 5.3 is a passing score does not mean that you should try and get a 5.3. You should be shooting for a 7 – I have it on good authority that this has actually happened before. I did my best to perform at a 7 level and I definitely came up short. However, if I hadn’t been aiming for that 7, I never would have gotten my 5.3.

In Japan people don’t generally say ‘good luck,’ they say a word that more or less means ‘do your best’ or ‘give it your all,’ so that’s how I’m going to close: Ganbare!

For my own personal experience with the FSOA, read the FSOA Recap I wrote last March.

We first came together as a group after looking for a study group on the FSOA Yahoo! Group, which is a great resource for anyone looking for study tips for the Oral Assessment. People are always looking for a study group on the Yahoo! boards, and there are groups on Skype for people who can’t make it to an in person groups. Don’t be shy about joining a group late, you (probably) won’t know anyone at the FSOA, so it’s okay to come into a group of strangers.

General Advice

We were very fortunate to have a former FSO and BEX examiner come and give us some tips and feedback. He is/was the mentor of one of our group members and his advice/knowledge will be in italics. Here are a few of his general tips:

• You are evaluated from the moment you walk into the building, so be pleasant and polite to everyone. Especially the program assistants, they are there to help!
• Avoid the words ‘uhhh,’ ‘i mean,’ ‘you know,’ and their relatives
• If someone offers you water, accept it!
• In order to avoid appearing unseemly, male examiners will not extend a hand to women. Ladies will need to initiate the handshake!
• Carry yourself well and exercise good posture while sitting and standing. Ladies should cross their legs at the ankle, not the knee.
• Judgement (the dimension) includes attire. Wear a suit. Ladies, wear a pantsuit. (This is less about Hillary Clinton being Secretary of State and more about not flashing the examiners)

Here’s my first general piece of advice, one that I learned from my bygone days as a flautist and oboist. You perform what you practice. Most people think it’s the other way around, that they practice and practice one way, and if there’s a little bit that’s inconsistent or off, well, it’s okay because the adrenaline rush of performance will kick in and we’ll play or speak or whatever perfectly for the performance. It just doesn’t work that way. We may practice what we want to perform, but we always end up performing just the way we practiced. I hope that makes sense. The point (yes! there is a point), is that when you get together with your study group, or sit in front of your mirror, act like it’s the real thing. Speak the way you’re going to want to when you’re face to face with the assessors, and say the things you’re planning to say on the actual day of the assessment.

My second bit of general advice is that candidates are assessed on the Thirteen Dimensions. Know them, live them, breathe them, love (?) them. For each section of the assessment, the examiners grade you from 1-7 on the dimensions.

The Statement of Interest (SOI)
I’ll post my actual Statement of Interest later, but I basically want to point out that you’re meeting with a group of people who are at the same stage as you, and who also (basically) know what the Board of Examiners (BEX) is looking for. Sharing your SOI’s with your study group not only helps you get to know each other better, but also gives you some great feedback. I know my SOI was greatly helped by being shared with the group.

The Group Exercise
My group did all of the practice exercises posted in the files section of the FSOA Yahoo! Group, and split into groups of four or five and went through the exercise as though we were being assessed. In a sense, we were, since we were assessing ourselves. Basically, in the group exercise, you are given a set amount of time to read through some background information on a fictitious country and a project. At the end of the first reading period, you have to present your project to your group (and the assessors). After everyone has presented, an examiner gives your group instructions on what to do next. While these instructions may vary, they will probably include a budget (less than the price to fully fund all projects) and instructions to fully or partially fund projects with that money. The group then has to work together to follow those instructions.

A few of us followed a particular strategy for keeping track of all of the relevant information from the projects. This is a method we picked up from other people on the Yahoo! boards, and this is how I did it, you can adapt it as you like. First I divided the page into thirds, with one third (column) for each project. At the top of the column I wrote the name of the project and the person presenting it, the rest of the column was divided into four parts.
1. A bulleted summary of the project: what it would do, who was driving it, who would benefit, etc, etc.
2. Cost breakdown: if the information gives you a breakdown of the projects cost structure, make note of it. In my experience, if the government can’t pay for the entire thing, they might fund a particular portion. For example, if you’re trying to build a school, and the costs break down to materials, labor, and property, then the government might just fund materials, or find a way to have them otherwise donated.
3. Project Pro’s: why would the embassy (and, by extension, the US Government) want to support the project. How would it help us reach the goals the US has in your country. Often, the Mission’s goals are stated in the country background information, so pay attention to these!
4. Project Con’s: why would we NOT want to support the project. Is there a huge negative environmental impact, would the project offend the host government, is there a huge operational security risk, etc.

By having all of this information in one or two pages, I was able to more easily remember project details and contribute to the conversation. We’re all given plenty of blank paper to write on, so break up the page according to how big you tend to write.

This is the only chance the examiners will have to grade you on the “Working With Others” dimensions, so please, work with your group. I’ve heard horror stories of group members who see the group exercise as a competition; it isn’t. For the approximately hour and you’re in a group together, your group members are your colleagues. Take an objective view of all projects, back up your statements with facts and examples, and work in the best interests of the mission (of the United States as well as the Embassy/Consulate). If you really think your project is the worst of the group, say so, and GIVE REASONS. One of the dimensions is critical thinking, and since the examiners can’t read your mind, you have to say what you’re thinking. However, don’t be overly verbose. Time is a factor as well, so get to the point of what you want to say.

This last bit goes back to the idea that we perform what we practice. I practiced in the library, where we’re supposed to keep our voices down. So, naturally, I spoke softly during my actual FSOA group exercise. The more I think about it, the more I think this contributed to me not passing the group exercise.

Case Management (CM)
I’ll write more about the case management exercise when I go over my personal preparation. As a group, we all agreed on which CM exercise we would do ahead of time and bring the memo to the library to discuss. We’d spend some time reading and providing feedback on the memo’s, then we’d discuss the exercise. Having a wide variety of views really helped me improve my analysis of CM’s; reading other memo’s, reading peer feedback, and discussing the exercises was invaluable.

Structured Interview (SI)
For the SI we tended to break into groups of three, switching roles between candidate and examiners, to try and better emulate testing conditions. The ‘examiners’ would also split their role between the engaged person who asks questions, and the person who never looks up from the clipboard. Whenever I had that role, I generally acted bored and counted the number of times the person across from me said ‘um’ or ‘err.’ We used the flash cards from the files section of the FSOA Yahoo! Group, and questions we made up on our own, and did our best to recreate everything from the motivation, hypothetical situations, and past behavior sections of the SI. Through this practice, we were able to speak with more clarity and purpose, and to express our thoughts more coherently. Here are some more our specific tips:

• BE HONEST! Don’t just say what you think they want to hear.
• Don’t say the first thing that comes into your head, take 30 seconds to gather your thoughts and compose a good opening sentence.
• Don’t get down on yourself. If you make a mistake, false start or otherwise stumble, keep moving! You can start your sentence over, but a simple ‘pardon me’ is fine. Avoid calling your self, or your statement, ‘dumb’.
• For motivation, please think of other reasons besides “I want to see the world” as your primary reason for joining the Foreign Service.
• During the Hypothetical Situations, remember that as an FSO, your primary priority is to act in the best interests of the United States of America.
• For past behavior, explain the situation and make sure to give the result. “Because I did A, B happened.”
• Always keep the Thirteen Dimensions in mind.

I think that’s enough for today. Hopefully I’ll remember more when I write about my own personal preparations. For additional tips, I’ll have to count on some of my tiny readership to chime in and contribute. Thoughts? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

Okay, so this post is a little late, but at least I’m getting pictures from Christmas and New Years up on the site. If you head on over to the 2009 Holiday Gallery, you’ll see three sets of pictures. The first is us (me, really) decorating our small, crooked, table top tree. His name was Gil and he was very cute!

The second set is from our trip to Midland, MI to see Chad’s parents (and other family) for Christmas. I would just like to share that when we left Virginia on the 23rd, there was more snow on the ground than we had landing in Michigan. And then it had to go and rain on Christmas! In Michigan! So much for my white Christmas. Ah well. For Christmas dinner, I made garlic prime rib, blue cheese mashed potatoes, sauteed mushrooms, Yorkshire pudding, and a salad with pear and carmelized onion. Beth made a fantastic eggnog cake for dessert – all in all, it was a delicious Christmas. =)

The final set of pictures is from New Years Eve. Alin, Christina, King, Nif, Michelle, Mike, Chad and I all got gussied up and headed out to the Willard Intercontinental for a great big party and had a great time. You can also check out the professional photos here, if you’re interested (our crazy prom photo is 5131 and 5132).

Finally, since I know some people are interested, I’m currently 56 out of 63 on the Consular Register. I’ll get there one of these days!

And by the way – I’ve added some new links on the left. Check them out!

Things were a little bit different when I took the FSOT – they had us fill out the PN before registration (this included a structured resume and personal narrative essays). I really think that moving the PN to after passing the written was a good call on State’s part. People are much more motivated to jump through that hoop if they’ve already cleared another one first.

Since my experience differs from the current process, please keep in mind that this (like most things to do with the entire exam), is guesswork on my part. I have some idea of what I’m talking about, but don’t base your decisions on my opinion alone. Do your research, use your brain, and get a second opinion. For example, State has a pretty thorough guideline for what the QEP looks for. If you haven’t already, go read through it, because I’m not here to repeat their guidelines (at least not today).

Smart people will follow those guidelines and build their total PN around those six precepts State identifies: Leadership, Interpersonal Skills, Communication Skills (written and oral), Management Skills, Intellectual Skills, and Substantive Knowledge. The twenty people who read this blog will recognize those precepts because most of them come straight out of State’s Thirteen Dimensions, which I wrote about earlier in the week.

Here is my logic, let me know what you think about it, and remember that all of the numbers are completely made up. Let’s say State had 1000 candidates pass the written, but only has 500 slots for the Oral Assessment. 750 candidates submit beautifully crafted PN’s that include wonderfully written demonstrations of their Substantive Knowledge, Leadership, Interpersonal, Communication, Management, and Intellectual Skills. How does the QEP weed out the remaining 250 candidates?

I really don’t know. I’m not part of BEX and I’m not privy to the inner workings of the QEP – but I can make a pretty good guess. So my guess is that they look for the candidates who were also able to demonstrate composure, cultural adaptability, experience and motivation, judgment, integrity, organizational skills and resourcefulness – or, the remaining dimensions not specified in their six precepts. I think that these are the differentiators for the QEP (when they’re needed). What do you think?

The more I found out about being an FSO and the types of things I could end up doing, the more excited I got about the work. However, it wasn’t until I started studying for the Oral Assessment that I started to look forward to the people I would be working with. A big part of that is because I had such a great group of future FSO’s (hooray for Alex, Darin, Doreen, Kerry, Lisa, Mark, Matt, Noelle and Shaqueta!). But it was really studying State’s Thirteen Dimensions, and discovering the best way to demonstrate them in myself that made me look forward to working with my future colleagues. At some point during their testing process, all FSO’s have had to prove that they exhibit these qualities. I’ll write a bit more about how I went about doing that (hopefully not too much) later on, but I wanted to share their definitions here first. I am really looking forward to working with people who possess the below dimensions.

State describes the thirteen dimensions as “reflect[ing] the skills, abilities, and personal qualities deemed essential to the work of the Foreign Service.” These come straight from State (link to PDF):

Composure To stay calm, poised, and effective in stressful or difficult situations; to think on one’s feet, adjusting quickly to changing situations; to maintain self-control.

Cultural Adaptability To work and communicate effectively and harmoniously with persons of other cultures, value systems, political beliefs, and economic circumstances; to recognize and respect differences in new and different cultural environments.

Experience and Motivation To demonstrate knowledge, skills or other attributes gained from previous experience of relevance to the Foreign Service; to articulate appropriate motivation for joining the Foreign Service.

Information Integration and Analysis To absorb and retain complex information drawn from a variety of sources; to draw reasoned conclusions from analysis and synthesis of available information; to evaluate the importance, reliability, and usefulness of information; to remember details of a meeting or event without the benefit of notes.

Initiative and Leadership To recognize and assume responsibility for work that needs to be done; to persist in the completion of a task; to influence significantly a group’s activity, direction, or opinion; to motivate others to participate in the activity one is leading.

Judgment To discern what is appropriate, practical, and realistic in a given situation; to weigh relative merits of competing demands.

Objectivity and Integrity To be fair and honest; to avoid deceit, favoritism, and discrimination; to present issues frankly and fully, without injecting subjective bias; to work without letting personal bias prejudice actions.

Oral Communication To speak fluently in a concise, grammatically correct, organized, precise, and persuasive manner; to convey nuances of meaning accurately; to use appropriate styles of communication to fit the audience and purpose.

Planning and Organizing To prioritize and order tasks effectively, to employ a systematic approach to achieving objectives, to make appropriate use of limited resources.

Quantitative Analysis To identify, compile, analyze, and draw correct conclusions from pertinent data; to recognize patterns or trends in numerical data; to perform simple mathematical operations.

Resourcefulness To formulate creative alternatives or solutions to resolve problems, to show flexibility in response to unanticipated circumstances.

Working With Others To interact in a constructive, cooperative, and harmonious manner; to work effectively as a team player; to establish positive relationships and gain the confidence of others; to use humor as appropriate.

Written Communication To write concise, well organized, grammatically correct, effective and persuasive English in a limited amount of time.