Tuk & Tam

Another Foreign Service Badass?

2012-01-29T11:49:00.001-05:00

Well, not really… or at least not yet but I did pass the FSOA (Foreign Service Oral Assessment). And that’s a good thing because I was not looking forward to telling my Facebook friends and my FSI classmates that I didn’t make it or to writing another epic fail blog post. So don’t ~~mis~~underestimate the power of peer pressure, people, it can do wonders.

I was, however, drafting two blog posts in my ~~nerdy~~ head as I was getting ready for the FSOA: the dreaded epic fail one with just a hint of sour grapes thrown in for good measure and the one in which I get the Foreign Service Badassery Award (What there isn’t one? Well, there should be.)

… and I thank the Foreign Service Badassery Academy (No Foreign Service Badassery Academy either? What’s up with that?)

… I also thank my family… and Lord Ganesha, the Hindu god of intellect and wisdom and a famous remover of obstacles…

If you think I wasn’t carrying a small statue of Ganesha (a gift from my thoughtful husband) in my pocket during the FSOA, you clearly don’t know me well enough. It looked like this:

In my head, I was accepting my Foreign Service Badassery Award at a lavish ceremony wearing a gorgeous saree and I looked smashing… Ahhhhh, girl can dream, right? But I digress…

So, anywhoo, I passed the FSOA but my Foreign Service Badassery (don’t you just love this nonword?) while tested, is still conditional at this time, as in after passing the FSOA, I got a conditional offer of appointment as a Foreign Service Officer. In order to order to become a full-blown Foreign Service ~~Badass~~ Officer (US Diplomat), I have to pass security, medical and suitability clearances. Those are a series of investigations to determine that I am not an unsavory character in any way and that I am medically fit and can be trusted to represent the US overseas. I am pretty sure I will ace the medical clearance (let’s hope I don’t jinx myself by saying that). That’s because I have one from when Paul went through the process. The other two investigations take a while – anywhere between a few months to a year and a half depending on the person’s background and history. In my case, the fact that I was not a US citizen until a few years ago complicates things but I used to have a Department of Defense secret clearance for a job a couple of years ago, which should speed things up a bit. But we’ll see.

But wait, there’s more. After I pass those investigations successfully, I get to hang out on the Register before I get “the call”, which is actually an email. I will write about those events as I get closer to them, so stay tuned.

In other news, our departure to New Delhi has been moved up from sometime in May to April 12, which means that we really need to start working on our diplomatic passports, Indian visas, school applications for Nia and the like. We were hoping to visit my family in Bulgaria on the way but that may not be possible because Paul can’t use his vacation right now. His new boss asked him to go to New Delhi early because they are a little understaffed over there and the busy season is about to begin. Plus, Nia will not be able to finish the school year here, which I am not happy about. The last time we moved right around the same time (late March) and things fell through the cracks in her new school. I was hoping to avoid that but with the early departure that may not be possible. Unless I come up with some other creative solution. Again we’ll see.

Hindi is going well. It’s still hard but we may just learn it. I am truly enjoying it. I highly recommend learning the local language and taking any other classes at FSI to any spouse of a FSO, who has the chance to do it. It’s great on so many levels but especially if you are hoping to work at post.

And lastly, a few friends have asked me to provide more detail about my experience at the FSOA and how I prepared for both the FSOT and the FSOA. I will do that as soon as possible and share as much as I can without violating my nondisclosure agreement, so you’ve got that to look forward to.

Winter Antics

2012-01-23T19:29:00.001-05:00

Hi there, can I help you? I am working out of the dryer today… doing important baby work… you know, cutely. It’s nice and toasty in here. You should try it some time.

I’ve been looking for a good place to hide my favorite Jenga blocks… away from, ahem, nosy parents. Heeey, this speaker looks perfect! Even if they find them, they’ll never be able to take them out without my help ‘cause have you seen how huge their hands are, ha!

What, you think you’re the only one that likes FUGGs (fake UGGs) around here? I was feeling a little cold today…

Oh, yeah, he’s also eating cat food. His sister did just that when she was around the same age, so we had to put the cat food up on a shelf and out of her reach. We were sort of expecting that Chutney may be interested in the cat food as well, so we put it up high in anticipation before he started crawling. But clever little fellow that he is, he went and got some right from the big box. I am sure it tasted great, baby!

Along the same lines (only grosser), he has decided that toilets are simply irresistible. We try to keep the bathroom doors closed at all times but on a couple of occasions someone must have forgotten and we caught him throwing toys in and playing in the water. Oh, what fun!!! I managed to wash his hands before he put them in his mouth, I think, but he is quick and it’s just a matter of time before he beats me to it. Now that’s a puke fest I am not looking forward to.

I’m off to Chutney proof the house because simply baby proofing is clearly not cutting it.

Look Who’s Walking!

2012-01-08T22:00:00.001-05:00

Yeah, he is. It took him a while to perfect the unsupported walk but he figured it out a few days ago and is now walking like a big boy!

Go Chutney!

These cute little monkey feet are made for walking….

Long Time No Blog

2012-01-07T11:45:00.001-05:00

I know I am unfashionably late with this but I’m going to say it anyway: Happy New Year, everyone!

I’ve been MIA for a couple of weeks. I do have an excuse, however. It’s lame but lame’s better than none, right? So, here it goes:

I was into the thick of holiday prep madness on 12/23 when my laptop decided to cr@p out on me. I am not going to tell you how ticked off I was by that… Right after I had put together a little slideshow with the highlights of our 2011 and was about to share with you here. But alas, the slideshow had to sit tight in my machine until I got back home from Chicago and could take it to get fixed. So, two weeks and $200 later, I have the laptop in working order and don’t think for a second that I am not going to subject you to my little creation, late or not.

Besides, I happen to be Eastern Orthodox (by default) and most Eastern Orthodox Christians celebrated Christmas yesterday, so I am not that late, right? Of course, Bulgarians are not among those that celebrated yesterday but let’s pretend that’s not the case, just this once, shall we? So, Merry Belated Christmas to all of you guys that celebrated it, and Happy Belated Holidays to everyone else!

Without further ado, here’s the blessed slideshow that may or may not have caused my laptop to go into a coma:

Highlights from our 2011

Also very late is our Christmas/Holiday card picture but I thought I’d post it up here for the record anyway. It’s a sequel to last year’s and I just realized that I didn’t put the one from last year up here, so you get two for one this year. See if you can spot the differences.

This is all I’ve got today but I will be back soon with more pictures and updates.

Buzz

2011-12-13T20:25:00.001-05:00

Have you guys heard of Buzz Bakery? Well, until recently, neither had I. A couple of our Hindi classmates brought breakfast goodies and cupcakes from Buzz and yeah, they are all pretty darn good. That’s why I’m bothering telling you so. They may just be better than Georgetown Cupcake and we know how I feel about them. And yes, I did just say that. If you don’t believe me, go try Buzz and let me know your thoughts.

Anyway, I was considering making Buzz my dirty little secret but we wouldn’t want me to be the only obscenely happy and fat person now would we, so had to share the joy.

Like Georgetown Cupcake, Buzz cupcakes are not cheap but they are sinfully delicious. Their frosting is smooth and rich and the cake moist and tasty. In the picture below you see (from top left) Chocolate Vanilla, Chocolate Mocha, Red Velvet, Gingerbread, Cookie and White Vanilla. Yum, yum, yum!

But Buzz is more than just cupcakes. They have coffee, scones, muffins, croissants, waffles, sandwiches, cakes and other baked goodies. They have two locations – the original one in Alexandria and a new one in Ballston – walking distance from the metro and conveniently, just a hop, skip and jump from FSI.

So, if you happen to be in the DC/Northern Virginia area and in desperate need of a little pick-me-up, Buzz might just be the place for you.

Enjoy!

South Asian Wedding Celebration

2011-12-07T21:58:00.001-05:00

As promised, here is a long overdue Hindi related update. So Paul and I are at least knee deep in Hindi at this point and are fighting our way through the grammar as best as we can. It’s not easy but language learning is a humbling experience. You have to be OK with sounding like an idiot for quite a while. We have become really good at that.

The good news is that we had our our progress tests (evaluations) this week and were told that we are both on track to get to the 2/2 score Paul needs for his consular position in New Delhi. In case you are wondering what that score means, the first number is a speaking score and the second – a reading one. We started at 0/0 in early September and are supposed to get to 2/2 by the end of March. The top of the scale is 5/5, which is native speaker fluency. Right now we are at 1/1, which was a relief because the evaluation is not really calibrated to our current level. The format and the difficulty of the material are the same as those we’ll have at our final exam at the end of March. The only difference is that at our progress evaluations we get one less long newspaper article than we will at our final exam.

What that means is that getting through the progress evaluation was really hard, painful at times even. We know how to read but our vocabulary is very basic and newspaper articles are way out of our league right now. We can also hold basic conversations but load us up with high level vocabulary and we are lost, which is kinda what happened during the evaluation. The evaluation takes two hours – one hour for speaking and the second for reading. The speaking part has three subsections: conversation, presentation and interview. The reading part has two subsections: reading 6 small articles in 5 minutes and then discussing their gist in English and reading one longer article in 7 minutes and presenting the gist of it in English.

So, amazingly enough, we got our 1/1, which we are told is where we are supposed to be at this point, so we are thrilled. But enough about that.

More importantly, a few weeks ago we had an awesome South Asian Wedding celebration at school (The Foreign Service Institute). It was supposed to be for Dashain, Diwali and Eid (major holidays in South Asia). Three days before the party/luncheon, the management of the South Asia Language Department learned that one of our classmates, Ben, was getting married and decided to make it a wedding celebration instead. Each language group secretly prepared a little number in the language they are learning and performed it for the groom at the party. Ben had no clue what was going on and was majorly and pleasantly surprised. The teachers also performed wedding rituals from their respective countries for Ben. Of course, there was a lot of yummy South Asian food as well.

The Hindi group performed an old wedding song. Our teachers had to help us with it, of course, making sure we understood the lyrics and helping us come up with the right ~~rad~~ moves for the song. It was a little strange at first - we felt silly singing in Hindi and dancing around but we quickly got into the spirit and had a great time. Our teachers felt that we had to perform the song in Indian clothes but since almost none of us had any, they let us borrow clothes from them. The boys all wore kurtas (long shirts) and the girls sarees and churidar kameez ( tunic and skinny leg pants). This was my very first time wearing a saree and I absolutely loved it.

The saree I wore was made of pink and blue silk and I thought it was gorgeous. Putting it on was a little bit of a challenge but after watching a few youtube videos, I got the basics. I put it on myself on the day of the party but many of our teachers took the opportunity to fix it, which was a good thing because putting on/wearing a saree is really more of an art. Going to the bathroom in a saree is also tricky, especially if you’ve never done it before and the saree you are wearing is amazing and very much borrowed. I am happy to report that the saree did not get soiled in the process – whew. But I digress…

Without further ado here are some pictures of the festivities:

And here is a video of the song we, Hindi students, performed for the groom:

Aaj Mere Yaar Ki Shaadi Hai (Today Is My Friend’s Wedding)

A Very Late Thanksgiving Recap

2011-12-06T15:24:00.001-05:00

This year we spent Thanksgiving in Deep Creek, western MD. It was just us, the kids and my Mom. We stayed at the cottage of one of Paul’s brothers. We had a nice, quiet and relaxing long weekend. Since we weren’t in our home, we decided not to do much cooking, so we got a cooked turkey breast and a small ham with a bunch of sides instead. I rather liked that because we were able to spend a lot of time taking walks, naps and relaxing, which was just what the doctor ordered.

We did see a bunch of wild turkeys and deer. No bears this time but we did see a bear trap not too far from where we were staying. We also did some hiking at a state park with a bunch of beautiful waterfalls. It was a nice break from our “all Hindi all the time” routine but now we are back at it.

Speaking of Hindi – there’s a lot going on there but we are also so busy at school that I haven’t had a chance to gather my thoughts and write about it all. I will though, very soon, I promise.

A Drama Queen Birthday

2011-11-20T13:13:00.001-05:00

Yesterday was Her Cuteness’s 8th birthday. We had a theater inspired party for her and her best friends at Creative Cauldron in Falls Church. The focus was a hands-on acting workshop lead by the wonderful Laura, a teaching artist, who was terrific at getting the kids excited and keeping them engaged in each activity.

The party started with creative introductions. Each kid picked a movement that represents their personality, which they used to introduce themselves to the group. Everyone then acted out not just their introduction movement but everyone else’s too – an excellent ice-breaker.

Then there were a series of Charades-like activities in which the children were separated in teams of six and would act out something as a group for the other team to guess.

The last activity involved a imaginary chest full of magical gifts. Each child got to pick a gift from the magic chest for Nia’s birthday and give it to her. This was my personal favorite because the kids were not allowed to use their voices. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a group of kids playing quietly like that. It was awesome:

Gifts for the birthday girl from an imaginary magic chest

Laura surprised me by inviting me to participate in the activity, which was tricky because I was filming at the same time but I managed somehow.

We closed the party with birthday cake and other treats. I had made rainbow colored cupcakes the night before and had them all in my new fancy double-decker cupcake carrier. Everything was honky dory until the handle broke and the cupcakes turned into a mangled frosted mess but we ate them anyway because the mess was contained in the carrier. Everyone had a great time and I’m pretty sure Nia is going back to Creative Cauldron for more acting workshops/camps.

This was probably the best kid birthday party we’ve attended and we highly recommend Creative Cauldron if you need something different for your 4-14 year old.

Proud

2011-11-12T22:02:00.001-05:00

My peeps (Paul, Her Cuteness and Chutney) have be unusually awesome lately, so I couldn’t help but brag about them a little.

I have known Paul was a Foreign Service Badass for a long time. I even dedicated one of the first posts of this blog to his Badassery. So, naturally, I was thrilled to learn that he was nominated and won an award for his work at the Office of eDiplomacy last year. His award was Government Computer News’ Rising Star Award celebrating outstanding IT achievements in government. He got it in recognition for his efforts in organizing a number of events called Tech@State over the past year. So, a few weeks ago we got to go to a gala at a fancy hotel in Tysons Corner to collect his award. I think this was the first gala I’ve attended and it was a nice one. The set up was great, the food delicious but of course, the best part was celebrating my husband’s awesomeness.

Then, the other day we had a parent-teacher conference with our daughter’s teacher. If you have been reading this blog for a while, you may recall that we had a little bit of a painful experience after Her Cuteness was moved up to second grade mid-year last school year. She got a new teacher this school year and we were both hopeful and nervous at the same time. She seemed to be doing well but we weren’t sure because we hadn’t had the opportunity to talk to her teacher in detail until now.

The day of the conference, I asked Her Cuteness what she thought the teacher would say about her. She said he’d say that she’s a good reader. I asked her if she thought he’d have any recommendations for improvement and she thought he may say that she needs to work more on her math. That made sense. She’s always been a great reader, but she doesn’t exactly love math or writing. She can do them but she doesn’t seem to enjoy them nearly as much as reading. Her second grade teacher had specific concerns about her math and writing skills last year, so we were expecting to hear something along those lines again.

Imagine our relief when her teacher told us that yes, she is a great reader but she is doing great in math and writing as well. He showed us her math tests and her writing assignments. He had nothing but wonderful things to say about her. He said she was smart, curious and imaginative. He also said she behaved well and got along with all her classmates. We were blown away, in a good way. Because hearing that your child is doing great at school is like music to any parents’ ears. We made a big deal of it to our daughter and went out for special treats to celebrate the occasion.

Last but not least, the littlest of the littles, Chutney, has been working extra hard too. He is 9 months old today and healthy and happy as can be. It’s been amazing to watch him in the last month as he seems to have gone “fast forward” developmentally. He has decided that walking is the most awesome thing ever and has been working his tail off (quite literally) to figure it out. He can’t really do it just yet but that’s all he wants to do. A mere two weeks ago he couldn’t lift his butt off the ground no matter how hard he tried. He was a little, shall we say, ahem, butt-heavy, (I hope you’ll pardon my Hindi, Son!) so he couldn’t crawl.

I was convinced he was going to skip crawling because he just didn’t seem interested in it (plus the whole butt-lifting wasn’t happening) but a couple of weeks ago, a miracle of miracles, he lifted his butt of the ground and started crawling. That didn’t diminish his enthusiasm for walking though. He has been pulling himself up on everything using his arms and mouth (yes, you read that right – wish I had a picture of that…). He constantly wants one of us to hold him by his hands and walk with him. His latest accomplishment is figuring out how to work this thingamajig:

Chutney learning to walk

I am pretty sure he’ll be walking really soon. Guess I’d better go babyproof the house, huh?

Trick or Treat

2011-10-31T21:22:00.001-04:00

Happy Halloween, everyone!

Here’s hoping that your Halloween was a thriller and that your pumpkins are overflowing with good candy!

Our last Halloween in the US for a while was splendid, though a bit chilly. This was the first time I’ve seen snow on Halloween and let me tell you: I am not a fan. I liked our Florida Halloweens better. In Florida, you can go Trick or Treating in your flip-flops and you can do it all night long, if you want to (not so easy with wee ones) without dying of exposure. There, you can be a princess or a fairy without having to put on a turtleneck underneath your fancy spaghetti strap costume (which looks oh, so stylish) or donning your fairy wings on top of your pink parka (which is harder than it sounds). Oh, Florida, I didn’t think I’d say this but I guess I do miss you, after all.

Aaaaah, those days are gone but I am hoping that Trick or Treating in India will be kinda like in Florida. A girl can dream, right?

So, yeah, our Halloween was fine, despite the cold. We went to a couple of parties, we carved a pumpkin and Her Cuteness got to go Trick or Treating old-style (door-to-door) in our neighborhood. Nia was supposed to be the Little Mermaid. She’s had the costume for a while but had a change of heart because she decided in the last moment that “Princesses are so baby-ish!” and I had to whip up another costume in a couple of hours. Fun times! She was a flamingo*, a little improvised but hey, I’ve seen worse.

Max had a little 6-9 month-sized alligator* costume. He is not quite 9 months old yet but the hunky babe that he is, he was busting out of it a few weeks ago, so I had to look for something larger. I found just the thing at a yard sale - a cute little Dalmatian outfit for $1. It’s perfect - made of fleece, so it’s nice and warm on his cute little bum-bum. Plus, it’s for up to 24 months, so he just might be able to wear it next year.

Anywhoooo, without further ado, here are some pictures of the festivities for your enjoyment:

*We accidentally ended up with a Florida theme of sorts – I guess that’s our tribute to our former home state.

A Sight For Sore Eyes…

2011-10-21T21:13:00.001-04:00

So we’ve been in Hindi for almost 7 weeks now. We can read and are starting to get into the weeds of Hindi grammar. We still can’t say much because we know only one tense (Present Habitual) and our vocabulary is pretty limited but we are getting there – slowly but surely.

In an effort to expand our Hindi vocabulary I decided to watch as many Bollywood movies as I possibly could. Paul sort of agreed to watch with me but we soon realized that most of the highly rated Bollywood movies on Netflix were 3+ hours long. Paul was not going to watch a 3+hour long movie, so the first time we looked until we found something shorter. I don’t remember the name of the first movie we saw but it was not worth it. It was way not what we expected. It was mostly in English, had no dance numbers and was about wife swapping – very weird.

The second time we sat down to watch a Bollywood movie I thought we’d try one of the longer ones, so I picked Jodha Akbar a historical drama (made in 2007), which I thought would help us not only improve our Hindi but also better understand Indian culture. The only problem was it was 3 hours and 40 minutes. Paul fell asleep after the first 30 minutes, so I watched the rest alone.

To be perfectly honest, I didn’t expect much but boy, was I pleasantly surprised. I did learn a few new Hindi words and a thing or two about Indian culture and history but better than that (and I mean way better) was this:

Hubba, hubba!

You’re welcome, ladies! His name is Hrithik Roshan and he plays the Mughal Emperor Akbar (the male lead). When I saw that scene I was all Ooooh la la…

Is he hot or is he hot? I don’t know about you but I can watch that scene until I am blue in the face… (I may be turning Avatar-ish hue already, ha!)

So, yeah, I have a crush on the guy. Oooopsies! I know, I know, it’s been a couple of years since I was in high school. I shouldn’t be having crushes anymore, right? I thought that when you pass the age of 25 and/or have a kid or two, the part of your brain responsible for crushes dies. Apparently not. Now I am the butt of all kinds of jokes around our house... Whatevs…

If there are guys reading this – do not despair for the female lead (Jodha Akbar) is none other than Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, the most beautiful woman in the world, according to many. Here’s a little something for you, guys:

So, though it is long, the movie is a feast for the eyes and ears. The costumes and scenery are amazing, the music and dance numbers – lovely, and the plot - very interesting. According to some reviews Akbar’s character is depicted accurately, while Jodha’s not so much but even if that’s the case I’ve forgiven the movie creators and totally, wholeheartedly recommend the movie.

Enjoy!

Georgetown Cupcake!!!

2011-10-02T00:33:00.001-04:00

Yesterday was a rather gloomy day. It started out being cold, drizzly and just unpleasant. But it got better. A hell of a lot better…

Paul and I had to run an errand in Georgetown that was kind of a drag but on the way home I noticed a miracle of miracles: no line outside Georgetown Cupcake!!!

Boy did that make my day. I had heard people rave about Georgetown Cupcake ever since we moved back to the DC area a year and a half ago. I really wanted to try them but every time we went to Georgetown there werre unbelievable lines outside the store, sometimes going on for blocks. There was no way in hell I was going to wait for hours for cupcakes and I didn’t really understand the people who did. It’s cupcakes after all, how great could they be. And at $2.50 a piece they weren’t exactly dirt cheap. So I had sort of given up on the idea but today in the the cold, nasty drizzle those cupcakes were just calling my name. The fact that there was no line out the door was just the icing on the (cup) cake. Pun intended.

So, yeah, I am only human. I can resist anything but, you know, temptation. I ran in quickly before Paul had a chance to change his mind and mine. Inside the door there was a little bit of a line but it was just long enough to let me make up my mind about what I wanted.

I knew I may not get these beauties again because of the insane lines, the price and because stuff like that goes straight to my badonkadonk, which is not exactly small these days, so I went for the dozen. I got Mint Cookies N Cream, Salted Caramel, Gluten Free Lava, Chocolate Birthday, Chocolate 3, Peanut Butter Fudge, Coconut, two Pumpkin Spice and two Red Velvet. There were about 15 girls working in the store, who looked like they’d never had a cupcake in their lives. They wrapped my cupcakes and put them in a beautiful pink box.

I could hardly wait the 30 or so minutes it took us to get home and eat lunch before we could try the cupcakes. And let me tell you, those things were not just pretty. They were deeeeeeelish! I think the Red Velvet and the Salted Caramel may be my faves.

They are very sweet. One is about all you can have at one sitting. And they are not very big. But they are tasty. The cake is good but that’s not that hard to do. It’s the frosting that’s pretty incredible. It’s light and fluffy and heavenly….

While I was at the store I noticed that they were promoting a book written by the two sisters who started Georgetown Cupcake. The book tells the story of how they started the company but it also has recipes. And guess what, I’ll be buying it as soon as it’s out on Nov. 8 because I have to figure out how to make that frosting. I just have to!

Passed the QEP!

2011-09-20T22:02:00.001-04:00

I am greatly relieved to report that my personal narratives (short essays) somehow made it past the Qualifications Evaluation Panel(QEP) and I am moving on to the next step in the process of becoming a US Diplomat, the Oral Assessment (OA).

Needless to say, I am very excited to have made it this far but I also know that unless I make it all the way, none of it really matters. Now I have to figure out how to prepare for the OA.

The OA, in case you were wondering, is an interview on steroids. It’s an all-day affair that starts at 7 a.m. and may last up until 6 p.m. It includes a group exercise, a structured interview, a case management exercise and an exit interview. More information on each of these components of the OA as well as sample questions/scenarios can be found here.

At the end of the OA, you know if you have passed or not and if you are one of the few that pass, you get to go home with a conditional offer of employment. It’s conditional because you still have to get medical and security clearances and pass the final suitability review. If you pass the final suitability review, you get to hang out on the hiring register, where everyone is arranged according to their scores from the OA. That’s the list of candidates from which the department makes the hiring calls. There are actually five different registers - one for each of the five career tracks in the Foreign Service (Consular, Economic, Management, Political and Public Diplomacy). You pick your track at the very beginning of the process, when you register to take the written test (FSOT). I picked Management.

If you know a foreign language or are a veteran, you can get extra points, which would improve your position on the register. The higher you are on the register, the more likely you are to get called. But again, there are no guarantees you will get called because you can be on the register for a maximum of 18 months. New people are constantly being added to the register and their scores may be higher than yours, in which case you will get bumped down in your position on the register. If you don’t get called within 18 months, your name simply drops off the register. Which means, too bad for you because if you are still interested in becoming a diplomat, you have to go all the way back and retake the FSOT and all the steps thereafter. Yeah, let’s hope I won’t have to do that but this will be my first time taking the OA and I know more than a handful of excellent Foreign Service Officers, who did not pass the OA on their fist attempt and had to start from scratch (sometimes multiple times).

So that’s where I am right now. I have scheduled my OA - it’s on January 27. Wish me luck and if you have any advice on how to prepare for the OA, I am all ears.

Thanks!

Adventures in Hindi

2011-09-18T17:54:00.001-04:00

So it’s been two weeks since we started Hindi and I am still loving it. I hope I don’t jinx us by saying that but so far it’s pretty awesome. That is not to say that it’s easy or that I am doing all that well. I just enjoy it. I’ve always loved languages and it is very reminiscent of the way I learned English in Bulgaria as a teenager.

Our Hindi teachers are really nice and the other students in the group are very cool too. We have 4 to 5 hours of instruction and drills in Hindi every day and then language lab time in the afternoon. But class is more than just learning Hindi because we often talk about Indian culture. We spent some time talking about ~~big fat~~ Indian weddings and Bollywood movies/music last week, for example.

We are finding out that they weren’t kidding when they told us to expect to gain 10 lbs each in Hindi training. At the end of our first week of Hindi the students who are learning Hindi at FSI ahead of us had an Indian feast for us. They had made/bought a bunch of Indian treats to welcome us to Hindi – so sweet. Then last week we celebrated the birthday of one of the students in the earlier group and the engagement of another with cake and ice cream respectively. So, oy do I need to exercise!

We are making progress with Hindi for sure, though it may be in fits and starts sometimes. We know almost all the letters of the Hindi alphabet (yay) and are starting to read. We can now hold very basic conversations and d0 s0 multiple times each day. We also spend hours and hours doing various drills. There are a bunch of sounds in Hindi that do not exist in English or Bulgarian, so it’s been hard getting my ears to differentiate them and my tongue to pronounce them correctly. Some things make no sense. For instance, there is one word for yesterday and tomorrow in Hindi. That totally baffled me at first but our teacher said it was completely logical because you would know what the speaker was referring to based on the tense they use. I guess I have to trust her on that one for now.

The word order is different than in English or Bulgarian and they use postpositions instead of prepositions in Hindi, so instead of saying “I am from America.” you say “I America from am.” That takes some getting used to but hopefully with time it will become second nature. Hopefully!!!

So, I totally feel like a kindergartener but that’s OK because some of the constructions are starting to make sense and I am slowly starting to read the beautiful filigree that is Hindi, which is such a wonderful feeling. And get this, I can now write my own name in Hindi!

It looks like this:

डानिएला

How cool is that! I even installed the Hindi keyboard on my computer. Finding each character takes me forever but who cares - I can type in Hindi, sorta, kinda, almost!

Being in Hindi class each day has made us even more excited about moving to India. We have been watching Indian movies, listening to Indian music, eating Indian food, talking about India non-stop in class and outside, so no wonder we can’t wait. We got the New Delhi Embassy newsletter last week and they had announcements for trips for embassy people to Rajastan for the camel festival there and to the Taj Mahal (which I now know means Crown Palace!). It’s a bummer that we have to wait at least 8 months before we can see those places.

_Source

I just can’t wait to get my own sari, decorate my hands with henna, take the trip to the Taj Mahal and experience all that India has to offer. I am also a little nervous because India is very much an in-your-face type of place with overcrowding, insane traffic, pollution and crushing poverty but hopefully we’ll learn to handle all that somehow. Everyone says that you either love it or you hate it. I hope it’s the former for us.

Speaking of the Taj Mahal, I recently read this article about it in the Smithsonian magazine. It’s a serious piece about the damage the amazing sight has sustained through the years but there are some neat pictures, videos and graphics that go with it too and I never tire of looking at pictures of the Taj. Thought you might enjoy them too.

Fancy Onesies for My Little Man

2011-09-10T13:42:00.001-04:00

This post is about something fun I did last week but tomorrow is 9/11 and I can’t help but think of what happened on that day 10 years ago. The media have all kinds of stories about the anniversary and how our lives have changed in the last 10 years. I toyed with the idea of writing about where we were when it happened and how the events affected us but it’s just too depressing and I don’t want to go there. I will never forget it as I am sure no one who lived through it or was in any way touched by the events would. 9/11 and the events that followed robbed the world of its innocence (or whatever was left of it) as far as I am concerned. I don’t have anything profound to say about it other than wishing I had a magic wand, so I could undo it. Unfortunately, have no magical powers. But enough about that.

Back to my fun project. It’s been a long time since I had done anything creative and my hands were just itching for a neat little project. I had seen several cool little onesies ideas on Pinterest but had to wait until I was done with ConGen before I could gather the necessary supplies and work on one. I ended up picking a tie onesie for Chutney that ended up looking like this:

Sure, the tie on this one came out a little fatter than I envisioned it (kinda 70s style) but isn’t he adorable in it anyway?

I made two of them using the instructions here. I used two plain white onesies and two silk clip-on boys ties I found at a second-hand store. I was going to ruin the ties to make the onesies, when I realized that I could use the back hangie piece for the onesies and still be able to use the ties for Chutney when he’s a little bit older. I guess I am ~~cheap~~ thrifty that way. It’s a fairly simple project but my decision to use actual tie material (silk) made things a little more complicated because silk is quite flimsy. I had to use some interfacing to strengthen the silk and the back of the onesie, so the needle didn’t put holes in either material. In addition to being flimsy, the grey-blue silk is bleeding fabric die onto the onesie but oh, well. If I make more, I’ll probably just use simple but colorful cotton fabrics. You live, you learn, right?

So here you see the ties and how I chopped off the backs for this project. Below are the two finished onesies.

Everybody Back To School

2011-09-06T22:51:00.001-04:00

Today was the first day of school for everyone in our family but Chutney.

After a summer that apparently was too long and boring (not really), Nia was delighted to start third grade. She could hardly wait to meet her new teacher and classmates. Here she is all smiles heading off to school this morning:

It was also the first day of Hindi language training for Paul and I because I did get into Hindi. I am happy to report that we all survived our first day of school.

For Paul and I it was an interesting first day, though it was a little light on actual learning. We had orientations, tours of FSI and introductions to teachers, systems and services in the morning and a series of tests to determine our learning styles in the afternoon.

We started language with about 1,000 other people all learning different languages. Some were learning a language for the first time, others had quite a few under their belts. It was neat to see some of our ConGen classmates go into language training at the same time as us. Two of my ConGen classmates are even in Hindi with us, which is pretty awesome, though they both know some Hindi already.

I had started working with Rosetta Stone Hindi way back when I was pregnant but by the time Chutney came, I had hit a wall and had a really difficult time moving forward without help. After Chutney was born, Hindi sort of fell by the way side somewhere in the blur of sleeplessness.

By the time I resurfaced out of the post-partum daze, I realized that I had somehow in a hormonal lapse of reason signed up for the FSOT and ConGen (I’m a glutton for punishment, I tell you), so Hindi had to stay on the back burner a little longer.

I had applied to take Hindi with Paul but didn’t know if there would be space for me in the class until late August. But I lucked out and here I am on the cusp of mastering the Bollywood lingo. I am rather excited that I have this opportunity because it will help me when we get to India and it may be useful if/when I become a Foreign Service Officer myself. I get to learn a language and I don’t have to pay for it – pretty darn awesome, no?

Our Hindi group at FSI is rather small – only nine people right now but one of our classmates will only be with us for 5-6 weeks. The rest of us will be studying Hindi for 36 to 44 weeks, which is quite a while if you think about it. All but the classmate who is leaving in a few weeks are headed for New Delhi, so it’ll be good to get to know the people with whom we will be serving at the New Delhi Embassy/Consulate.

We are starting out in the group of nine until we figure out how to read Hindi (called Devanagari script), which apparently should take us between two and four weeks. So for now Paul and I are in the same group but after we learn to read we will more than likely be separated into two smaller groups for the remainder of language training, which is fine.

Language learning at FSI is apparently really intense but a lot of fun too. There are a lot of tests as well as cultural activities and tons of food, which is a blessing and a curse. I already gained a few pounds during ConGen and was hoping to shed them during Hindi but today we were told to expect a weight gain of about 10 lb during Hindi training! Yeah, not good for those of us trying to lose the baby weight but I do like me some Indian food every now and then. Just thinking about it makes me salivate…

Operation Belly Button

2011-08-30T23:02:00.001-04:00

Last week was natural disaster week here in Northern Virginia with an earthquake early in the week and a hurricane on Saturday. Luckily, we suffered no damage from either, so we decided to end the week on a high note and complete a mission we had been postponing for six months. It had to do with Chutney’s future and his belly button. Yep, you read that right.

Let me ‘splain. Since I hail from the wondrous and oft misunderstood land of Bulgaria, I am somewhat susceptible to various superstitions and old wives’ tales, one of which says that your baby’s belly button is so powerful that it will determine his/her future. Got that?

Just to clarify, when I say belly button I mean the left over piece of umbilical cord that shrivels up to almost nothing and falls off about two weeks after a child is born. It looks like this:

It’s kinda gross, I know, but it’s got strong juju, so you don’t just toss it in the trash. Oh, no! Unless you want your kid to be a garbage man, that is, for the kid’s future career is at stake.

So what do you do with the thing? Well, you think long and hard about your kid’s future and you toss the belly button at a place that matches your kid’s personality and your hopes and ambitions for him/her. For example, if you want your kid to be a soccer player, you’d toss his/her belly button at a soccer stadium; if you want him/her to be a lawyer, you’d toss it at the court house and so on, you get the idea. Some people set money aside for their kids’ college education, we toss belly buttons*. Much more cost-efficient, don’t you think?

Coming up with just one place for each of our kids’ belly buttons seemed quite limiting to us, so several years ago, when Her Cuteness was a baby, we developed a patent-pending diversification strategy for belly button tossing. It involves cutting up the little shriveled up thing into pieces and placing them in several strategic locations. In Nia’s case, since we lived in St. Petersburg, FL at the time, one piece went in University of South Florida – so she’d get a good education, the second piece went in the Salvador Dali Museum – so she’d be artistic, the third piece went in the Pointer Institute – so she’d be a great writer (like her Dad, who was a journalist at the time), the fourth piece went in a swimming pool** – so she’d be a great swimmer, the fifth piece went in city hall – in case she decided to run for mayor one day. There was one more piece, which we saved for years, so we could toss it in The White House. Yeah, that very important piece got lost in the move, ruining our daughter’s chances of ever becoming POTUS (President of the United States)!!! Unbelievable, I know – she will probably never forgive us…

So, we had to have a second child. That’s right, in case you were wondering, the only reason we had Chutney was so we could pile all of our presidential hopes on the poor little guy. No pressure, Son!

And guess where the first and largest chunk of his belly button went?

In The White House, that’s where. Or The White House garden, to be precise. It was a little tricky, with all the security guards lurking around. But we did it and here’s the proof.

But shhhhhhhhh, don’t tell anyone. And don’t be surprised when he becomes president one day, alright?

But we didn’t stop there. Because being POTUS is pretty much as badass as it gets but he can’t do that forever. This is not North Korea! We have term limits, which means he has to have a regular career too, so we had to do the whole diversification strategy for him as well. So smaller belly button chunks went to Main State and the Foreign Service Institute– so he can be a diplomat like Daddy; the Capitol – so he can be a Congressman, the Kennedy Center – so he’s artistic, the World Bank, University of Maryland, the University of Maryland football stadium, and a swimming pool.

So, Operation Belly Button, Chutney Edition was completed successfully this past Sunday and now we can breathe a sigh of relief because our children are going to be OK.

Whew!

*Although to be perfectly honest we are setting some money aside for the kiddos just in case too.

**When I say in a swimming pool, I mean in the grassy area at the pool entrance, not the water itself.

Conflicted

2011-08-26T21:53:00.001-04:00

Well, ConGen is over and that’s good, I guess but I am feeling very conflicted right now.

I jumped into ConGen and put everything else on the back burner and that’s not working as well as I thought. I am behind with pretty much everything including this blog but most importantly I feel really bad about abandoning the kids. They are home with my mom and she’s doing her best but they miss me and their Daddy terribly. It’s not going to get better for a while because it seems like I may actually get into Hindi. I am really excited about that but at the same time dreading it a little because it means that both Paul and I will be at school every work day for seven months starting Sept. 6.

It’s what every working parent has to deal with, I know, and I’ve been there before but it doesn’t make it any easier. Our daughter is starved for attention and misbehaving and our son looks so lost and sad when we leave each morning. I’ve spent the last several days trying to give the kids my time and attention and do the fun things I wasn’t able to do with them when I was at school and I am just exhausted. And I have just two kids. I don’t know how the people with more kids do it…

I am also trying to get caught up with everything else before Hindi starts but my head is one big jumble that looks/feels like this:

Needless to say, I am not much fun to be around right now.

Chutney’s 6 months old

2011-08-12T19:30:00.001-04:00

It’s been a long time since I last blogged. I have been pretty busy with ConGen, which is going well despite all the readings, case studies, role plays and weekly exams. But I digress…

Max turned 6 months today. We are delighted to report that he is doing great considering he was a preemie. He is happy and healthy and growing like a weed… a chubby weed, that is because he has almost tripled his weight since birth (going from 7.5 to 20 lbs).

A few weeks ago he started rolling over:

and sitting up:

He says Baba (grandma in Bulgarian) and Mama.

He loves people, especially his Baba, who is watching him while I am at school. He adores his big sister, who loves to entertain him by clowning around. We are all quite smitten with him and can’t get enough of his smiles and giggles.

And yes, you are looking at the same baby in the video and the picture. It’s just that I gave him a hair cut after I took the video and he looks bald in the picture.

Happy half birthday sweet Chutney!

We are beyond thrilled that we get to keep you!

ConGen, Baby!

2011-07-11T23:13:00.001-04:00

Today was my first day of Basic Consular (a.k.a. ConGen) training at FSI (the Foreign Service Institute), where US diplomats learn their craft.

No, I did not become a FSO (Foreign Service Officer) overnight. My candidacy is still in the works and will probably take another year and a half but as the spouse of an FSO, I am eligible to take classes at FSI, if there is space available. I have been trying to get into ConGen since March.

In order to qualify for ConGen, I had to take a 75 minute pre-test, which was not a problem. Then I was placed on a waiting list. Getting into ConGen as a spouse is especially hard in the summer because that’s transfer season and that’s when most FSO’s need training. FSOs, understandably, get priority for training classes at FSI, so I was waiting and waiting but nothing was happening.

I had been checking in with the powers that be to see if there’s any room at all in any of the ConGen classes. Up until the middle of last week, I was told that, unfortunately, there was no ConGen for me. Boo!

So, I had lost hope and was warming up to the idea of spending the summer at home with the kids and my Mom. Then last Thursday I got a call. Someone had to cancel and all of a sudden there was a seat in one of the classes starting on Monday (today). Would I be willing to take it?

Would I? Would I? Are you kidding? I had been waiting for something like that to happen since March and now that I had my chance, I wasn’t going to miss it. I immediately accepted. So, now the kids are home on vacation and it’s back to school for Mommy (and very soon Daddy).

But that’s OK because I think I may actually like it. I can’t write about any of the material covered in class but so far it seems fascinating, especially for someone who has been on the receiving end of consular services both as an immigrant and a US Citizen. Of course, it’s only been one day. Ask me again in a couple of weeks when I am buried in reading materials and case studies and have to prepare for my exams. Yes, there are four exams too, though in all honesty they are open book but still, I am bracing myself for a lot of work.

So, I’ll be in ConGen till 8/22. After that I get to relax for a couple of weeks. Then, on 9/6, I am tentatively enrolled to start Hindi at FSI, if there’s space available again. If I get in, I’ll be studying Hindi until ~~I am blue in the face~~ 3/31/2012.

Paul is starting his training next week. First, he has a couple of days of security training, then ConGen (in a different section) and then Hindi from 9/6 to 3/31/2012 as well.

So, that’s that. Now I need to go catch some fitful Zs in between baby feedings because I gotta go to class in the morning…

Janel’s Visit

2011-07-08T23:41:00.001-04:00

Our friend Janel visited us for a long weekend a few weeks ago. Both Paul and I used to work with her in Florida. We liked her a lot but didn’t get a chance to hang out together as much as we wanted to, so we had a great time reconnecting. We talked a lot and ate maybe even more. One night we went to Adams Morgan and ate at a Turkish restaurant. The food was really good. The rest of the time we cooked and ate at home. My Mom made Bulgarian food one day. I cooked Indian the other. We did some sight seeing. Good times!

But the highlight of the weekend for us was Janel taking pictures of the family. You see, Janel is a badass photographer. She used to work for the U.S. Air Force (Combat Camera), the UN (UNPROFOR) and the St. Petersburg Times. She’s covered some hot spots such as Armenia, Azerbaijan, Panama, Liberia and Bosnia. And the Swiders, cause we are hot stuff, that’s why.

The pictures she took of us are nothing short of amazing and we can’t thank her enough. Here are just a few of my favorites:

Janel is back in school now pursuing a Master’s degree in Strategic Communications Management. She’s looking into moving to the D.C. area when she’s done with her studies at the end of the year. We certainly wish her luck and look forward to spending more time with her and her family.

4th of July at Lincoln Memorial

2011-07-05T21:43:00.001-04:00

Since this is our last 4th of July before moving to India, we decided to go downtown D.C. Paul and I had done it many years ago when we were young and childless. It was awesome, except getting back home after the fireworks took forever. We decided not to subject the kiddos to the insanity of driving or taking the metro downtown and back. Instead, my smart husband booked us a hotel room a couple blocks from the Mall. Clever fellow, he is!

It worked out really well. We drove downtown around noon yesterday, checked in, relaxed at the hotel for a bit, then had a nice dinner at Bertucci’s before heading over to the Mall. Around 7:30 p.m. we packed our stuff and the kids in our handy-dandy foldable wagon and strolled to the Lincoln Memorial end of the Mall.

In hindsight, we should have left earlier because the choice spots were already taken. We ended up in a spot that was great if you wanted to enjoy the Lincoln Memorial but less than optimal if you wanted to take pictures of the fireworks with the Washington Monument as a backdrop. We got some nice shots nonetheless (the Washington Monument one would have been nicer if they hadn’t ripped out the Reflecting Pool but oh, well…).

Around 8 p.m. it started drizzling, which threatened to ruin the whole experience for us but luckily the drizzle lasted only about 15 minutes and the fireworks proceeded without a hitch.

The fireworks were glorious and we all enjoyed them. This was Chutney’s first 4th of July and he marked the occasion by sleeping right through the very loud fireworks but hey, I am not complaining - he could have been crying the whole time.

Here are a few more pictures:

More Butt Kicking (I passed the FSOT!!!)

2011-06-29T16:49:00.001-04:00

I am on a roll today, I think.

Guess who else kicked some serious butt this year?

Photo courtesy of the fabulous Janel Norton.

Me, that’s who!

I just learned that I kicked the FSOT (Foreign Service Officer Test) in the butt earlier this month. I am still in disbelief after last year’s epic failure described here and here. It’s a miracle of miracles really because I had only two weeks to prepare this time around and having a three-month-old doesn’t help. But I guess having gone through it all last year helped because my results improved in all three sections. Here are my FSOT score breakdowns for last year and this year:

2010 2011

Job Knowledge: 53.58 53.69

Biographic Information: 31.72 47.10

English Expression: 57.67 61.41

Multiple-Choice Total: 142.97 162.20

Essay score n/a 6

I needed a multiple-choice total of 154 or higher in order to get my essay read, which thanks to a dismal Bio section, I didn’t achieve last year. The Bio was still my weakest section this year but it was a little better than last year and that, plus slightly higher scores on the Job Knowledge and the English Expression sections put me over the hump. The minimum passing score for the essay is 6 on a 12-point scale and that’s exactly what I got. Not fantastic, I know, but I ran out of time on the essay, so I am happy I got a 6.

I am majorly relieved that I passed. I was starting to think that I am just not Foreign Service material, so this is a nice surprise. Of course, the FSOT is just the first of multiple steps that I have to take before I can become a Foreign Service Officer. There are no guarantees and I could drop off at any point in the process but without passing the FSOT, I could never have moved on to the next step, so I am taking it one step at a time.

Next, I have until 7/19 to write 6 essays known as Personal Narratives. Wish me luck! I know I will need it big time.

THAT Kid

2011-06-29T09:30:00.001-04:00

Guess who kicked some serious butt in school this year?

Photo courtesy of the one and only Janel Norton

Her cuteness Nia, that’s who!

It wasn’t easy but she did it. That’s the kid, who was moved from first to second grade in the middle of the year only to land in the class of a teacher who didn’t think she belonged there. The teacher wanted Nia put back into first grade. I agonized over what to do and shared my thoughts here, here and here.

We had a rough few months but I am thrilled to report that Nia was able to learn the material she had missed and successfully closed the three-month knowledge gap.

But wait, there’s more – not only was she assigned to third grade at the end of the school year but she was placed in the gifted program for third grade as well! That we did not expect. When we got the forms about the gifted program a couple of months ago, we said that we didn’t think she would qualify because she was moved up and had to focus on learning the material she missed. But the gifted committee tested her and determined that she belongs in the program, despite what her teacher said.

We knew you could do it all along, sweet Nia! You proved you are one smart cookie and we are so very proud of you!!!

House Fiasco

2011-06-28T00:59:00.001-04:00

If you know me, you probably know that I am not very quiet or shy. Whatever is on my mind is usually on my lips. The only time I may get quiet is when I am really upset. So, something’s been eating me for a while now and I have been avoiding writing about it because it’s just so unpleasant that I didn’t want to go there. On the other hand, I needed to write about it because I wanted to get it off my chest and move on.

This is not going to be a short or happy post, so if you’re not in the mood for drama, you may want to skip it. Here it goes:

We had a house in St. Petersburg, FL. It wasn’t big or fancy but it was our first home and it was special to us. We bought it in the end of 2002 when the real estate market in Florida was pretty hot. We had been looking for a while and made offers on several other homes but kept getting outbid. Finally, we came across this home. It was a little two bedroom/two bath with a small pool in a very nice neighborhood. It was right next to a beautiful park, with a lake, tennis courts, a baseball field, and a playground. It was walking distance to downtown St. Pete, Tampa Bay and a bunch of restaurants and shops. We loved living in that house. It wasn’t the house of our dreams but over the years we made many improvements to it and it was getting as close to it as it could. We added a master bedroom, knocked down half a wall between the kitchen and dining rooms to open up the floor plan, turned a window in the guest bedroom into a door to the pool, screened the pool and paved it, put a new roof, new A/C, new flooring throughout, new paved driveway, painted it inside and out.

Here are some before (left with previous owner décor) and after (right) pictures:

While we were busy making the house our home, it started to settle (as in sink), which is not unusual in Florida but is still something no one wants to see happening in their home. When we bought the house, the previous owners had disclosed there had been settlement in the house but said they had fixed it. Naturally, we were concerned about it, so we asked questions. We talked to the company that did the work. They said they had fixed the settlement and the house was solid as a rock. We had an inspection. The inspector also said the house was solid. That gave us peace of mind to move forward with the purchase.

Then when we saw settlement a couple of years later, we were not happy but it wasn’t really bad, so we fixed it before it got worse. A couple more years later there was more settlement. This time it was bad and happened over a short period (six months). So bad, in fact, that our closet doors fell off their hinges. So bad, that if you looked from one room, you could see into the other - under the wall! I know it sounds bizarre, so here are a couple of photos, in case you can’t picture it. It was very strange and very, very worrisome.

I kept hoping I would wake up and realize it was a just a nightmare. No such luck. We started wondering if it wasn’t a sinkhole. We had sinkhole insurance coverage. We called First Floridian, our insurance company, and filed a claim. The insurance company said we had sinkhole coverage but no regular settlement coverage and tried really hard to prove what we had was not a sinkhole but regular settlement. They hired an engineering company and the engineering company found that (surprise, surprise) there was no sinkhole on our property. We were not convinced, especially because we had talked to a settlement sinkhole expert, who thought we had a “classic sinkhole case.”

Oh, how I wish we had believed him and just sued the insurance company right then. We didn’t want to believe him because he seemed like a jerk but we shared the information with the insurance company. They said they’d get a second opinion. The second opinion concurred with the first opinion – no sinkhole. It’s important to note that this happened right before we had a master bedroom added to the house. Whether or not there was a sinkhole, was important to know no matter what but it had a whole new level of importance before we went and spent $65,000 on a new addition. If there was a sinkhole on the property, we were considering knocking the house down and putting a modular (not to be confused with mobile) home in its place. Modular homes are less susceptible to sinkhole/settlement issues. We had looked into modular homes and found that they had come a long way in terms of quality, options and reliability.

But the insurance company said no sinkhole and we believed them. We believed that what we were seeing was regular settlement, which is more fixable and less scary than a sinkhole. Big mistake! They rejected our sinkhole claim. In a way we were relieved because it meant that we could move forward with our master bedroom addition. But the rejected claim also meant that we were on our own as far as fixing the damage. And get this, as soon as they rejected our sinkhole claim, the insurance company dropped us like a hot potato stating that they were trying to limit their coastal exposure. This happened right after a particularly bad hurricane season in Florida and all insurance companies were doing that. Except, we were not coastal. As in our property was on higher ground and not in a flood area. That didn’t seem right and the thought of suing crossed our minds but we didn’t because we are not sue-happy people and we weren’t sure we were being cheated.

Nonetheless, we had to go to the insurer of last resort, Citizen’s (the state of Florida), because no one else was writing homeowners policies at the time. We couldn’t go directly to Citizen’s for some reason. We had to go through an insurance agent, so we used our State Farm agent, who wrote our auto insurance. We told them what had happened and that we wanted the same coverage as before. They wrote the policy. Shortly thereafter when we got our policy and reviewed it, we noticed that there was no sinkhole coverage. We called our agent and asked them to add it. They said it was too late but that we could add it at renewal (a year later). A few days prior to the renewal date (we had set up a reminder, so we don’t miss the deadline this time) we sent the agent a letter requesting the addition of sinkhole coverage. They said they’d add it. More on that later.

Meanwhile, we still had damage to fix. We had been saving money for the addition but now we had this unexpected expense to deal with. And let me tell you, settlement/sinkhole work is expensive. We got several quotes and picked a company that seemed reasonably priced. The work was incredibly messy. Our damage was such that fixing it required raising the floor. But because our house was built on a slab and had no crawlspace, there was no other way to to raise the floor than to go through it. Which meant the company that did the work had to dig 15 (yes, 15) 3x3-foot holes in our original 50-year old hardwood floors and the concrete slab underneath it in order to raise and support it. It looked like this:

It was even more awful in real life! But we did it and paid for it out of our own pockets. The hardwood floors were irreversibly damaged and we had no matching wood to fix them, so we had to “bury” them and put new flooring on top. At this point we were burning through money like it was going out of style. In an effort to curb our expenses somewhat, we decided to install the new bamboo flooring ourselves. The savings evaporated, however, because Paul herniated a disc in his back in the process and has been in and out of therapy ever since.

It was a very painful process but when the dust settled, we felt we had done what every good homeowner would – we had invested in our home by fixing a pesky problem. At this point, the thought of selling crossed my mind. We should have, because the market was pretty good then but we didn’t because we had just spent all kinds of money making the house the way we liked it and had gone through all the grief and none of the joy. We wanted to enjoy our creation. Unfortunately, the joy didn’t last. About 6 months later we noticed more settlement in an area that had not settled before and therefore had not been stabilized. The settlement was much less this time and in a much smaller area but it was visible and that was just maddening. We did not want to rip out our brand new bamboo floors in order to fix it. We had bought extra flooring just in case, we just did not want to go through all the pain again. But we had to do something, so we called our insurance agent and told them what was happening. They responded shortly thereafter saying we had no sinkhole coverage. WTF??? It turned out that the person we had been dealing with, did not add the sinkhole coverage to our policy. We later learned that that same person had messed up other things and had been fired, which was beside the point because now we had no coverage.

But wait, there’s more. We call the settlement company that did the stabilization work to see what it would cost to fix the new damage only to find out that they have gone out of business. At this point we already knew that in the field of settlement repairs, it is very difficult to get one company to fix another company’s work. It’s a liability issue – everyone points fingers at everyone else and it gets ugly. Not that it wasn’t ugly already. I am not a violent person but I have to admit that I was having violent thoughts, seriously violent!

That’s when a friend of ours told us that he knew someone who lived in our neighborhood and had a similar problem. They had sued the insurance company and won. Unbelievable! We talked to that person and hired their lawyer. We filed two lawsuits – one against First Floridian and another one against our State Farm agent.

That’s when Paul got the offer to join the Foreign Service. We were overjoyed – finally good news! But that meant we’d have to sell the house with two lawsuits hanging!

After months of legal back and forth both First Floridian and our State Farm agent settled out of court. We used the money to pay our mortgage, so we no longer owed anything on the house, which was definitely a relief. We were also fortunate that Paul’s first post in the Foreign Service was a one-year assignment in D.C. That definitely bought us some time and allowed us to wrap up both lawsuits.

However, the house was not selling. After being on the market for more than a year, we had only two offers, neither of which was serious. We had to disclose the issue with the house sinking and that was scaring people away, even though the house looked beautiful, with the exception of the last small settlement area, which we decided we were not going to fix. We agreed not to put any more money into it and sell it as is. We had discounted the asking price drastically to allow for repairs. Still no luck.

At this point, I wanted to rent it out. I was concerned that tenants may not take good care of it but I thought, if we rented it while we were overseas, we’d be getting a little bit of cash from it (very little because as a rental it would mean higher taxes, higher insurance and hiring a management company to deal with any maintenance issues while we were overseas). If it was still standing when we hit retirement, we could live in it. If it was seriously damaged, we could knock it down and put a modular home in its place.

Paul wanted to get rid of it. He didn’t want to have to worry about it from overseas. While I understood where he was coming from, it was becoming pretty obvious that even if we did sell it, we weren’t going to get much for it and I hated the idea. I did not want to give it away.

We talked about it many, many times and had to agree to disagree. After much discussion, we finally decided to sell it at an auction. A scary thought, right? What’s scarier is that we went with what’s called an absolute auction, which means there was no minimum or reservation price because we were told it tends to attract more bidders and thus yields a higher selling price.

So, the good news is that the house sold. The bad news is that it sold at a substantial loss. To the tune of $60,000 after all’s said and done. Yes, it sold for less than half of what we paid for it when we bought it back in 2002, never mind all the improvements we did to it. And that just breaks my heart. I wish I could say “it’s just money” and let it roll off my back because we are not the only people that lost money in this economy. I am not there yet.

Paul is a lot more philosophical about the whole thing. He looks at it as a bad investment, which it most definitely was. He sees the dismal real estate market as a large contributing factor and there is no denying that it made things worse because Florida has the worst problem country-wide in that respect. He says it was a money pit and we just had to get out of it. While I agree with all of that, I can’t help but think that it didn’t have to get this bad, that there were various points along the way, where we could have done things differently to avoid or at least limit our losses. Of course, hindsight is 20-20. If we had known then what we know now, we never would have bought the damn house. But we didn’t. And we were very naïve and trusted people we shouldn’t have along the way. And we paid for it through our noses. I am still in shock over it. It will take me a while to even consider buying another property. Not that we have the money to do it but just saying…

So there you have it, our house fiasco, in all its sordid details. I realize it’s not nice of me to dump my emotional garbage on you like that. It’s selfish but I need a cleansing ritual, something to bring closure and get rid of the bad mojo we had somehow brought on ourselves. I am hoping that spilling my guts about it here will help me deal with the funk and let me move on to happier things.

The Epic Cake

2011-05-24T00:33:00.001-04:00

Have you guys heard of Pinterest? Neither had I, up until a month ago, but now I am absolutely addicted to it. It’s probably the main reason why I haven’t been blogging as often as I would like to lately.

What is Pinterest? Well, it’s kinda like Facebook but with a lot more pictures. It looks like this:

If you are a visual person like me, this thing may just become your heroin. (Don’t say I didn’t warn you!) How does it work, you ask. You basically “pin” images (and links) of things you like – foods, places, things, ideas, quotations, books, and whatever else floats your boat. You put them in various categories (boards) on you profile. You can browse other people’s pins and “re-pin” them, “like” them, comment on them or follow other people.

Prior to discovering Pinterest, I’d stumble on really cool things while surfing the web but often couldn’t find them again when I needed to. Not any more. Now, I can just pin the things and save them in the appropriate categories(boards) on my profile and then when I need them, Bada Bing, they are there! It’s really awesome. And no, I am not paid by Pinterest to advertise for them, I’ve just been so inspired by them that I had to share the joy. It’s still in beta and you have to request an invite to join but it’s fairly simple and quick.

So, anyway, I was sitting on the couch one night looking at cool stuff on Pinterest, when Her Cuteness sat next to me and started looking at the pretty pictures (and I don’t mean Gilles Marini ‘cause I hadn’t pinned him just yet but that’s a whole different story…). She was instantly intrigued by this:

Can you blame her? It’s the Rainbow Doodle Birthday Cake and I was kinda drooling when I first saw it too. It took Nia a couple of seconds to decide that it’s the cake she wanted for her birthday. Well, I thought, her birthday is not until November, I have plenty of time to figure out how to make it, so I foolishly said “Sure, honey, why not!”

Then, just for the hell of it, I looked at the recipe. Boy, was that thing way out of my cake league. It was quite intimidating but inspiring and irresistible at the same time. I couldn’t risk making it for the first time for her birthday. So many things could go wrong. I had to figure it out... like NOW. And since my birthday was conveniently coming up in a couple of weeks, I thought, “What the hell, I’ll test-make it for my birthday and if it doesn’t work out, we’ll eat it anyway.” So, happy birthday to me, right!???

This is probably a good time to mention that one of my birthday gifts this year was a…

… yup, a Kitchenaid stand mixer and I was just dying to use it for something awesome. So it just had to happen, you know, the stars were perfectly aligned. Her Cuteness’ request, the recipe, the mixer – it was a trifecta, really…

The only problem was I had never made anything so involved. This was not a whip-it-in-a-half-an-hour cake. I mean, when I first read the recipe, I had to look up a few words. It has things like Swiss Meringue Buttercream and fondant, for crying out loud. Those are not for the faint of heart. But for my sweetheart, I was going to figure it out. So about 10 days out, I started collecting coupons (‘cause I am a coupon ~~maniac~~ queen) and buying the supplies. I had to find just the right kind of food coloring (gel) and the decorator pens. I actually cheated on the decorator pens because I am ~~cheap~~ thrifty and the ones the recipe called for were quite pricey and unavailable at my local craft store, for which I had 50% off any one item coupons. I ended up getting a set that had half the colors but ended up costing me a lot less. I also had to get industrial amounts of butter and sugar because that’s like 90% of the cake. Seriously!

It took me the better part of three days to finish the ~~darned~~ thing but finish it I did and it looked like this:

Not too shabby, eh?

It didn’t have to take three days to make the cake but there were diapers to be changed, homework to be done, dinners to be prepared, and all kinds of other fun stuff, so I had to squeeze cake making where I could. This is how it went down. On day one, I made the layers, put them in plastic wrap and stashed them in the freezer. On day two, I whipped up the fondant. I opted for a marshmallow fondant recipe but used butter instead of shortening. I have a thing about shortening. It kinda grosses me out. The fondant had to sit overnight before I could use it. On day three, I made the Swiss Meringue Buttercream and assembled the whole ~~monstrosity~~ cake. The buttercream actually turned out exactly as described in the recipe. The fondant on the other hand was kind of tricky but I am guessing, it may have had something to do with my substitution of butter for shortening. It ended up sticking to the countertop, so my Mom had to help me with it (she has some wicked rolling pin skillz) but we figured it out.

Last but not least, we had Nia decorate the cake with the decorator pens (markers, really):

She wanted to draw a fairy with black hair and diamond wings. The final design looked a little Goth but she liked it and that’s all that matters, right? Here we are before cutting our masterpiece:

Was it tasty? Well, yes but to be perfectly honest, it was so rich that we had a hard time finishing our pieces. It’s incredibly sweet. So sweet, as a matter of fact, that Nia decided she doesn’t want it for her birthday after all. So sweet, that 10 days later we still have a quarter of it in the fridge. So unless I figure out something lighter to use instead of the Swiss Meringue Buttercream, I probably won’t be making it again. Which is a shame because it is such a beautiful cake and I just figured out how to make it. The fondant didn’t help either. But if I figure out a substitute for the Swiss Meringue Buttercream, I can make it without the fondant. I’d also use a white cake mix instead of making the layers from scratch. Oh, and I’d probably hide the black marker – it made the design a little scary.

The inspiration behind this cake actually did not have the fondant and it was featured on Martha Stewart, so if you want to try making it, you may find this video helpful. The recipe for the original Rainbow Cake (without the fondant and the doodles) can be found here. It is very detailed and has links for making the Swiss Meringue Buttercream as well. The original recipe called for lemon extract in the buttercream but I am not a big fan of lemony cakes, so I used orange extract in mine and it turned out good.

If you know of a good, lighter and less sweet substitute for the Swiss Meringue Buttercream, please let me know in the comments. Thanks!

Boobman

2011-05-15T13:05:00.001-04:00

My son is exclusively breast fed, so it’s no surprise that he is quite fond of my boobs. They feed him after all.

But at a recent family gathering I caught him doing this:

That’s right, folks, he was cheating on the boobs that feed him with, you guessed it, younger, prettier ones.

At least he kept it in the family, for the object of his affection was none other than his cousin. At her bridal shower no less!

When her husband-to-be got wind of the young groper, he just said: “It’s those little ones you have to watch out for. They look so innocent but the moment you turn your head, they go straight the kill!”

In other boobman news, I am thrilled to share that he seems to be growing out of his colic, slowly but surely. He doesn’t strain and cry as much as he used to and we get a few hours of smiles and coos every day, which is utterly delightful. He also seems to have kicked the jaundice in the butt and is growing like a weed. He was 15 lb the day he turned 3 months. Not too shabby considering that he came 5 weeks early!

Arlington Cemetery

2011-05-04T09:32:00.001-04:00

Here’s another overdue post. Thirteen years ago, when we lived in Springfield, VA, I used to go by the cemetery on my way to work on the Metro every day. I’ve wanted to go visit it ever since. A couple of weeks ago we loaded up the kiddos and my Mom and made the trip.

It was very much what I expected but really neat nonetheless. Needless to say, it’s a very somber place and it makes you think about all the men and women who gave their lives for this country through the years. I am really glad there is such a dignified place for them, where we can go and pay our respects. It was a beautiful spring day with lots of flowers and trees in bloom.

We walked all the way up the hill to the Tomb of the Unknown and saw the changing of the guard, which was very solemn and cool. We had read about it online beforehand but it was still pretty amazing to see in person. The precision of the ritual is amazing. All the guards take the exact same number of steps in the exact same places every single time. After performing it so many times over the years, there are rust stains on the granite where the metal plates on their shoes have touched the ground.

After that, we made our way to the Kennedy grave site, then walked around the cemetery some more and talked about its meaning with Nia. She’s probably a little young to truly understand but I think she got the general idea. We’ll have to go back one day when both she and Chutney are old enough to understand.

Possibly the best pizza I’ve ever had…

2011-05-01T21:50:00.001-04:00

I am behind with blogging. There are several things that I have been meaning to blog about but haven’t quite gotten around to it. This is one of them. So, here we go.

We had been thinking about trying We, the Pizza for quite a while. It’s a pizza place run and owned by Spike Mendelson, a celebrity chef, who was on Top Chef. He also runs Good Stuff Eatery, which I reviewed not too long ago. You can find my review here.

We finally went to We, the Pizza a couple of weeks ago and it was better than we expected. We tried several different types of pizza – peperoni, sausage and peppers, Greek (Feta cheese, onions, olives and peppers) and they were all good. I have historically been a pan crust type person but I actually rather liked their thin crust. Who am I kidding – I couldn’t get enough of it, it was that good. The crust, I mean. The toppings were fresh and yum too but the thin crust, oh the thin crust... It was to die for! I’d love to get my hands on the recipe.

They also sell home made sodas, which we tried. We had the I’ve Gotta Orange Crush on You and Very, Very, Sour-ry Cherry and they were both pretty awesome!

But the icing on the cake was that we happened to be there at the same time as the Michelle O. and a bunch of her friends. How cool is that?!!! Apparently, she’s also a fan of We, the Pizza and eats there quite often. The place was pretty crowded because of that and there were a bunch of special agents all over the place ensuring the First Lady’s safety. They searched us as we were entering the place but were very nice otherwise. We asked them what the search was all about and they just said that someone special was eating at the place. We weren’t sure who it was and tried not to stare but I definitely saw the First Lady and a bunch of people at a table on the second floor. Later on in the evening Paul told me that Sasha and Malia were also there according to Twitter but we didn’t see them.

So, yeah, We, the Pizza is really good. It’s definitely worth making a special trip to Capitol Hill for it. So, go try it and let me know what you think.

Just remember, they too are closed on Sunday.

Ready for Easter

2011-04-22T12:23:00.001-04:00

Our eggs are colored and our kozunaci* made.

We are officially ready for Easter and the traditional Bulgarian Easter egg fights.

Happy Easter everyone!

*Bulgarian Easter breads that are sweet and eggy. I made ours with lots of almonds and raisins this year.

Paint Chip Easter Garland

2011-04-18T13:18:00.001-04:00

It’s spring break here in Northern Virginia and Her Cuteness is home all week. I was looking for projects and fun activities to do with her this week when I stumbled on this lovely Easter garland. I couldn’t resist the simplicity of it, plus, I am a sucker for color, so this morning Nia and I set out to make a couple of those. One for our drab apartment entrance door and the second for the door to Nia’s room. All you need are scissors, paint chips, dental floss, time and patience and voila, you get a splash of color to brighten up your day.

You can find detailed instructions on how to make it at Modern Parents Messy Kids.

Big Fat Greek Sleepover

2011-04-16T08:19:00.001-04:00

So we were watching My Big Fat Greek Wedding with Nia last night. We get to the point where Tula (the main female character) spends the night with Ian (the main male character) at his apartment for the first time.

Nia’s observation, “This is like a sleepover for adults, right?”

“Yes, honey, it sure is.”

Weekly State Department Blog RoundUp

2011-04-08T23:21:00.001-04:00

Hi everyone! This is my first time hosting the RoundUp and I’ll try my best but don’t you go expecting perfection.

First, before I jump into the RoundUp, I have to say this whole government shutdown business is nuts. I know it’s happened before but I can’t believe we are about to let it happen again. The way it has gone down is not making the US look particularly good to the rest of the world. I hope it’s resolved and soon because the livelihoods of many of us will be directly affected, if they end up shutting the government down for real. I don’t see why government workers and their families need to be the scapegoats in the political war going on in Washington. We have kids to feed and bills to pay just like everyone else, however that doesn’t seem to enter the equation. But enough said.

Moving on to the RoundUp. Our optional theme was Best of (your current or past post). If you didn’t love the theme, you can blame Sarah at Novakistan, who wrote an awesome two-part piece (that you can read here and here) about the delights of living in Manila. If you are considering Manila as a future post and haven’t read these, you just have to do it. You also get to look at terrific pictures like this:

I got only a couple of submissions on the theme. I am not sure if it’s because I didn’t give you enough time or everyone was worried about the government shutdown but I would like to keep the Best of idea open, so if you decide to write about your post in the future, please leave the link in the comment section below, even if it’s months from now. I will find a way to feature it either here at my blog or link it to A Daring Adventure’s State Department Blogger Map or both. I think sharing this type of information would benefit many of us.

Anyway, a big thank you goes to the few who responded to the theme. Like Becky of Small Bits who talks about life at the US-Mexico border. I know I was nervous at the prospect of being sent there but she does a good job of describing the pros (we all know the cons). So if any of you are considering Mexican border posts, you may find that post useful.

It’s Cherry blossom season in the D. C. area and Rambles and Ruminations thinks that’s the best of D. C. The whole family went down to the Tidal Basin a few days ago to admire the blossoms and take gorgeous pictures like this one:

There are more where this came from, so head on over there and enjoy. We also wanted to go and take some family pictures at the Tidal Basin last weekend but made the mistake of driving down there. The crowds were insane, perhaps because the weather had been really crappy the previous weekend but there were absolutely no parking spaces to be had, so unfortunately, we had to turn around and go back home sans Cherry Blossom pictures. Bummer!

There’s a lot more to the D.C. area than the Cherry Blossoms though. When we came to the area I (inspired by another FS blogger) made a list of the places I thought were the best of D. C. that you are more that welcome to use, if you are new to the area and are wondering what to do with your time (or you get furloughed and all of a sudden have a lot of free time).

Since we haven’t yet shipped out to our first overseas post, I rarely have anything to say about the RoundUp themes but decided to participate this time regardless, so I wrote a Best of Bulgaria post. If Sofia’s on your bid list, you may want to check it out.

I am not sure if HotPot intended her blog entry to be part of the RoundUp but it did a great job of describing the delights of Guangzhou and comparing it to their current post Chengdu.

The next few entries may be off topic but they are interesting nonetheless. And the theme was optional, right?

Adventures Around the World describes an interesting wake up call in Kathmandu. The best part of living in Malawi is apparently a trip to Zambia according to Shannon at Cyberbones, so she opted to write about household help instead, which is a recurring theme among the Foreign Service crowd. Zoe at Something Edited This Way Comes announced the results of the Best-Disguised Foreign Service Couch contest and it’s a three-way tie! Diplomatic Mom, who just started her own career as a Diplomat with the 160 group of FSOs, describes her first week on the job. Diplochick and The Red Menace Abroad, also from the 160 group of FSOs, shared their first impressions of A-100 as well. Email from the Embassy had fun with alliteration, parents and ponies in Petra, Jordan. Lovely pictures too!

Jill at The Perlman Update has several free offers for you. Face lift, lip implants, or liposuction anyone? Head on over there and she’ll hook you up. Travel Orders, who are expecting a baby boy in less than five weeks, have been researching raising bilingual children and are sharing what they have learned. They like to be prepared, can you tell? Worldwide Available, writing from the Ukraine, is contemplating what she’d do if she’s furloughed. Life After Jerusalem wrote a series of blog posts sharing her feelings about the government shutdown.

Just heard that Congress has reached an agreement and there will not be a government shutdown after all. That means we can all breathe a collective sigh of relief and go to bed!

It looks like Becky over at Small Bits will be hosting next week’s RoundUp.

If you’ve been thinking about hosting the RoundUp, you can sign up here.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

Best of Bulgaria

2011-04-08T00:34:00.001-04:00

I am hosting this week’s State Department Blog RoundUp, so I thought I’d write something. We have yet to go to our first overseas post, so I can’t write about that but I can write about Bulgaria, which is where I am from originally. Because it’s been almost 14 years since I moved to the US and I visit only every couple of years or so, it doesn’t make sense to write about restaurants and services. However, I can write about travel and generally about food and drink, so without further ado, here’s a list of my favorite Bulgarian places and things:

1. Veliko Turnovo – of course, my hometown is #1, not just because I was born there but because it’s a really cool place. It’s old and charming and a wonderful place go back to. It was the capital of Bulgaria for 200 years in the Middle Ages and has it’s own Medieval fort/castle named Tzarevetz, which looks like this

It has a lovely old town with narrow cobblestone streets and craftsmen that still make neat stuff by hand. There are many churches and monasteries in the area as well. Arbanassi and Etura are two villages not too far from Veliko Turnovo, where one can see typical architecture and crafts.

2. Rila Monastery – I am not religious but this place, tucked way up in the tallest mountain in Bulgaria,Rila, is just so spiritual that it has a special place in my hart. It’s more than a thousand years old and the frescos in it’s church are just stunning. No wonder it’s a UNESCO World Heritage site. There are two types of accommodations there – regular hotel rooms or monks’ rooms (hard cot, toilet down the hall), if you are so inclined.

3. Plovdiv – Bulgaria’s second largest city, beautiful downtown, cobblestone streets, old houses, an amphitheater from Roman times as well as some statues from communist times.

4. Rose Valley – if you are in Bulgaria in early summer you can visit this area of the country located just south of the Balkan range. Walking through the rose fields early in the morning will fill your being with the overwhelming aroma of the roses. Bulgaria is a top producer of high-quality rose oil for the perfume industry. Rose oil makes perfumes last and has a number of other cosmetic applications. It takes about 60,000 roses to make one ounce of rose oil, so it is very expensive. You may also see lavender fields, which look like purple hedgehogs and also smell wonderful.

5. Black Sea Coast – my favorite place there is Nessebar (another UNESCO World Heritage site) because of its old town charm, Roman ruins, and beautiful beaches nearby. Other nice areas along the Black sea coast include Balchik, Albena, Golden Sands, Varna and Sozopol.

6. Skiing – My personal favorite is Bansko because the town has a lot of character and a pub on every corner but you can enjoy decent skiing at Borovetz, Pamporovo, Vitosha (just outside Sofia) as well.

7. Sofia – I personally am not a big fan of Sofia because it’s crowded and lacks the charm of the above but since it’s the capital most of the country's institutions and opportunities are concentrated there. It also has some nice museums, churches and ruins. The best thing about Sofia, as far as I am concerned, is that Vitosha (4400+ foot high mountain) is right at the edge of town and you can go hiking or skiing in no time, if you live there.

8. Bulgarian food – if you like Greek and/or Turkish food, you are going to like Bulgarian. What’s it like? Grilled meats (mostly chicken and pork), stews and salads. Seasonal fruits and vegetables are to die for.

9. Bulgarian wine – I guess it’s Bulgaria’s best kept secret. It’s the land of Dionysus (Ancient Greek god of wine). Both red and white wines are wonderful, plentiful and inexpensive.

10. Bulgarian rakia – traditional Bulgarian fruit brandy (shown below with another Bulgarian favorite, Shopska salad). It’s strong and usually served with salad. It’s ordinarily made from grapes but depending on the region you may find plum, peach, apricot, cherry and other varieties as well. It’s not sweet, just has a fruit aroma.

There are a lot of other places and things that I love about Bulgaria but I better stop before I lose you…

Hosting The Weekly State Department Blog RoundUp

2011-04-06T12:05:00.001-04:00

(This blog entry and the next two are intended for the State Department/Foreign Service blogger community. If you are not part of that community, you may not find these entries useful or interesting.)

So after contemplating it for months, I finally volunteered to host the Weekly State Department Blog RoundUp. If I had two functioning brain cells left, I would have done it before the baby came but it’s one of those woulda, coulda, shoulda kinda things. Guess I am a glutton for punishment, cause there’s nothing like sleeplessness and hormones to motivate me, so here I am hosting the RoundUp this Friday.

I even have an optional theme (or topic) for it. I am actually not a big fan of themes for the RoundUp as more often than not I don’t have much to say on the themes but I was inspired by two wonderful blog entries (that you can read here and here), written by Sarah over at Novakistan last week. Sarah’s current post is Manila and she wrote a two-part piece about the best things in Manila from food and services to travel and entertainment. Reading those blog entries made me want to live in Manila but it also got me thinking – wouldn’t it be nice if we had this kind of information for every post out there. It would be so helpful when we bid on posts, get ready to go to a post and once we get to a new post. Now, I know that similar information is provided by the Transition Center at FSI but it’s a pain in the neck to access. This would not be replacing what’s already provided by State but it would complement it nicely because it would be more personal and you could ask questions of the blogger and get a good understanding of what you are getting yourself into. Plus, we could add a gazillion pictures…

So the theme for this week’s RoundUp is Best of (your current or past post, if you are in DC). If you are new to the Foreign Service but have lived overseas, perhaps you can write about that country/city. For example, we have yet to go to our first overseas post (New Delhi) with the Foreign Service but I am originally from Bulgaria and spent the first 25 years of my life there, so I am thinking about writing a blog entry on the Best of Bulgaria, hoping it would help the people bidding on Sofia.

In my ~~hormonal delirium~~ head I was also envisioning a marriage between this Best of idea and Kolbi’s State Department Blogger Map, so that when you click on a pin on the map, you could see the Best of blog entry for that post. Kolbi and Sarah liked the idea, so we’ll try to make it happen.

Last but not least, while I love how positive and uplifting Sara’s two-part piece was, I know that most of us need a true picture of each post, which may include information that’s not necessarily positive. So if there’s something at your post that you wish you had known before you got there because it would have helped you make a more informed bidding decision, please include that too. Whether it’s lack of activities for children, or high price of gasoline, or air pollution, I am sure most of us would appreciate knowing the kinds of things no one from the official sources tells you before we get to post.

Please leave me a link to your Best of post in the comments below.

Happy blogging!

P. S. If you are interested in hosting the RoundUp in the future, you can sign up here.

Bunnies

2011-04-04T13:34:00.001-04:00

Nia is home today because of a professional development day at her school, so I decided to use the opportunity to take some cute Easter inspired pictures of the kids. I got Chutney some green bunny ears at the dollar store a few days ago. Nia had her pink bunny ears from when she was a baby. I dressed both of them in coordinating pastel color clothes and had a few props ready (a stuffed lamb, an Easter bunny, plastic eggs etc.)

Unfortunately, the littlest bunny was not in the mood for pictures and no matter how hard I tried, I could not get him to cooperate. He ended up crying the whole time, so I had to forget about the props and give up. Below are the best pictures. I guess I’ll try again next year. Hopefully, the darn colic that’s been tormenting him would be gone by then and we’ll get him to smile…

Make Gandhi Smile Twice???

2011-04-03T00:20:00.001-04:00

Just read this little tidbit about our future home, India, in the April, 2011 issue of National Geographic. I’d never heard of it and found it interesting, so I thought I’d share:

In India, a Bribe-busting Bill

Posted Mar 28,2011

In India, where corruption costs the public and private sectors millions of dollars a year, demands for petty bribes are frequently signaled in code: “Take care of me” or, for a two-note handout, “Make Gandhi smile twice.” Illegal demands by police and bureaucrats are “deeply ingrained in the culture,” says anticorruption crusader Vijay Anand, and are “taken as the norm.”

But 5th Pillar, Anand’s grassroots citizens group, is trying to create a new norm—by printing and passing out notes worth nothing at all (above). Since 2007, 5th Pillar has distributed 1.3 million zero-rupee bills. People give them as a polite protest to officials trying to squeeze extra payment for routine services like issuing driver’s licenses or loans. The effect has been to shame or scare some public servants—who can go to jail if they’re caught—into honest behavior. The zero-rupee note, says anticorruption researcher Fumiko Nagano, emboldens people to assert their rights, because when they’re backed up by 5th Pillar, “they realize they are not alone.”

Nor is India. Zero-currency notes are spreading to help fight corruption in Mexico and Nepal as well—an affirmation of nonviolent resistance that would surely have made Gandhi smile for real. —Hannah Bloch

Designed to look like standard Indian currency, zero-rupee notes are larger and printed on thicker paper. That discourages folding, which is a common way for bribes to be passed. Photo: Rebecca Hale, NGM Staff

Max Photo Book

2011-03-28T12:39:00.006-04:00

Just created a couple of these photo books for the grandparents and noticed you could share them on blogger and facebook, so I thought why not...

Click here to view this photo book larger

Due Date and Too Much Baby Info

2011-03-17T12:17:00.001-04:00

This past Tuesday, March 15, was Chutney’s due date. He ended up making his surprise appearance on 2/12, so we’ve had him for over a month now but I had been wondering how big he’d be on his due date. Now I know – 9 lb, 12 oz/4.400 kg. That’s a weight gain of 2 lb, 7 oz/1.250 kg in his first five weeks of life!

While I am extremely happy that he is growing well, I couldn’t help but think that he would probably have been a 10 pounder, had he come on his due date or later (if you account for the fact that newborns lose some weight right after birth and then have to make up for it). If you’ve been following this blog, you know that I was hoping he’d come a little early because he was measuring big, though I was hoping for maybe a couple of weeks early, not five, so I sure am relieved that I didn’t have to push a 10 pounder out – WHEW!

Otherwise, Max is visibly growing and we are all in love with him. He is still a little jaundiced, which at five weeks after birth is a little bit of a concern. His doctor suspects breast milk jaundice and per her instructions I took him off the breast for 48 hours in the hope that it will lower his bilirubin count. I don’t heart the idea of giving him formula and pumping exclusively for two days but hopefully this will help him kick the jaundice’s butt.

Max has also been having gastrointestinal issues. He has extreme difficulty pooping. He gets all red and strains a lot, while arching his back, pushing with his feet, flailing his arms violently and crying his little heart out after almost every feeding. A friend of mine, who is a doctor, thinks he is colicky. I’ve been talking to his doctor and trying different things per their instructions (drinking prune juice/eating prunes, eliminating gassy, constipating, spicy and dairy products from my diet, massaging his belly, pumping his legs, doing bicycles with his legs, applying warmth to his belly, giving him gas drops, etc.) with little to no effect. He is not constipated, just seems to be having a real hard time going #2 (#1 is no problem).

I read in an online discussion group that many newborns, especially premature ones, don’t yet know how to use their digestive system properly. Pooping seems to bother them quite a bit because in order to do it right, they have to flex some muscles, while at the same time relaxing others. Apparently, it takes some newborns a while to figure out how to do that. I had never heard that. We did not have that problem with our daughter. It seems plausible but then again, I don’t know. Max’s doctor recommended giving him a probiotic called Lactobacillus Reuteri, which I bought at Whole Foods the other day and will try after our 48-hour formula escapade is over. Have any of you used Lactobacillus Reuteri? What did you think?

I know some will think this is too much information and it probably is. The only reason I am oversharing is that some of you mommies out there may have encountered these problems and may have a solution. If you do, please let me know in the comments. I will greatly appreciate it. Thanks!

Tuk & Tam is 1!

2011-03-06T21:47:00.001-05:00

It’s hard to believe but it’s been a year since I started this blog. This was definitely a year of ch-ch-changes for us. Here are the biggies:

Paul and I quit our magazine editing jobs.
We packed up our daughter, our two cats and all our worldly possessions and moved from FL to temporary housing in the Washington, D.C. area, so my dear husband can start a new career as a diplomat.
Paul went through A-100 (the initial training all new US diplomats get) and got his first Foreign Service post: a one-year assignment at the office of eDiplomacy in Washington, D.C.
We became fast friends with wonderful people from Paul’s training class, which made the move and transition easier.
I “met” more wonderful people (mostly ladies) through my blog and the Foreign Service blog world, which has helped me stay sane and learn more about what’s ahead in this lifestyle.
We spent time with family and old friends from the D.C. area, which has been a blessing as well.
Nia started at a new school, with new teachers and new classmates.
We moved again (from our temporary apartment to a more permanent one).
I took the FSOT (Foreign Service Officer Test) and failed miserably :-(
We got pregnant again – yey!
I surprised myself and Paul, among other people, by deciding not to go back to work during the pregnancy and for at least the first six months thereafter, ha!
My mother visited us during the summer and we helped her apply for her US citizenship.
Paul got his second Foreign Service assignment: consular officer at the US Embassy in New Delhi starting in May 2012.
I (preemptively) started learning Hindi with the help of Rosetta Stone (but have not gotten very far).
My mother came back in December for her US Citizenship Test, which she passed with flying colors but we are still waiting for an invitation for her to get sworn in as a US Citizen.
Nia was moved from first to second grade in the middle of the school year, which did not go as smoothly as anticipated but we are slowly ironing out the kinks.
Our precious son Max was born five weeks early on 2/12/2011 but is doing very well and getting cuter by the minute, if I say so myself.

The last three weeks have been a sleepless blur but we spent them getting to know Max and getting used to being parents of a very hyper 7-year old and a newborn.

Thank you all for reading my ramblings. I didn’t expect this blog to be therapeutic but writing here and hearing from all of you has helped me deal with difficult situations and I truly appreciate you being there for me!

THAT Mom (Part 3)

2011-03-03T11:31:00.001-05:00

This is just an update that I should have written a couple of weeks ago but then the baby came early and I went into Boob, Poop, Love mode (that’s the new Mom version of Eat, Pray, Love) and that messed up my blogging schedule.

Anyway, in my last blog entry on this subject, I talked to the principal of Nia’s new school and asked if we could possibly move Nia to a different classroom because I was concerned that the teacher was not interested in helping Nia succeed.

The answer we got a few days later was not ideal but it did bring closure to the issue. The principal said that he had thought about Nia’s situation and discussed it with her teacher and that they had decided to keep her in the same classroom. They felt that moving her again would make the transition longer and may not improve things. She was in a classroom where she already knew the teacher and her classmates and they wanted to make the best of it. I voiced my concern about the teacher’s commitment (or lack thereof) once again but the principal said he had discussed the situation with her and felt things were going to be OK.

So, Nia is staying in second grade, in the same classroom. She continues to say she’s happy about it, even though she has to put in extra effort. The teacher also seems to be trying to make things better. She reached out to me with specific things, with which we can help Nia and we have been working on those. The teacher has also been communicating Nia’s progress and saying that Nia is working hard and doing better than when she first moved to second grade in the beginning of January. A recent email exchange with the principle also seems to indicate that Nia is on track to finish second grade with her current class and move to third grade.

So, we are cautiously optimistic. Right now it looks like this may actually work. Not as smoothly as we had hoped but if Nia is learning, challenged and happy, we feel it’s a good thing.

Of course, the arrival of the baby has added some stress to the situation but that’s another topic altogether. We have been trying our best to communicate to Nia that even though we now have to share our time between her and the baby, she is still very much loved and an integral part of the family. She seems to get that most of the time but she’s been an only for seven years and it is sometimes hard for her to accept that she’s not the center of our little universe anymore. We just have to keep working on helping her feel loved and comfortable as a big sister – it’s work in progress...

Martenitzi

2011-03-01T11:04:00.001-05:00

Today is a special day in Bulgaria and even though I’ve lived in the US for the last 13+ years, I still get excited about Martenitzas every year. Martenitzas are a beloved symbol of spring and health and Bulgarians give them to their friends and family on March 1 wishing the recipient good health. They are made of white and red yarn and can be pinned to your clothes or worn as a necklace or a bracelet. You are supposed to wear them until you see evidence that spring has arrived, which in Bulgaria could be a stork , a swallow (both migratory birds that fly South for the winter and come back each spring) or a tree in bloom. Here’s what Martenitzas look like, in case you were wondering.

You can make your own Martenitzas or buy them from any of the zillion stands that sell a myriad of Martenitza designs in Bulgaria this time of the year. If you happen to be in Bulgaria on March 1, you will see that everyone wears Martenitzas, young or old, male or female. I always thought it was a very optimistic, uplifting tradition and have been honoring it from afar for years.

So, last night we made some Martenitzas for our family and proudly donned them on each of us this morning. Here’s a picture, which wasn’t easy to take because the littlest member of the family was especially wiggly:

Wishing you lots of health and hoping spring will be here real soon!

More information on Martenitzas (or Martenitsas, Martenizas, Мартеници) here.

Neat Story about Delhi in Today’s Washington Post

2011-02-27T21:06:00.001-05:00

Just read this story about our future home and all the history in the area, so thought I’d share it. There’s still more than a year till our departure but we are very excited about going to Delhi and stories like this one make us want to be there already…

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/25/AR2011022505221.html?sid=ST2011022505855

Chutney’s Here!

2011-02-19T23:11:00.001-05:00

Yes, he came a week ago today. It was a little bit of a surprise because I had just had a test estimating the likelihood of going into preterm labor, according to which me going into early labor was not likely. But because I had gone into labor at 34 weeks with Nia and wasn’t ready for her to be born, I did everything to ensure we had all the necessities by week 34 this time around.

I was 35 weeks pregnant and my water broke in the wee hours last Saturday, so we went to the hospital. Even though at 35 weeks the baby is considered premature, the doctor said there was no point in trying to stop labor because my water had broken and there was a risk of infection. On the other hand, we were all concerned about the baby. He had been measuring bigger than average but there was no telling if he’d need to be in the NICU (newborn intensive care unit) until he came out. There were a couple of NICU nurses waiting on stand-by in the delivery room to make sure the baby was OK.

Unfortunately, I was barely having any contractions. At first, we tried to let nature take its course but after several hours of waiting, it became obvious that nature was in no hurry. Time was running out and we had to get the baby out, so as much as I didn’t like the idea, I had to be induced (again). Things went faster from there and I had a pretty good birth experience (much better than my first one). Everyone at the hospital was great and had every aspect of the delivery under control.

When Chutney finally came at 3:30 p.m. on 2/12, he measured 7 lb 5 oz (3.300 kg) and 19 3/4 inches (50 cm). His Apgar Scores were 8/9, which meant he didn’t have to go to the NICU. He looked and behaved like a full-term baby, which was a major relief for us. They had to run a few extra tests on him to be on the safe side but he aced them all and we were home a couple of days later.

We’ve spent the last week getting to know Chutney and he’s been wonderful. Her Cuteness, on the other hand, had a few rough days after we came home from the hospital. She had been sick before the baby came and we were trying to make sure she didn’t get the baby sick, which really frustrated her. She’d say things like “Now that Chutney’s here, you don’t love me any more!” and “He poops and you think it’s great but you don’t think anything I do is great!” for a couple of days but seems to be doing better now.

So slowly but surely we are getting to our new happy place. We could use more sleep but hopefully soon enough Chutney will be sleeping through the night.

Oh, and no, we did not name him Chutney. His actual name is Max Stefan Ray Swider. Stefan is my Dad’s name and Ray is Paul’s Dad’s.

Mubarak Resigns! Hoping for Free Egypt!

2011-02-11T12:01:00.001-05:00

Well, as adamant as he sounded last night about not stepping down, it looks like Mubarak has had a change of heart. According to his VP he has resigned the presidency today handing power to the armed forces. The protesters exploded in jubilation shouting, “Egypt is free!”

A history-in-the-making moment and I couldn’t be more thrilled for the Egyptians.

Of course, this is only the first step. Here’s hoping for a peaceful transition, strong leadership and true freedom for Egypt!

Trading Cool for Debt-free

2011-02-07T22:31:00.001-05:00

Yes, we did it- we are finally debt free! We recently kissed our last loans (car, school and mortgage) goodbye and it feels good. We’ve managed to become very uncool in the process but we like to think it’s worth it.

First, back in May of last year, when my husband got his D.C. assignment, we decided to live in a non-fancy place. It’s smaller and not nearly as nice as our house in Florida but it’s pretty much the only thing we could afford in Falls Church, so we figured we could stomach it for a year or two (at the time we didn’t know how long it would be before we went overseas).

Second, we had to get rid of the two cars we had in Florida. It wasn’t an easy decision to make but with the baby due in about a month and my Mom with us for most of the year, we couldn’t all fit in either of the cars we had and it really didn’t make sense to drive two cars everywhere. Plus, we knew we couldn’t take a normal US car to India because they don’t allow you to import left-hand-drive cars there. We didn’t want to buy a new car that we’d have to turn around and sell in about a year. So, we finally settled on a (gasp) 13-year-old minivan.

Cool? Not exactly. Practical? Under the circumstances – hell yeah! Especially if it survives the year or so until we ship to New Delhi without major issues. Best part - no car loans and a few bucks in the bank!

We also managed to settle a legal dispute with a couple of insurance companies related to our house in Florida, which is making it very difficult to sell the house but as a result we were able to pay down the remainder of our mortgage and the last of my student loans. Which means No More Debt!!!

If we could only sell the house now… Thinking about how much work we put into that house and how many times we’ve lowered the price in an effort to sell it since we moved last March just breaks my heart. But we recently recruited St. Joseph to help us, as in bought and buried a small St. Joseph statue in the front yard, which is supposed to help you sell your house.

We are hoping he delivers – keep your fingers crossed!

THAT Mom (Part 2)

2011-02-05T06:40:00.001-05:00

First of all, I want to thank everyone who responded to my previous blog post in comments and on Facebook. I can’t even begin to tell you how helpful it was to hear your thoughts. Before I poured my heart out to the world and had a chance to read your comments, my husband and I felt alone in this fight. We do not any more. We were relieved to hear how many of you have been in similar situations and to learn from your experiences. Hearing different perspectives has been so invaluable. Some of you believe in skipping grades, others do not. That was important for us to understand. Based on your feedback, Paul and I decided that we had to go back and ask a couple more questions.

Yesterday, I had volunteered to help with an activity at the school. While I was there, I talked briefly to the teacher. I had been meaning to ask her where Nia falls on the achievement scale in the class but forgot. Based on the teacher’s feedback, we thought Nia was at the bottom of the scale, dragging everyone down. Well, it turns out that wasn’t the case. The teacher said Nia was not below the lowest achievers; she is below average. Now, I know some of you will think I am a nut but I found that very encouraging. You see, Nia has missed 4 months of second grade work and she was still doing better than some kids, who had been there working on that material for months. That to me was a big indicator that Nia can totally close the gap.

It was also interesting to observe the teacher. She seemed uncomfortable. I could see she was trying to be nice and helpful. She wanted to talk more. I didn’t want to be in her way but I listened to her because this was about our daughter. She told me that she was trying to give me her perspective as a parent and to warn me that skipping can have unintended consequences down the road.

She talked about things like drivers’ licenses and wasn’t I worried that Nia would be younger than the rest of the kids in her class when that time came. Well, no, I said, because kids don’t get their licenses at the same time any way. Even if she stayed in first grade now, some kids will get their licenses before her, others after her. Besides, I said, by then we may be living in a country where people just use public transportation. That was never an issue for me growing up in Eastern Europe.

Then she talked about drugs - wasn’t I worried about drugs. Of course, I worry about drugs (and lots of other things), I said, but I felt that it was not really relevant to the decision at hand. I hope I don’t jinx us by saying this but there are so many other factors involved when problems with driving and drugs arise. I hope by the time things like that become potential concerns, we would have prepared Nia to make the right choices. But, yes, I do know that bad things sometimes happen to good kids (and to kids with good parents) and I do worry about that.

She proceeded to tell me that she had a child, who she had the opportunity to move up when he was Nia’s age. She chose not to do that because she was worried about things like driving and drugs and she just didn’t think it was the right thing to do. She didn’t want to stress out her child unnecessarily. And, yes, the words push and pushy were used again.

That was an aha moment for me. That little tidbit right there explained a lot. It explained why we didn’t see eye to eye with the teacher from the beginning. It also explained her negativity, lack of constructive feedback and encouragement. She simply didn’t believe in skipping grades and wanted to make us feel that way too. Now her comments about Nia being stressed out and not ready and needing to go back and be a first grader (again!) made more sense.

She then asked me if we had talked to Nia to see how she felt. This was a loaded question. You see, in our meeting earlier in the week, the teacher had shared with us that she had talked to Nia recently because Nia seemed stressed. Nia had told her that second grade was a lot of work, that some of her classmates could read harder books and do harder math than her and that did not make he feel good because she wanted to do well. Hearing that kinda broke our hearts because Nia had not said that to us. That’s what made us think we should put her back in first grade. Nia had told us second grade was harder than first but we knew that was going to be the case. We had talked to her about that all along and we had reassured her that we’d be there to help her every step of the way.

I shared with the teacher that we had indeed talked to Nia since the Wednesday meeting and that she surprised us when she said that she wanted to stay in second grade. But it’s a lot of work, we said. Nia’s response was, yes, second grade was a lot of work but she was learning new things and she liked that. On another occasion, she said that being in second grade was a challenge and she liked being challenged. We frankly couldn’t believe she was saying that because we didn’t realize she knew what the word challenge meant (we had not talked to her about wanting her to be more challenged, that was only discussed with her teachers/principals).

The teacher did not like hearing that. Her response, “Well, you can’t let Nia make that decision. She’s only seven.” True but I think how Nia feels is important even though it’s hard to understand how much of what Nia says is how she truly feels vs. what she thinks we/the teacher want to hear.

After the school activity, I also had a chance to talk to the principal alone. I wanted to share with him some of our impressions of the teacher that we didn’t raise in the meeting because we didn’t want to be confrontational. I also wanted to ask if we could put Nia in a different room and see if things work better with a different teacher. I was hesitant to ask that question before because I didn’t want to be demanding and there’s no guarantee that another teacher would embrace Nia and be more supportive. However, after hearing from all of you and talking to the teacher again, we felt it was worth asking the question.

The principal listened to me. Our meeting lasted a little over 30 min. I told him that Paul and I had thought a lot about the situation but in the end do not agree with the teacher and do not find a lot of her arguments convincing. I tried to be objective and not vengeful but told him that we do not feel the teacher was very constructive or encouraging. I also said that we are not happy with how the situation was being handled. I gave him examples. I said we were considering putting Nia back in first grade, even thought we didn’t think that’s a good idea because we didn’t want our child to be miserable. But before we did that, could we possibly explore putting Nia in another classroom. He said that he didn’t think that was an unreasonable request. He didn’t know if he could accommodate it but said that he’d think about it and let us know.

I may be wrong but I felt like the principal was a lot more understanding than the teacher. I felt he didn’t just listen because he had to. I thought he agreed with me on some of the points I made, which made me feel a little better about everything.

So, now we wait and see what the principal says. Stay tuned…

I am THAT mom… and I need your thoughts…

2011-02-03T07:42:00.001-05:00

You know the kind. The one some teachers love to hate. The one they call the pushy mom. I wasn’t always THAT mom. In fact, I never wanted to be THAT mom. So how did this happen?

Well, the short of it is this: I did what I thought was best for my child and it’s not working. And there’s at least one teacher involved, who thinks I am the pushy mom. And it’s been bothering me for a month now. And I need to get it off my chest. And I need advice, so please, please let me know your thoughts in the comments, please!

But let me back up and explain (this is going to be a long post).

I guess it all started the year our daughter Nia was in kindergarten. We were still living in Florida. Nia was going to a magnet program with a marine science focus, which she loved. A few weeks after the beginning of the school year, Nia’s kindergarten teacher told us Nia was ahead of the class and she wanted to start sending her to a first grade classroom (next door) and see how she does. We were happy to hear that and encouraged it. Shortly after that the kindergarten teacher told us that she’s doing very well and they wanted her to spend more time in first grade.

Eventually, we had a parent-teacher conference with both the kindergarten and the first grade teacher, at which they told us that Nia was progressing very well and they were going to continue to work with her in the first grade classroom as much as possible. They informed us that in Florida, kids cannot skip kindergarten but that if Nia continued doing well, she could skip first grade and go straight to second. We wanted to know what we can do to help and the teachers gave us some advice on exercises as well as websites with materials we could use. At this point, Nia was spending most of her time in first grade, doing first grade homework every day and though she sometimes found it hard, she was handling it well and was very happy. She felt special. We were very proud of her.

Then my husband got the offer to join the Foreign Service. He was supposed to start training at the end of March 2010. I wanted Nia to finish the school year but we didn’t want to split the family, so we all moved to Falls Church in late March and transferred Nia to the local public school, where she started right after spring break. We had her report cards from Florida and her teachers there said they would be more than happy to answer any questions and help in the transition.

I gave Nia’s new teacher a couple of weeks before I emailed her to see how Nia was doing. I got no response. I tried a couple of more times via email and phone. Again no response. Finally, I went to the school one morning in an attempt to talk to the teacher. I was stopped at the door and told that the teacher was busy and couldn’t talk to me then. I was not happy. Five weeks after my first attempt to contact the teacher, she answered my original email and said Nia was fine. I needed more than fine. I wanted to know how she was adjusting to the new environment, how she was doing academically, whether she was getting along with the other kids, the usual stuff. But I also wanted to talk to the teacher about all the work she had been doing in first grade and that in Florida we were working towards skipping first grade. In the process I found out that Nia’s actual teacher was on maternity and the teacher I was talking to was a substitute. The substitute said she didn’t know about skipping grades but that she was going to research it and get back to me. Another couple of weeks went by and nothing happened.

In the meantime, Nia’s teacher came back from maternity. We had to give her time to meet Nia and get to know her. By then it was late May and I was concerned that if we were going to skip first grade, we needed to make arrangements and we were running out of time. So, I reached out to the principal. The principal responded fairly quickly and set up a meeting to discuss the situation with Nia’s teacher, the substitute, a gifted program teacher and me. At the meeting, they told me that Nia was doing well but that in Falls Church they didn’t skip grades. Plus, they said they had assessed Nia and her scores were not progressing as fast as in Florida. I was not happy with that because I didn’t want Nia to be bored but then I thought she may be overwhelmed by all the changes with the move (new place to live, new school, new friends). They told me that she did make it into the gifted program though and said that was terrific. They were the professionals, so I decided to trust their advice and not push the issue even though my original plan was to spend the summer helping fill any gaps she may have because of curriculum differences between Florida and Virginia, so she can be ready to start second grade in the fall. Never mind!

In September, Nia started first grade. She had a new teacher, who was fantastic. Everything was going swimmingly. We had a parent-teacher conference in November, at which the teacher had nothing but wonderful things to say about Nia. We were delighted. Then we got some test/assessment results according to which Nia was doing awesome (top 10 percentile in the school). We wanted to make sure we understood the test results, so we attended an information session about them. Then I went back to the teacher and asked more probing questions. I was wondering if Nia was challenged. The teacher said that Nia knew most of the material and that 99% of the things they did in class were too easy for her. She said it was hard to keep Nia challenged. There was a group of high achieving kids in the class but Nia was performing at an even higher level. That’s when I started getting concerned about her being bored and not challenged enough again. I shared with the teacher that Nia had spent most of the previous year doing first grade work and that there was a plan for her to skip first grade but that it didn’t work after the move because the principal told me they didn’t do that in Falls Church.

Nia’s first grade teacher was new to the school (though not new to teaching). She said that she wasn’t sure how those things worked in Falls Church but that she could see Nia benefitting from moving up. She encouraged me to talk to the principal and told me that both she and the second room teacher would be happy to back me up. I went back to the principal, this time with test results in hand. Surprisingly, now she didn’t say moving Nia up was out of the question but set up a meeting with me, both room teachers and the gifted program teacher. She asked the three teachers what they thought was the best thing to do with Nia and they told her they thought Nia was mature enough and ready emotionally as well as academically to move up. (Nia was born in November, so she was older and taller than most of the kids in her class). I was a little concerned about the timing. If we were to move her up in the middle of the year, she would have missed 4 months of second grade material. How hard would it be to fill the gap? Also, in Falls Church, moving from first to second grade meant going to a different school, which was not as simple as going to the classroom next door. But the teachers were encouraging and the principal agreed to discuss it with the principal of the school where Nia would be going to second grade. Then she encouraged me to contact him myself.

So I did. I explained the situation. I voiced my concerns and he said he needed to think about it. The following day he called me back and told me that he had found a classroom for Nia and that we would do it. He said they’d never moved a kid up in the middle of the year and thus couldn’t guarantee it would work but that we’d try it. I asked if we could meet Nia’s teacher and get a tour of the school. He set up a time on the day before Christmas break started. At that point I told Nia she was moving up to second grade, which totally made her day.

I took Nia to visit the school and meet her new teacher. Nia was beyond excited. She wanted to meet her new friends and start right away. I wanted to know what she had missed to see if there’s anything we could do to fill gaps during the Christmas break. The teacher said she could give me some ideas but in the end didn’t. I had gotten a Brain Quest book for second grade and we worked with it during the break.

On day three after Nia started second grade, I got a call from the teacher. The call started with an admin matter that she was trying to help me resolve. There was no problem there but I could sense there was something going on, so I asked how Nia was doing. Boy, was I in for a surprise!

The teacher started going on and on about how Nia didn’t know the material, she was using her fingers for math, she was not nice to her friends, she didn’t want to do her work and why were we pushing her into second grade when she was clearly not ready. She had nothing constructive or encouraging to say about the situation. The closest she came to saying anything positive was calling Nia a “delightful child” and “very sweet” but after everything else she had said, that sounded like what you say when you have nothing good to say about someone.

I had never had such an awful experience talking with a teacher. I was stunned and basically said “But wait a second, it’s only been three days!” I tried to be constructive. I said I fully expected Nia to be behind but I really wanted to focus on how we can help her make up what she had missed. The teacher said that it was very difficult to work with a child like Nia. It wasn’t impossible but it was very difficult and she wasn’t sure it could be done. She said she had worked with kids from the gifted program and that Nia wasn’t gifted. Not sure what she was implying with that but this was something she could have easily verified with the first grade gifted teacher.

That’s when I started to get upset and defensive (not good but then, if I don’t stand up for my child, who will?). Nia happened to be in the room. She overheard what I was saying and got very anxious. Paul took her to her room and tried to diffuse the situation. I tried to explain to the teacher that I knew with the right approach, Nia could close the gap. She had done it the year before when she was in kindergarten doing first grade work. The teacher was having none of it. She told me there were many kids in first grade in Falls Church that had test results as high as Nia’s or higher but their parents were not pushing them in second grade (literally!!!).

I explained to her we didn’t push Nia in second grade - we had discussed the matter with three teachers (and two principals) and made a joint decision based on their input. She said she didn’t know Nia’s first grade teachers and that she hadn’t talked to them. I encouraged her to call them and see why they thought moving Nia up was a good idea. (She did not – I am in touch with Nia’s first grade teachers and they told me she hadn’t.)

I also told the teacher that the easiest thing would be to put Nia back in first grade but that I didn’t think we’d given her a fair chance and that it was not a good idea because she’d be doing first grade a second time and she wouldn’t be challenged. She countered with “Aren’t you concerned about stressing your child out so much to learn all this material she’s missed?” I was more concerned about her being bored and held back if we went back to first grade and I said so. Clearly, we were not on the same page but in the end we agreed that day three is a little early to give up and that we need to give Nia more time. We also agreed to stay in touch and that she would send me information on what I can help with.

The conversation had gone badly. It made me feel like my child was somehow deficient and that I was a lousy parent. I had the feeling the teacher had already made up her mind. I wasn’t sure what to do but decided to just keep working with Nia, hoping the teacher will see her for the smart kid that she is.

A couple of days later the teacher sent me some information on math facts (addition and subtraction) up to 20 and said Nia really needed to know these by heart and stop using her fingers. We worked with Nia until she memorized them and stopped using her fingers. The following week I emailed the teacher about some passwords Nia needed and briefly inquired whether Nia was starting to close the gap. All the teacher said was that she had the same concerns she can expressed on the phone the prior week. And we didn’t hear again from her for three weeks.

We did get some class work and tests back from which it was obvious Nia was learning but she was still behind. You could see that some of the assignments she was given, she just didn’t understand. It seemed like there wasn’t much explanation. She got some things she had never been exposed to wrong and she got some right. She had a fair number of incomplete assignments. There were also things that seemed correct to us but were marked as incorrect. We went over everything with Nia trying to explain what she got wrong and teaching her concepts that it was obvious she didn’t know but was expected to. We were very frustrated but had said on several occasions that we are always available to help and discuss how Nia is doing, so we decided to wait for the teacher/principal to contact us.

Last week the principal of the new school finally requested a meeting. Paul wanted to come but couldn’t make it because of his schedule. He did however tell the principal in an email how we felt. The two of them ended up talking on the phone. The principal said they hadn’t made a final decision but wanted to talk to us. We ended up rescheduling for yesterday, so Paul could be there.

We were afraid the meeting wasn’t going to go well but hadn’t lost all hope. In the meeting, the second grade teacher basically repeated all the things she had told me on the phone plus a few new tidbits, though she softened the tone. We tried to tell them how we felt without sounding confrontational but it was obvious the teacher felt Nia wasn’t ready and there was no need to stress her out unnecessarily. We realized that nothing we could say would change their minds. They said they wanted us to decide whether we want to put Nia back in first grade or leave her in second, warning us that she may not close the gap by the end of the year and may need to be in second grade again next year. We told them that neither option was optimal but thanked them for their time and said we would get back to them.

Both options suck but we are now leaning toward sending Nia back to first grade because we feel the second grade teacher does not believe in her and there’s not much we can do to change the teacher’s mind at this point. The teacher simply does not seem interested in helping Nia succeed. She seems to see us as pushy parents and Nia as a problem. It will be very hard for Nia to do well in a situation like that. We don’t like the idea of putting Nia back in first grade but if we do that, at least she will be in a loving, nurturing and productive environment.

This could have worked. It should have worked but it didn’t and I feel horrible to have put our child in this situation. After all, she did nothing but her best. Perhaps I was naïve to think the teacher here would embrace Nia and encourage like her other teachers had done both here and in Florida. If I had known this would happen, I wouldn’t have even broached the subject. But it’s too late for that now…

So, if you are still with me, my question to you is: what would you do if you were us?

Thinking of the people in the Middle East…

2011-02-01T09:21:00.001-05:00

Like many of you, I have been thinking about the people in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Sudan, Lebanon, Jordan and elsewhere in the Middle East where there’s been unrest lately.

I don’t have anything really profound to say about the recent events there. I have never lived in the Middle East. I don’t know the region intimately. But my heart goes out to the people in the streets because I have been there. In the streets. Protesting. And I know people don’t do it unless they are really fed up with their situation and can’t endure it any longer. It takes bravery to do that because you never know if/when those things will turn violent.

20 years ago, I witnessed the fall of communism in my native Bulgaria. I was in high school at the time. It was a crazy time and I still remember the mixed emotions we all felt. At first there was the shock and disbelief that the totalitarian regime, which had been in power from before I was born, was gone. Just like that! Of course, we had wanted it gone for a long time because it was repressive, stifling and inefficient but still, it was hard to grasp because we didn’t know anything else. Then there was the euphoria - we had done it and we were finally going to be a normal country, not one behind the Iron Curtain. We were anticipating (however naively) the change to be relatively quick and painless a la “yesterday we were a communist country, today we are a democracy and we are all going to start small businesses and live happily ever after.”

What we learned was that changes are never simple. The transition of Eastern European countries from communism to market economy has not been smooth or easy. It’s taken a long time and in some ways it’s still ongoing. We too wanted the people that had been in power gone, which was understandable but easier said than done. These people had been in power for a long time, they weren’t going to just give it up. They had lived well (much better than the average population), they had assets and connections. They did everything they could to stay in control in some capacity.

On the other hand, the former opposition wasn’t exactly prepared to lead the country in uncharted territory. It’s one thing to protest and organize against a corrupt, totalitarian regime but completely different to lead a country out of a serious crisis. No one had gone from communism to market economy before. It’s not like there was a magic formula to follow. So, of course, things got worse before they got better, which didn’t help the new leaders (former opposition). On more than one occasion, the former communists came back with a vengeance saying that the new democratic leaders didn’t know what they were doing and should step down and let the old guard show them how it’s done. In the meantime, many of the former communists were weaving all kinds of corrupt schemes, which allowed them to profit from the privatization of formerly government-owned enterprises, drug trafficking, people smuggling, illegal trade with the Former Yugoslavia during the embargo and other nefarious activities. Corruption was rampant. In some ways it still is. It was (and can still be) very difficult to tell the good guys from the bad.

That is not to say that the fall of communism was a bad thing. On the contrary, I am so glad it happened in my lifetime because a lot of things have changed for the better. There are a lot more opportunities in Bulgaria now. Especially for young people. Things are not perfect but the standard of living has improved and Bulgaria is relatively stable. It is also part of the EU. All wonderful things, which I am very proud of.

But it wasn’t easy or straightforward and that’s why I follow the events in the Middle East with trepidation. Because transitions like that can be a blessing and a curse. They usually require changes in mentality/culture on a national or regional level and that can take a long time, perhaps even a generation. No one knows how things are going to turn out. Changes in power structures can have unintended consequences. And that makes many people very nervous about the Middle East right now…

But it’s not my place to make recommendations or predictions. I just hope the people in the Middle East get what they are fighting for. I hope better days are ahead for them. I hope they are blessed with competent leaders and most of all I hope they can do it peacefully.

Good Stuff!

2011-01-29T17:12:00.001-05:00

A few months ago, I was listening to NPR while driving somewhere. The Kojo Nnamdi show came on and Kojo talked to Chef Spike Mendelson. I’d never heard the name but he apparently rose to fame on Top Chef, a TV show I never watch, so no surprise there. They talked about the two joints the chef founded, The Good Stuff Eatery and We The Pizza (both located on Capitol Hill in Washington, D. C.), as well as about the guy’s new book, The Good Stuff Cookbook.

The more I listened, the more intrigued I was about the guy’s approach to food. He was all about using fresh, high quality ingredients to make otherwise unassuming foods such as burgers and pizza. The idea is not that novel but it seems to resonate more and more with me as I get older and I think about what we eat and what we feed our child(ren). I also liked their community involvement, their concern for the environment and their effort to teach kids about healthy eating. That was enough for me to want to try the two places.

Though we haven’t yet tried We The Pizza, we did finally go to The Good Stuff Eatery with some friends, who were visiting from out of town a few weeks ago.

What did we think? We all ordered different types of burgers and we all loved them. The fries didn’t look as appealing as the fries do in other restaurants but that’s because of the type of potato they use. What they missed out on looks the fries more than made up on taste. Nia and I also had their milkshakes and they were excellent, though very, very filling. The prices are a little higher than what you’d pay at Five Guys, my husband’s standard for burgers, but the quality of the ingredients and the taste justify the difference, in my opinion.

Will we go there again? Hell, yeah, though this is another place, where you usually have to wait in a long line to get your good stuff. We had to sit outside because there were no available seats inside – luckily the weather was nice. It is a family operation but the chef’s a celebrity and has been featured on Oprah, Rachel Ray, The Food Network, The View and the like. The place is also one of Michele Obama’s favorite burger joints. So, it’s not exactly a quiet place but good it sure is.

Oh, and just so you know, both places are closed on Sundays - we learned that the hard way.

Next, we have to try We The Pizza.

Paul, Nia and our friends Anna and Eran, with their daughter Maya enjoying the Good Stuff.

30 Weeks and Counting…

2011-01-13T09:57:00.001-05:00

Yep, 30 weeks down, 10 more to go. Or 8-ish, if I am lucky.

So, far things seem to be going well with the baby. I ended up not doing the amnio because the non-invasive tests we did looked very good. That and I am a chicken – I was afraid of the possible complications the amnio itself could bring. Hopefully everything is still honky-dory in there.

As far as we know the baby is still a boy and we are still calling him Chutney because we haven’t finalized the name, though Max is looking like a very strong candidate right now.

I was hoping for a smaller, calmer baby this time around but judging by his antics in utero, this baby is going to be just as intense as his sister. The doctor says he’s measuring larger than the average for this stage of the pregnancy. Second babies tend to be larger anyway and and so do boys compared to girls, so my wish may not come true, unless Chutney takes pity on his poor mom and decides to come a couple of weeks early. The chances of that happening are not very high but a girl can dream, right?

His sister did attempt so come out early (at 34 weeks) but the doctors managed to convince her to wait and she made her final appearance exactly on her due date. She weighed 8 lb 9 oz (or 3,9 kg) and it was no picnic to get her out. The thought of this baby being larger is making me very nervous but I guess the most important thing is that he’s healthy.

So, I am thinking healthy thoughts…

Happy Belated New Year!

2011-01-10T15:39:00.001-05:00

I am sorry it’s taken me forever to get this blog post out. I’ve had a little bit of a blogger’s block since my last post. I really wanted to start the new year with a post about our holidays but have been at a loss for what exactly to say and how to arrange it.

I started once and had to scrap that first unfortunate attempt because it was just so trite and boring, I couldn’t stand it. And it’s not for lack of content. On the contrary, our holidays were jam-packed with events and were everything we could possibly ask for – we visited family (Paul’s brothers, who live in the DC area), hosted friends from near and far, cooked and ate industrial amounts of food, gained the obligatory 5+ holiday pounds each, got fantastic gifts, did fun things around the house and outside. I guess I was so overwhelmed by everything that I was not sure where to begin. That and because I was actively preparing and cooking for a lot of the festivities, I didn’t have the time or motivation to take a lot of pictures and I am kicking myself for that now.

Since I can’t come up with anything better, I’m just going to let the few pictures of our holidays that I got (even though I didn’t take all of them myself) speak for themselves and let that be a lesson to me for next time. So, here we go.

About a week before Christmas we went to a holiday dinner, hosted by Paul’s eldest brother, Ray and his lovely wife, Mary, complete with a yummy pork loin, salads, side dishes and deserts galore and the Swider Annual Secret Santa gift exchange. Pictures courtesy of my better half.

On Christmas Eve we were at Chris and Cathy’s (Paul’s third brother age-wise and his sweet wife) and had a delightful evening feasting on Cornish hens and all kinds of delicious accoutrements. Unfortunately, we did not take any pictures of this event, so all I can say is that it was wonderful.

On Christmas Day we hosted a dinner at our apartment for our friends the Shows and the Hollidays and their lovely daughters (including one-week-old baby Neve). My mom and I made a lot of delectable Bulgarian food and everyone had a great time, especially the kids. I didn’t take any pictures but thankfully, our friends did, so I can share a few with you:

For New Year’s we had my Bulgarian friend Anna, her Israeli husband Eran and their cute daughter Maya (who’s 4 and speaks as many languages) visit us from Norfolk, VA for another big dinner, heavy on the Bulgarian dishes. I am proud to say that we all, including the kids, stayed up till midnight and were able to wish each other a Happy New Year before hitting the sack. This is pretty remarkable for us considering that we usually zonk way before midnight – we are lame that way. The following day we went to the National Harbor with Anna and her family and had a lovely afternoon there.

In addition to the above mentioned festivities, we also managed to get together with my Macedonian friend Gordana and her family, who were visiting the US for the holidays. Gordana and I worked together in international development 12 years ago and hadn’t seen each other since, so it was neat to catch up and meet each other’s husbands and kids, which didn’t exist the last time we saw each other.

We also had another Bulgarian friend, Nevena and her Romanian husband, Dan, for dinner at our place. Nevena and I met at the University of Maryland where she was working on her Ph.D. and I on my MBA. We were the only Bulgarians at the business school in our first year (2000), so we hung out quite a bit. It was great to reconnect with her and her husband and reminisce about the good old days. No pictures of those two get-togethers, unfortunately.

Well, this may not be the best post I’ve ever written but I had to get it out in the interest of chronicling our lives and so I could move forward with the other posts I want to write, which are starting to pile up.

2010 in Pictures

2010-12-24T22:11:00.001-05:00

As the year is coming to a close, I decided to put together a little video/slideshow with the most memorable moments of 2010. This is my first attempt at creating something like this, so I know it’s rough around the edges.

Hope you all had a terrific 2010 and wish you an even better 2011!

Happy Holidays from the Swiders!

The Swider Family 2010 in Pictures

Little Girl Gourmets

2010-12-18T20:01:00.001-05:00

Our friends Carrie and Jason Show are having their third baby today. While they are at the hospital, we are watching their darling girls, Maia and Mackenna. Her cuteness (Nia) has been waiting for a sleepover opportunity for quite a while now, so she was ecstatic. While we were waiting on news from the hospital, we decided to make a mini cake. I got Nia a Girl Gourmet Cake Bakery set for her birthday and she had been itching to try it out. Tonight was the night!

I had a little dilemma. The set was intended for 8+ year olds and the girls are only 3, 5 and 7. Of course, all three girls are way advanced but I had to make a few adjustments in terms of parental involvement and supervision as well the complexity of the design, without robbing the little gourmets of their fun. The set uses actual cake mix that the kids “bake” in the microwave and then decorate with fondant and frosting. Our design was a little simpler than those on the package but everyone enjoyed making the cake and especially eating it. The cake you end up with is really tiny - we are talking a couple of bites for each girl but it was their cake and to them that was a huge deal!

Here’s what it looked like:

If you think cake making is easy, think again. Look closer at our littlest baker, Maia, who was so drained by the experience that she fell asleep a couple of times during the process. Once on the couch during the 30 seconds it took for the cake to bake in the microwave and a second time on the floor while I was prepping the fondant. She did perk up again in the end though and participated actively in decorating the cake with icing and the best part, eating it – YUM!!!

First Snow

2010-12-16T15:09:00.001-05:00

We got snow in Northern Virginia today and Her Cuteness is in heaven. This is only the second time our Florida born child has EVER seen snow. We were in Chicago for Christmas last year and it snowed but it was just a little more than a dusting. Then last January we watched the news reports about the big snow storm here in D.C. a.k.a. “snowmageddon” and she so wanted to be here to play in the snow. As soon as we moved to the D. C. area, Nia asked me to promise her that we’ll have enough snow this winter to make a snowman, a snow fort and snow angels.

And today her wish came true! The snow beautiful and powdery and the kids had a blast playing in it.

If we are lucky, we may get a white Christmas – how awesome would that be!

My 2010 According to Facebook

2010-12-13T17:17:00.001-05:00

There’s this Facebook app called My Year in Status that creates a collage of your most interesting status updates. Mine is below. It should have started with “My awesome husband got a job with the Foreign Service/State Department.” For some reason it didn’t but other than that it does a decent job of summarizing my 2010.

To create your own, just type My Year in Status into the search window of Facebook. You can customize the colors and pick which statuses you want included (there is limit). Enjoy!

The Christmas Tree is Up

2010-12-07T22:06:00.001-05:00

Well, it’s actually been up for a week now but I am just now getting around to posting about it.

There’s something almost magical about putting up the tree each year and decorating it – it just really lifts my spirits and makes the holiday season real.

I love our tree. We got it a couple of years ago from a Thanksgiving sale, where you have to get up and be at the store at zero o’clock in order to get the deal. This is the only time I remember ever doing that but it was worth it to us. We had been talking about getting a normal-size tree for years but we were forever renovating our older home and had literally nowhere to put it, so when we were finally able to get a bigger tree, we were truly overjoyed.

And yes, our tree is fake but we happen to be the kind of people that feel fake trees are better for the environment than killing a tree each year and discarding it after the holidays are over. I know that Christmas trees are grown specifically to grace people’s homes around the holidays but I always feel so sad seeing all the dead Christmas trees after the holidays. I also know that fake trees are made mostly of plastics/fossil fuels, which is not very green but they are very reusable and to us that’s the lesser of the two evils. Ours is an LED tree, so at least it’s energy efficient.

We are also finding out that a fake Christmas tree makes sense for those in the Foreign Service because if you are posted to a country that doesn’t celebrate Christmas, you may be unable to find a Christmas tree (real or fake). It may not seem important but when you are far away from home in a different culture, something like a Christmas tree can really brighten the holiday season, especially if you have kids. Our tree will allow us to bring Christmas with us to New Delhi and wherever we end up after that and we are glad about that.

So, our tree is up and we are enjoying it and the magic of the Holiday Season. Here’s hoping you have a magical Holiday Season too!

The Most Fun Baby Shower Ever!

2010-12-05T18:18:00.001-05:00

My sweet husband and his A-100 buddies Jason and Charlie put together a baby shower for Carrie, Sharon and I today. Our boys had never been to a baby shower but I have to say that this was the most fun baby shower I have ever been to. Boys apparently go about it differently. We had it in the party area of Carrie and Jason’s apartment building and had plenty of space, including a movie room, where the kids got to watch a movie, while we played games next door. The boys had decorated the place with a lot of pink and blue balloons (Carrie and Sharon are expecting girls on Jan. 1 and 5 respectively and I am expecting a boy on March 15). The food was delicious salads and pizza from the Mad Fox, Falls Church. But the best part was the games. I didn’t think our boys would want to do games and if they did, I would have thought they’d do things like drinking beer from baby bottles but I was pleasantly surprised.

Because we had three mommies-to-be, we had three teams. Each mommy-to-be was a captain of a team and competed against the other two teams. In the first game, we were handed a large Ziploc bag full of diapers and each of us had to guess how many diapers were in it. The second game involved five different types of candy bars, each melted in a diaper. Each team had to correctly identify what type of candy bar was in each diaper using smell, sight and taste. In the third game the mommies-to-be had their feet diapered and then covered in chocolate syrup – messy! Then one member of each team had to clean up the mess with wipes and change the diapers. They had to do that wearing a blindfold, while another team member provided the blindfolded person with the necessary wipes and directions.

The fourth game we played was pin the baby on the mommy’s belly. In the fifth game we had to design the strongest diaper for each mom-to-be in 5 minutes using legal office paper and tape. The strength of each diaper was then tested by filling them with candy bars. In the sixth game we had to pass a pacifier from one team member to the other and back using candy canes in our mouths (no hands). In the seventh and last game each of us had to feed another team member a jar of baby food using their weaker hand in the least amount of time. We got a little messy in this one too (see video below).

Messy Baby Shower Game

Each game was scored and the scores tallied. My team ended up second. Well, technically since the other two teams tied for first, we were really last but we didn’t care because we all had a blast and that’s all that matters. It was awesome to get together with good friends, celebrate our babies, eat great food and play silly games.

Thanksgiving Train Trip to Chicago

2010-12-01T02:02:00.001-05:00

We spent Thanksgiving in Chicago this year. We are no fans of holiday travel because it tends to be unpleasant but we realized that this may be our last chance to visit Paul’s parents before we go to India, so our decision was made. We are not going to India until May of 2012, I know, but pretty soon, I will be too, ahem, ~~huge~~ pregnant, to travel, then the baby will come and be too young to travel and by the time the baby’s old enough to travel, Paul will be in training again, which means he can’t take any vacation and it may not happen.

To mix things up a bit, we decided to take the train. We had never done it but thought it would be interesting and it was. It was also less expensive. But it was long. It took 17 hours each way. Most of it was during the night but still, 17 hours is a long time. It had its plusses though - we didn’t have to endure huge lines, scanners, pat downs or any of the other unpleasantness you generally encounter when flying these days. We had roomy seats that reclined and had leg rests, so we could sleep overnight. It wasn’t like sleeping in your bed but it was way better than trying to sleep on an airplane. We got to get up and walk around, when we needed to stretch and could go to the observation car or the dining car, when we got bored at our seats. The train was a double-decker and our seats were on top both ways, which was fun too. So all in all, the train part wasn’t bad. Nia even made some friends and managed to lose another tooth right before we got on the train coming back. She was a little nervous that the Tooth Fairy may not be able to find us because the train was moving all night but amazing little creature that she is, the Tooth Fairy came through with flying colors and left Nia a buck in her train pillow case! How about that?!!!

Once we made it to Chicago, we spent time with Paul’s folks but also visited the Art Institute. We had wanted to go see it forever but it somehow ended up slipping off our plans every time we were in Chicago. This time, we set aside a day for it and just went. Unlike most museums in DC, the Chicago Art Institute is not free but it’s full of amazing art and it was a pure delight. Paul and I would have liked to stay longer but it’s big and you really can’t see everything in one day, especially with a 7-year old, so we were happy with the several hours we got.

The museum’s collection is really incredible and here’s a collage of my faves. No flash photography is allowed, of course, so my pictures aren’t great but this gives you an idea of how awesome it is, if you’ve never been there…

On to Thanksgiving Dinner. It was a relatively small affair this year – just Paul’s parents, Paul’s brother Chris and his family and us. Breaking with tradition, we did not cook the Thanksgiving feast this year. We were staying at Paul’s sister’s house (she was out of town for Thanksgiving with her family) and we didn’t want to go crazy in someone else’s house, so we ordered a turkey and ham dinner at a grocery store. The dinner was delicious but what we didn’t realize was that it was cold, so we had to (re)heat everything and that delayed things a bit. Everything was very tasty and we still managed to eat until we were blue in the face and enjoy each other’s company. So overall, it was another wonderful family Thanksgiving and we were grateful for all the blessings, large and small, we are lucky to have.

Nia is 7!

2010-11-28T21:07:00.001-05:00

On November 19, Her Cuteness turned 7.

I am still in denial that it’s been 7 years since she was born and she has somehow transformed from this…

into this…

but that’s my problem, right?

Anyway, we marked the occasion with a little cupcake shindig at her school on the day itself, a larger party for friends and family at the Falls Church Community Center the next day, complete with bouncing around in the gym and crafts, and again a couple of days later in Chicago with Grandma and Grandpa and Aunt Sue and Uncle John.

Needless to day, she had a blast and got a ton of cool gifts!

Beautiful Fall Weekend

2010-11-14T21:21:00.001-05:00

After living in Florida for almost eight years, we were ready to experience the seasons changing again.

The weather was so gorgeous this past weekend that we decided to take advantage of it, go out and take pictures of the brilliant red, yellow, orange and brown leaves before they are gone. The colors are even more vibrant and stunning in person. The pictures in the collage are from Turkey Run Park and our neighborhood in Falls Church, VA.

Learning Hindi with Rosetta Stone

2010-11-06T12:21:00.001-04:00

(Warning: another longish post)

Let me just preface this post by saying that I don’t have to learn Hindi. I am not the Foreign Service employee and am not required to learn it. My husband is. In addition, Hindi is not spoken by everyone in India - far from it. As a matter of fact, according to my Indian neighbor, who’s from New Delhi, only 20% of the Indian population speaks Hindi. The rest speak other regional languages and English. But Hindi is the predominant language of in the northern parts of India, including in and around New Delhi, where we will be posted.

Can I live there without learning Hindi? Probably. But I want to learn it for a number of reasons, not the least of which is because I know it will make our lives in New Delhi easier. I have wanted to take the classes at the Foreign Service Institute (the training arm of the Foreign Service) ever since we learned we are going to India. Of course, we are not going until May 2012, so the classes that I’d be eligible for (if there’s space available) start in the summer of 2011.

That’s all dandy but we are expecting a baby boy in March and I plan to breast feed him, which may make it impossible for me to take classes at FSI. So, I thought, why not start Hindi now, before the baby’s arrival. Makes sense, right? Well, yes but things are never as simple as we’d like them to be. You see, my husband has not been paneled (officially approved) for his New Delhi post yet, so when he asked his CDO if I could take Hindi classes now that question kinda landed on deaf ears. So, I decided to take things into my own hands and get chummy with Rosetta Stone before all hell breaks loose on/around March 15 (a.k.a. my due date). In case you didn’t know, Rosetta Stone is a famous online language instruction program, which was made available to both my husband and I as soon as we learned we are going to India.

I had read a couple of reviews of Rosetta Stone by other Foreign Service spouses (see here for one on learning Chinese and here for Spanish) and was feeling nervous because they didn’t exactly love it . But at this point, it’s the only tool I have available to learn Hindi, so about a month ago I started working with it spending on average about an hour a weekday (some days I spend two, three or even four hours on it but other days life just takes over and I don’t do any).

So how do I feel about Rosetta Stone Hindi after about a month of working with it?

Well, first of all, I must say that I am very thankful that the State Department provides this tool to spouses for free. If we had to buy the three levels ourselves, it would set us back about $600, so this is a nice perk. It’s also nice that it’s an online platform that I can use at my own time, which gives me a lot of flexibility.

That said, Rosetta Stone has a different approach to language instruction that may be difficult to get used to. If you’ve ever studied a language using the conventional classroom (textbook+instructor) method, you will more than likely find Rosetta Stone’s approach counterintuitive. The company itself describes its language instruction method as dynamic immersion, their words not mine. They define that as similar to the way a child learns a language – by observing what’s going on around them visually, listening to others speak and eventually imitating. I don’t entirely agree because immersion implies physically being in a country where the language is spoken and thus ~~being forced~~ having ample opportunities to practice and improve your language with native speakers. That’s not the case with Rosetta Stone. Plus, a child has a lot more time to learn a language. Let’s see, it took me a good 14 years to perfect Bulgarian and probably about 10 (maybe longer) to get to a equivalent level in English. I simply don’t have that kind of time with Hindi but I guess you have to start somewhere…

There are things about the way Rosetta Stone introduces simple words and concepts that I definitely like. They use pictures and display them in a logical progression that helps you build visual associations. I am a visual person, so I like that. However, it gets complicated as more and more complex/abstract vocabulary and constructions are introduced because there are no explanations in English whatsoever(none in Bulgarian, either, duh!!!). Everything is in Hindi script and speech plus visuals (pictures). So while it’s easy to understand the words for “dog” and “green”, it was harder to grasp “wear”, for example. You end up doing a lot of guessing and you are never quite sure if you’ve guessed right because again, no explanations! (I have heard that if you buy the program yourself, you get a book with translations but we do not seem have access to that as far as I know.)

For example, there was this series of pictures showing people and cars. They were obviously trying to teach a verb related to cars but I still don’t know if that verb is drive, rent, steal, borrow, like, love or enjoy. It could be any of those, it’s just not clear. A dictionary would have helped but I didn’t have one at the time. Online dictionaries are available too but I have yet to figure out how to type in Hindi in order to use them.

There does generally seem to be a method to Rosetta Stone’s madness though because most things eventually do make sense. Not everything. I guess I am a little impatient.

Hindi is also particularly difficult for me because it uses the Devanagari script, which looks like this:

Beautiful indeed but nothing like the scripts I know (Latin and Cyrillic). Learning to read and write in Hindi is part of Rosetta Stone but it’s hard because you are introduced a couple of characters at a time and a ton of words and phrases in the meantime. At first, I wasn’t taking notes but it quickly became obvious that I simply won’t be able to remember all the words, so I finally started taking notes in this absurd mixture of English and Bulgarian because I only know a handful of Hindi (Devanagari) characters - not enough to write full words or sentences.

Another difficulty I have is the pronunciation. Rosetta Stone does have a speech recognition component, which helps you practice pronouncing all the new words and phrases. That aspect of the program can be a blessing and a curse. A blessing because you do a lot of repetition of words, an integral part of learning a new language. A curse because it sometimes makes you repeat a word hundreds of times, which means that you are not getting the pronunciation right but there’s no one to tell you how exactly to fix it (by showing you where your tongue should be, for example). I sometimes practice when my husband is around and he gets a big kick of listening to me repeat ad nauseum a simple word like bread, which is the same in Hindi but the pronunciation is different. So I guess the added benefit to my learning Hindi is that it provides entertainment to the family.

It’s not all bad though. There are several things about Hindi that I am happy about:

it’s a phonetic language – characters are always pronounced the same ways. Yey for phonetic languages!
it has no upper and lower case – what a relief, though the characters are hard enough to write without having to worry about lower and upper case.
there are quite a few English words in Hindi, such as bread, sandwich, coffee, car, pants, shirt, skirt, dress, coat, so those are easy to remember, though I can’t pronounce them right to save my life.
some aspects of Hindi that have no equivalents in English do have equivalents in Bulgarian (genders and formal and informal ways of addressing people).
a couple of days after I started learning Hindi I told the moms at our school bus stop about it. Among them are an Indian lady from New Delhi, who speaks Hindi and a Pakistani lady from Islamabad, who speaks Urdu (a language very similar to Hindi). The two of them were very excited about my studies and immediately asked me what I had learned so far. Uuuuuh…. I blanked for a moment but then was able to say several things that they actually understood!!! I couldn’t believe it and neither could they. They were very encouraging, which was a tremendous confidence boost for me.
in an effort to get as “immersed” in Hindi as I possibly can without being physically in India, I am also reading books on Indian history and culture. I go to the Falls Church pubic library and come home with huge stacks of books. My latest finds were a textbook on Elementary Hindi, a couple of Hindi-English/English-Hindi dictionaries (which are terrific complements to Rosetta Stone) and several Salman Rushdie books. I am really enjoying that part, so if you have any recommendations for things that will help me master Hindi, please let me know in the comments section below. Thanks!

So while Rosetta Stone is not ideal as a stand-alone language instruction tool, it can be useful especially if you have no other options and can get your hands on some textbooks and dictionaries. The makers of Rosetta Stone actually recommend you combine it with other language tools. But if you have the opportunity to take a class with a live instructor, by all means do so because it will make a world of difference.

And there you have it, my review of Rosetta Stone Hindi.

Our Halloween

2010-11-01T23:17:00.001-04:00

This Halloween was so much fun!

There were pumpkins galore…

… parties with friends and a ton of candy…

… though no Twix whatsoever and Mommy loves Twix – wassup with that?

It’s a boy!

2010-10-27T18:53:00.001-04:00

We went to the doctor today for an ultrasound and we got to see the baby. The baby wasn’t shy, so now we know it’s a boy!

They took all kinds of measurements and so far everything looks good, which is such a relief, for the time being anyhow!

20 weeks down, 20 more to go!

Contemplating cloning myself…

2010-10-20T11:23:00.001-04:00

I have read several blogs today by other Foreign Service spouses, who are overwhelmed with all the things they need to take care of. For some reason, several of them really resonated with me, though we are in very different circumstances. I am talking about ladies who have three or four kids each AND are either going it alone because the husband is on a unaccompanied tour, working from home to help the family finances, or going though major, major health issues.

So my rant will sound totally lame by comparison but that’s how I feel, even though I am, for the first time ever, a stay-at-home-mom. I have one kid in first grade and another on the way. I live in Northern Virginia, not in a developing country, for the time being. My husband works in town and not on the other side of the planet. Yet, I find myself more overwhelmed by the things I need to do on a daily basis than when I was working full-time not too long ago.

I have no explanation for why that is but I am dreaming of cloning myself, you know like in the movie Multiplicity. I am just not sure how many clones I need, especially knowing that their "quality" deteriorates with each successive clone.

Let's see, I think, I'd like one clone to do the cleaning, shopping, the laundry and ironing, the cooking, the bills, the drop-offs and pick-ups. Another to be focused exclusively on the kid(s) – getting the kid(s) fed, bathed, doing homework, reading, entertaining, play dates etc. A third one to be the most dedicated wife and lover to my wonderful husband. A fourth one to spend time on social activities, such as staying in touch with friends and family and organizing get-togethers such as dinners, birthdays, baby showers, family and school reunions plus do volunteer work. And a fifth one to read, stay informed, smart, professional, learn Hindi and blog in a timely manner (as opposed to weeks after something blog-worthy happens). This one may even go back to work and make some extra cash for family vacations and such. Not sure which one I need to be the real me, the really good copy, the good copy, the so-so copy, and the last and probably not very good copy but I am not going to worry about that right now.

But five total - I think I'd be OK with five versions of me.

Is that too much to ask for?

If that’s not possible, some supermom powers will do too…

And because I know we all need them, I’m sending super powers to all my mom friends out there but especially to Jen, who is battling breast cancer and really needs them right now! The pink cape and boots in the picture are especially for you Jen!!!

Image by Eric Kastner, but it’s actually a cake topper, which I fully intend to use for baby showers in the future.

You bet your Assateague…

2010-10-13T12:14:00.001-04:00

(This post is a little long – just thought I’d let you know.)

A few weeks ago we took an impromptu trip to Assateague, a barrier island on the eastern shore of Maryland, famous for its beautiful beaches and wild (feral) horses. Paul and I had been there 10 years ago, when we were young and childless but really wanted to share the beauty of the place with Nia. I wasn’t surprised when Paul called me and said that he was able to get a camp site for us, so we were going.

We wanted to go with friends but the camp site we got was the last one available that weekend, so we could really take only one other family. We went with our Foreign Service friends Jason and Carrie Show and their two little girls, Maia and Mackenna, who Nia just adores.

When Friday afternoon came, Carrie and I loaded up the girls in the cars and headed out to meet Paul and Jason at the Greenbelt metro station, in order to avoid going through downtown. Traffic on the beltway was horrendous and it took us two hours to get to Greenbelt from Falls Church. Once there, we grabbed a quick dinner and hit the road around 7 p.m. It was already dark by the time we crossed Chesapeake bay, which was just as well because that bridge just scares the ~~puddin’~~ living daylights out of me.

The plan was to spend the night at a motel on the way and then go to the campground the next morning. We got to one of the small towns about 30 miles from Assateague around 11 p.m. and decided to stay there. Only too bad for us – there was something going on in the area and the hotels were all full. Finally, we found a Best Western that had a couple of vacant rooms (and didn’t look too shady), so we took them even though they were $99 apiece.

We got in the room around midnight and Nia and I went straight to bed, while Paul went to get beer and hung out with Jason and Carrie for a little bit. As I got into the bed I had the distinct feeling that the sheets were not “fresh” and was really irked by the thought but was way too tired to do anything about it. I had to get up several times during the night to attend to my pregnant bladder and barely managed to contain my disgust at the sheets. In the morning, when I got out of the bed I found some clothing labels that were not ours between the top and the fitted sheet. That’s when I knew I wasn’t crazy. If the sheets had been changed, those labels wouldn’t have been there. I was livid. I know these are tough economic times and all kinds of businesses are trying to cut costs to stay alive but for $99, the least they could do is change the sheets. It’s just a basic sanitation/health issue. To experience that after all the reports about bed bugs in hotel beds and what not was just too much for me. My husband, on the other hand, found the situation highly amusing.

After we checked out, I (in the calmest possible voice) told the receptionist that our sheets were not “fresh.”

She was like, “What do you mean?”

I was trying really hard to stay calm, “I mean, we had to sleep in sheets that someone else had slept in before us!”

“How do you know that?” she asked.

“Well, first they didn’t feel or smell crisp and clean, like they should. And then, I found something between the sheets that wasn’t ours.”

“What did you find?” – she seemed almost conspiratorial.

“Clothing labels,” I glared, “but it really doesn’t matter because they wouldn’t have been there, had the sheets been changed.”

She just looked at me for a few seconds and then finally blurted out, “I’ll tell my manager about that.”

I was literally speechless. That’s the best she could come up with? Not even an apology! I so wanted to punch her in the face but realized it wasn’t going to do any good, so I just walked away hopping mad and defeated but I digress…

The trip got better after that. We got to the island and spent a few wonderful hours at the beach. The weather was beautiful and the girls had a blast.

By noon we were famished, so we went into the nearby town and had Chinese for lunch. Then we went back, got our camp site, put the tent up and spent a few more hours at the beach. The weather was still gorgeous but now there were pretty big waves and Paul and Nia did some body surfing. Back at the camp site, the girls decided to make sand angels and goof off around the tent.

We got all cleaned up and started the fire, so we can make dinner.

Then it was time for S’mores!!! Nia and I had never had S’mores, so this was a new and very exciting experience for us. Carrie showed us how to make them and they were delicious! Our fire wood must have been wet, though, because the fire was very, very smoky!

After the S’mores, we just chilled until it was time for bed but noticed that now there was a pretty strong wind out and the ocean was getting louder. At first the sounds of the wind and the ocean seemed nice and soothing to sleep to but they got louder and louder until we had a full blown wind storm on our hands. The wind was so strong it would partially lift the tent and blow sand under the tent’s fly and into the tent. That part was not fun but the kids slept right through it all. I took a video of it in the morning when you could see what was going on.

It was too windy and sandy to eat breakfast at the campground, so we decided to pack up and grab some food on the way back. The only problem was that we hadn’t seen the wild horses yet. The kids were really bummed out because we had told them that the last time we were at Assateague, the horses came right to our camp site and it was pretty neat to watch them, though these are not horses you can pet or play with because they kick and bite. We did find a big pile of fresh (as in “wasn’t there the night before”) horse poop between our cars but that really wasn’t any consolation.

So, sad that we hadn’t seen the horses, we headed for the park exit only to see not one but three horses, one of which was a foal!

The kids were besides themselves with excitement and we were glad we were able to make their day.

Devil Mommy

2010-10-06T19:07:00.001-04:00

(or bribing my kid into eating the right stuff)

Yeah, that’s me. And no, it’s not what I’m going to be for Halloween (though after this episode maybe I should).

So, yesterday, I went shopping. I had to get Nia a light jacket. When we lived in Florida, we didn’t need many jackets, so Nia had only two - a jean jacket and a parka that I got for a quarter last year at a yard sale because we were going to Chicago for Christmas. It’s not quite cold enough for the parka yet here in the D. C. area, so the jean jacket would have been perfect, if it weren’t for the fact that I sent her to school wearing it a couple of weeks ago and we never saw it again, even though I had labeled it with her name. I asked the teacher for help, checked “lost and found” several times but no luck. The jacket vanished, so I had to go get a replacement. I ended up finding two nice ones and they were both on sale, so I got both, just in case.

When Nia came home from school in the afternoon, she fell in love with one of them. It’s a cozy fleece hooded little thing with multicolored stripes. She liked it so much, she wanted to wear it the very next day.

In the meantime, I was making chicken pot pie for dinner. I put lots of vegetables in it and really wanted her to have it because she had been having constipation issues of late. Too much info, I know, but stay with me.

She wanted to eat corn dogs instead. So, I cut her a deal: if she ate chicken pot pie for dinner, she could wear the new fleece jacket to school the next day. She didn’t like that at tall and ended up throwing a mega tantrum complete with crocodile tears. I was not moved by her tears, so she said, “Why do you force me to do things I don’t want to do?”

I somehow managed to stay calm (which is usually not the case) and just said, “Because chicken pot pie is better for you than corn dogs.”

She gave me a big huffy breath and marched off into her room only to appear five minutes later with a couple of pictures she had hastily drawn to illustrate her feelings:

Exhibit 1: The creature with the sword and the horns labeled Devl (Devil) Mommy, is me (I did like how skinny I was and yes, spelling is not her forte, yet). She later explained that I had her pinned to the wall. Notice her sad face and the emphatic “No!!!!!!!!!”

Then she proceeded to show me Exhibit 2, representing how she wanted to feel. She wanted to wear her jaky (jacket) and feel happy and eat whatever she wanted.

I stood firm and she eventually relented and ate her chicken pot pie. Here she is today, wearing her new jacket and happy, just like in her drawing…

Oooohhhh, the things we Moms have to endure to get our kids to eat right...

Ben’s Chili Bowl

2010-10-04T16:30:00.001-04:00

Yesterday, we checked another item off our D.C. To-Do List, Ben’s Chili Bowl. The place has been a part of the D.C. food scene since 1958. It’s another Obama favorite and that’s where he took the Sarkozis for lunch this past March, when they were visiting the capital. Bill Cosby is a fan too. As a matter of fact there’s a sign in the restaurant saying that the Obamas and Bill Crosby get to eat there for free (and no one else!)

The place is very simple – a counter, food prep area, and some tables. There are no frills at all but the staff is very friendly. As I guess is usual with popular joints in D.C., the place was packed and there was a long line. After patiently waiting our turn we ordered our food and sat down to eat it. Paul and I got chili half-smokes (a D.C. specialty, similar to a hot dog, though larger and spicier) and Nia got a turkey cheeseburger. We all shared a basket of chili fries and Nia and I had milk shakes.

The verdict: the food is very good. I wouldn’t describe the place as fantastic partly because I don’t like waiting in line and am not real big on crowds but we all liked the food. So, if you are looking for a local specialty, I definitely recommend trying it at least once.

More on India, Hindi, and New Delhi

2010-09-30T10:45:00.001-04:00

After stressing out about our second post for months and researching all the open positions, finally knowing that we are going to New Delhi is such a relief. Nothing is official though because Paul has yet to be paneled (approved) and we are told that takes months because it’s happening in transfer-date order and ours is not until May of 2012. Since Paul’s second post is what they call an entry-level directed assignment, his Career Development Officer is confident that he will be paneled.

Quite a few people have asked us if New Delhi was our first choice. The answer is “No”. It was #8 on our list of 20 and here’s why. We have both always found India absolutely fascinating and wanted to go there but were not thrilled about learning Hindi. There were other languages that we were more interested in (French and Portuguese), so we bid the places where those are spoken higher. We were also concerned that Hindi is hard and will take a long time to learn. Plus, we thought it was a one-country language that would have limited utility for Paul’s (and perhaps mine) career down the road. Well, that’s because we were ignorant and/or spotty in our early post research.

We have since learned that Hindi is a Super Critical Needs Language (SCNL), which means that if Paul learns it to level 2/2, he will be eligible for SCNL bonus pay (always nice!) and he'll have to serve in India at least one more time in his career as an FSO (mid-level). I’d like to learn it too because I love languages and because knowing Hindi will give me bonus points, if/when I pass the Foreign Service Officer Test (FSOT) and the Oral Assessment (OA). As a FSO spouse, I am eligible for language training, which could be a class at FSI (if space is available) or online instruction. Rosetta Stone is also available to both of us through State, and luckily, Hindi is one of the languages it offers, so we can start learning it like NOW, although a lot of people in the FS community are not so hot on Rosetta Stone and its method of instruction.

I recently learned something else about Hindi that I didn’t know and I learned it at the school bus stop, of all places. There are two ladies living in our apartment complex that I have gotten to know because they have kids roughly the same age as Nia and we hang out at the bus stop together every day. Ayesha is from Islamabad, Pakistan and Bobby is from New Delhi, India (how cool is that – she’ll be able to help me with Hindi!). At some point, I noticed that they were talking to each other in a language that they both knew. That peaked my curiosity, so I asked them what language that was and they told me that Bobby was speaking Hindi and Ayesha – Urdu. The two languages are so similar that they understand each other perfectly, even though there are a few different words here and there (kinda like Bulgarian and Macedonian).

Who’d have thunk? Well, some of you smart people out there probably knew this but I was completely in the dark. Upon further investigation, I figured out that Hindi and Urdu are basically the same language but Urdu has more of a Persian-Arabic-Turkic influence, while Hindi, more of a Sanskrit influence, hence the word variations. They also use different scripts – an adaptation of Devanagari for Hindi and an adaptation of Persian/Arabic for Urdu. Urdu is spoken by most Afghans as well, for geographical, cultural and political reasons. In my research, I also found that Hindi is close to Nepali, which is spoken in Nepal (duh) but also in Bhutan and Myanmar (Burma). Aren’t languages amazing!!!

So, knowing Hindi would open up a lot of opportunities for us in that part of the world, though we are not really interested in serving in Afghanistan-Pakistan at this time. If we had no kids, it’d be a different story but with a 7-year-old and a baby on the way, we just can’t go there. We are not interested in unaccompanied tours there at this point either.

But back to India and New Delhi. As I said earlier, Paul and I have always been intrigued by India, its culture, natural beauty, history, food, amazing shopping, diversity and believe it will be an awesome post for us in so many ways. We can’t wait to explore the country and see the Taj Mahal, Jaipur, Mumbai, Kolkota as well as all the amazing things in and around New Delhi. Plus, India is doing very well economically right now compared to most of the rest of the world – its GDP is growing by 8%+, according the IMF, so it’s an exciting time to be there. We hear that the American school in Delhi is excellent, so we are thrilled about that. India’s also fairly close to Thailand, China, Singapore and Nepal, which we are hoping to visit while in India.

And while we are impatient to go, the timing seems to be really good for us because we are hoping that by May 2012, our house in FL would have sold, the baby will be 1+ year old (weaned and ready for curries -ha!), and I will be good to go back to work (if I’m lucky, I may even be able to get one of those secretarial jobs at the embassy everyone keeps “raving” about.)

That said, we are well aware that it’s a hardship post (with 20% differential and 5% COLA) and there are aspects of it that will be difficult to get used to such as the extreme poverty, crazy traffic, pushy street peddlers and beggars, overcrowding, pollution, dengue fever/malaria/TB and security issues. We think that with the help of the fairly large embassy community (288 US staff and probably twice as many Indian), we’ll learn to live with those things and enjoy all the wonderful things India and the region have to offer.

I mean, look at this collage - doesn’t it make you want to go there right now?

Is it May 2012 yet!

Map source: http://travel.state.gov

Image source: http://curiousgirl-lisa.blogspot.com/

Our future home: New Delhi!!!

2010-09-28T14:03:00.001-04:00

This is just a short post to let you all know that we finally heard from Paul’s Career Development Officer and we are going to New Delhi. It’s not until May 2012 though because Paul has to finish his current assignment in D.C. and then learn Hindi, which is a hard language, so it takes quite a while to learn. I’d like to learn it too, so I will be looking into the opportunity to take some classes.

We are very excited and I have a lot more to say about that but I am volunteering at Nia’s school today, so I have to run. I will be back soon with more on our new post.

Swaminarayan Akshardham Temple in New Delhi

Ode to the Metro (sort of) Plus the Metro Song

2010-09-15T09:51:00.001-04:00

I love the Washington, D.C. Metro. It’s one of the best public transportation systems I’ve ever used. I truly missed it during our 8-year sojourn in the Tampa Bay area, where they could really use something like the Metro.

I have to say that the Metro has changed since the last time we lived here though. It’s not as clean as it used to be, the AC doesn’t seem to work as well as it used to, it’s gotten more expensive, it’s a lot more crowded (especially the orange line). I know these issues are related to the budget difficulties the Metro is facing and the fact that more people are using it, which I guess is a good thing

Anyway, I recently saw this song by GoRemy and it reminded me of my good old days riding the Metro. I know a lot of you out there use the Metro at least occasionally, so I thought I’d share it. I especially like the “It must be driven by a pirate because the board says ARR” part. If you like this song, you may like some of Remy’s other stuff – he has one about Arlington, several about Middle Eastern Food (hummus, tabbouleh, falafel) and many more. You can see them on YouTube or on his website GoRemy.com. He kinda reminds me of Borat, though perhaps not as funny or outrageous.

Enjoy!

First Grade at Last!

2010-09-07T11:09:00.001-04:00

Her Cuteness started First Grade today! Huge milestone for her and she was beyond excited! My Mom and I took her to school this morning. I got all choked up when we went into her room and met her teacher, Ms. Quinlan.

Best of luck, Nia!

Hell of a Burger

2010-09-06T12:09:00.001-04:00

We went to Ray’s Hell Burger in Arlington yesterday. That’s one of President Obama’s favorite burger joints and also where he took Medvedev earlier this summer (photo below courtesy of www.sfgate.com/facebook).

The verdict: the burgers are big and juicy and really tasty but the place is small and crowded. It’s a hassle to find parking, the line is long and getting a table is no picnic. It’s a cash-only type of establishment but if you don’t happen to have cash on you, there’s an ATM conveniently located in the restaurant itself, which we had to use because we didn’t have enough cash.

If you like burgers, you are going to enjoy Ray’s, so I’d say go ahead and try them, if you have a chance. Paul thinks the burgers at Five Guys are just as good but almost half the price and hassle-free. I thought Ray’s were better.

In any case, it was an interesting experience (pictures below) and we are glad we got to try them. Next, we need to try Ben’s Chilly Bowl, where the President took the Sarkozys.

The line, which often goes out the door.

Paul placing our order with the kitchen, where the magic happens, in the background.

Her Cuteness and her burger, which, with the bun, was almost as big as her head. She likes her burgers plain – all she adds is cheese.

Washington, D.C. from above

2010-09-02T15:50:00.001-04:00

Paul and I have wanted to go up the Washington Monument since we lived here between 1999 and 2002. For most of that time the Monument was getting a facelift, so it was closed for tourists but it re-opened shortly before we moved to Florida. We, of course, waited until the day before we moved to do it, so we went down at zero o’clock and waited patiently for our tickets. Our tickets were for 10 a.m. and “whaddaya know”, about 15 minutes before our time, a huge storm rolled in and they closed the Monument, so we couldn’t go up!!! We were so bummed out and have been talking about it ever since. Finally, we got to go last Sunday.

This time, I got our tickets from the Park Service website, which was not an option the last time we tried. I am so glad they’ve added this option because if you live far from downtown (or out of town for that matter) and have kids, going to the Monument at 7 a.m. to get your timed tickets is just a pain. You do have to pay a $1.50 fee per ticket, if you get them online but the convenience is totally worth it. If you get your tickets at the Monument the morning of, they are free but you have to be there between 7 and 8 a.m.

Our tickets were for 6 p.m. and we got downtown about an hour and a half early. We found parking very close to the Old Post Office, which at 315 feet is the second tallest structure in DC after the Washington Monument (with its 515 feet) and which we had wanted to visit for years as well, so we were able to hit both in one trip – pretty awesome.

First, the Old Post Office. It’s a beautiful old building that now houses restaurants and souvenir stores in the first two stories (there may be offices on the higher floors). There was no line for the clock tower and you don’t need tickets, so we got to go right up. You take one elevator to the 9th floor and then another from the 9th to the observation deck of the clock tower and the Bells of Congress. We loved the views from the clock tower. Here you are closer to downtown and the Capitol and get to see the Washington Monument from up high as well. You can’t really see the White House from here because other buildings are in the way but I highly recommend it because the view is different from the Washington Monument and the Old Post Office is much easier to get into. Here are a few pictures:

Looking down from the elevator to the lobby area, where the restaurants and souvenir stores are.

Pennsylvania Ave. with the Capitol at the end

Beautiful roof gardens on the buildings along Pennsylvania Ave.

Two shots of the Washington Monument with the Ronald Reagan Building in the foreground – they are a little hazy because I was shooting against the sun.

A picture of the picture they took of Nia while we were eating and the fake newspaper cover they made out of it that they then broadcast on big screen TVs in the hope that we would buy it. We didn’t.

We grabbed a quick dinner at the Post Office and headed to the Washington Monument. We got there 5 minutes before our time and went right in. The views from here are also gorgeous but you get to to look through small and not very clean windows (not ideal for picture taking), whereas at the Post Office, two of the sides have large open air windows with steel ropes, through which I was able to shoot pictures no problem. Here are a few of the pictures from the Washington Monument (the ones in the direction of the Lincoln Memorial didn’t work out because of the bright sun):

The National Mall with The Smithsonian Castle, the other museums and the Capitol.

A closer shot of the Capitol from the bottom of the Monument.

The Tidal Basin with Thomas Jefferson Memorial and the Potomac and National Airport in the background.

The White House from afar.

The White House up closer.

The Old Post Office from the Washington Monument

Project Hummingbird

2010-08-27T20:01:00.001-04:00

Nia got a hummingbird feeder last weekend. Paul’s brother Ray and his wife Mary have one up at their vacation home in Deep Creek Lake, MD and it attracts quite a few hummingbirds. We were there again this past weekend for a family reunion and Nia was captivated by the tiny birds. Mary, who is an absolute sweetheart, had an extra feeder and gave it to Nia.

Nia and I did some research online and found a recipe for the nectar. It’s really just 4 parts water to 1 part sugar but it needs to be boiled (and cooled) before putting in the feeder to make sure there are no contaminants because that could harm the hummingbirds. They also suggest changing the nectar and cleaning the feeder weekly for the same reason.

Anyway, we put the nectar in the feeder and hung it in the tree by our dining room window this past Tuesday. I didn’t expect we’d attract hummingbirds because the area is very shady but sure enough today we spotted one. We were all glued to the window watching the little bird come and go for quite a while. It was awesome! Nia was totally delighted!

I tried to snap a few pictures but it was quite tricky with the bird being so small and my camera really not up to the task. The pictures don’t do it justice but here are a couple anyway.

Pregnant Woman vs. Bid List

2010-08-19T11:04:00.001-04:00

Last evening started out like any other in our household. We read books with Nia and put her to bed around 8 p.m. The house got nice and quiet, so I decided to check my email and read my blog faves. I was struggling to stay awake, as has become my habit since I got ~~knocked up~~ pregnant. All the baby-production going on in my body is making me exhausted and sooooo sleepy, so I was nodding off at the laptop, when I heard Paul say, “Wanna see the bid list?” I was like “Huh?”

It took my sleepy, pregnant brain a moment to register what he was saying but the realization sent a mega dose of dopamine throughout my brain and all of a sudden I was fully awake and my mind was going 100 miles an hour, “The bid list’s here!!! OMG! OMG! OMG! Are you kidding me - of course, I want to see it. We’ve been waiting for that thing FOR, like, EVER!”

So we sat down and stared at it. My mother realized something was up, so she came over and started asking questions. We explained what was going on. Around 9:30 p.m. my mom had had enough and went to bed. At 10 p.m. Paul called it a day too. Not me. I was way too excited and anxious to go to bed because for the first time in a long time we had something specific to look at that narrowed down the number of possibilities for our second post. I was on a mission and not at all interested in sleeping anymore.

A little background (in case you are new to this blog): In order to get tenured, Paul is required to serve in a consular position and learn a language in the first 5 years with the Foreign Service. He is in the Public Diplomacy cone. His first post – eDiplomacy in DC doesn’t satisfy either of the tenure requirements, so the second post has to.

Back to the bid list. First, I removed all the posts that were not consular. Then of those that were, I had to say a teary Buh Bye to lovely posts like Johannesburg, Sydney, Auckland and a few others because they didn’t require a language (damn!). That left me with 171 consular posts that require language, to play with. Of them, we have to bid on 20, in order of preference.

And this is when I let my imagination run wild and created multiple top 20 versions. I know some of you are dying to know, so here’s the spoiler alert - a few of our favorite posts, for which we may or may not qualify due to timing constraints: Casablanca, Istanbul, Skopje, Prague, Moscow, Havana, Hong Kong, Kuwait, Bangkok, Athens, Beijing, Taipei, Almaty, Amman, Manila, Kuala Lumpur, Budapest, Rio, Berlin, San Jose and more but I better stop before I get in trouble. Oh, yeah, there were no posts in Bulgaria, again, but that’s OK. Guess it wasn’t meant to be…

I was missing a key piece of information in order to do any meaningful prioritization: namely, the length of time Paul will be in mandatory functional training. Knowing that is crucial because you have to submit 20 realistic bids, which means that the date you are done with all your training (language and functional) can’t be more than 2 months apart from the date your 20 desired posts start. Figuring that out can be tricky because even though all posts are consular, some require different training, so the length of training will vary. So, as much as I would have liked to, I was not in a position to complete the exercise. Not that I really had to. Our top 20 list is not due for weeks.

Anywho, around 1 a.m. my body crashed and I decided to go to bed. But my brain was still in serious overdrive, so I kept tossing ant turning and thinking about various posts. I must have finally zonked around 3 a.m. but at 4:30 a.m. Paul woke up and so did I. It’s around noon now and I am in desperate need of some Zs but it’s just not happening.

I was a mess with our first bid list too but nothing like this and I am not quite sure why…

In any case, in this battle of ~~Crazy~~ Pregnant Woman vs. Bid List, the Bid List won.

Stay tuned for more bid list drama…

Frying Pan Park/Farm

2010-08-18T16:35:00.001-04:00

Last weekend we went to Frying Pan Park with some FS friends and their kids. The park is close to Dulles Airport and has a lot of farm animals as well as a playground and picnic tables. It’s a good place to take the kids if they want to see/pet animals. Here are some pictures from our adventure.

Diplomats on a farm – Greta, Doug, Jason, Paul and Charlie

Three pregnant ladies and a cute little girl – Greta (almost 30 wks pregnant), Carrie (20 wks), moi (10 wks) and Mila.

Diplokids and farm animals

Bid List Blues

2010-08-06T16:57:00.001-04:00

So the Foreign Service blogosphere has been abuzz with chatter about bit lists. The new A-100 class that started this past Monday got their bid list a couple of days ago and are feverishly researching their posts. The 2011 Summer Bid List is also out and everyone who’s bidding this summer is discussing the possibilities, mostly in vague terms for fear of getting in trouble because the bid lists are not to be shared publicly. By the way, does anyone know why the bid lists are not public? If so, could you please explain. Inquiring minds want to know.

We (meaning Paul) are also supposed to bid right about now but don’t have our bid list yet. We checked out the 2011 Summer Bid List thinking it may be what we should be looking at and someone forgot to let us know. Apparently not. Turns out the 2011 Summer Bid List is for tenured Foreign Service Officers (which Paul is not yet) bidding on post 3 or higher (we’ll be bidding on our second post, our first post being DC).

Paul got a note a week or so ago saying that he’ll be getting the bid list in the next few weeks but that was it – no further explanation. Patience is not my virtue, so I have been urging Paul to ask for more info but he is CDO-less right now (CDO = Career Development Officer). The woman, who was his CDO, got an overseas assignment and has moved on. We are told that there’s no replacement yet. Besides, Paul is not the type to ask questions. He’ll just wait until they tell him what to do.

So we are waiting again... And I’m thinking, waiting has got to be the one activity every FS family loves to hate. But we have no choice. We have to wait… For our bid list... For our new CDO… For Godot…

We did sneak a peek at the 2011 Summer Bid List and there were some really cool posts there. We know it’s pointless to look at any bid list but our own but a little dreaming never hurt anyone, right? Plus, it makes the waiting a little more bearable.

Of course, because of tenure requirements, our bid list will be very limited this time around. In order to get tenure, new FSOs have to serve in a consular position and learn (or know) a language at a predetermined level, which depends on how hard a language is. Paul’s first position is in his cone, Public Diplomacy, so his second one kinda has to be consular.

Paul also tested with Bulgarian during A-100 in order to satisfy the language requirement but didn’t pass. Shameful, I know, considering his wife of 13 years is Bulgarian, which gives him infinite FREE opportunities to practice!!! That same wife also has a stack of Bulgarian language books, which she has been placing strategically in various very conspicuous spots around the house, to be picked up at any time, you know, for practice, should anyone be interested,… only to see them put away by the reluctant student. In his defense, the student has been reluctant because he passed the phone test (also in Bulgarian), without preparation, when he was on the Foreign Service register last winter and got his bump-up points, which made him perhaps a little too confident in his Bulgarian skillz.

But I digress… Where was I? Oh, yes, so, we’ll be bidding on consular positions that require language this time, which will probably render a large chunk of the bid list off limits for us but getting tenured in the first 4 or so years is a must, so we have to comply.

So in the meantime, I am praying to the Second Post Untenured FSO Bid List God(s) to have mercy and send us our bid list pronto and assign us a new CDO, so we can move on to the next stage in the FS Waiting Game…

Bun in the oven…

2010-07-30T17:11:00.001-04:00

I saw an online discussion on slang terms for being pregnant – things like preggerz, with child, on stork watch, in the family way, knocked up, preggolicious… Well, I am all that.

Yes, it’s official, we are expecting. And we are thrilled! Just had an ultrasound to stage the pregnancy today and our due date is March 15, which means I am about 8 wks pregnant. I am not sure I believe that though because I feel and look way more pregnant than that. I guess I got chunky preemptively, you know, in anticipation of the pregnancy.

We are also apparently going to be geriatric parents. My new OBGYN, who looked way too young to be a doctor, pointed that out to me. My age was a definite risk factor, she said and proceeded to inform me about the increased risk for all kinds of serious problems for the baby if the mother is over 35. I’m 38. I was already aware of the risks and was stressing out about them. Of course, it’s her job to share that information with me but I was hoping for something a little more reassuring along the lines of “Congratulations!” Yeah, didn’t happen…

We have been trying to get pregnant, on and off, for several years now. We didn’t plan to take this long but life can be unpredictable. We had to wait out several periods when one of us was laid off and the insurance situation was less than optimal. Then, of course, there’s the fact that getting pregnant in your thirties is not as automatic as they want you to believe when you are 16. Either that or we should have been trying in the back seat of our car… Anyway, it took us a while and here we are pregnant at an age when some people may be getting close to becoming grandparents. Oh, well…

Be that as it may, we are all thrilled about being pregnant. Nia has been asking for a sibling ever since she learned that we sorta held the key to that particular puzzle. She seems to change her mind about wanting a brother or a sister. Lately, she’s been saying she wants a baby brother, so she can see his pee-pee – can you think of a better reason? My mom has been pleading and cajoling for another grandchild for years as well. She’s beyond happy. We told my dad via Skype yesterday and he cried tears of joy. We also called Paul’s parents and the news totally made their day.

Being happy and excited is part of it. The rest, of course, is being nervous and worrying. With every milestone, I think, “Once I get there, I will be able to relax.” But the truth is, you can never relax because as soon as one milestone passes, there’s another one to worry about. I want to make sure that everything is OK with the baby and all those genetic tests that they say you should take, especially if you are over 35, are making me very nervous. I am particularly scared of the two invasive ones, the Chorionic Villi Sampling and the amniocentesis because while they do tell you whether your child has genetic problems, they carry an uncomfortably high (to me) risk of losing the baby. We discussed those tests when I was pregnant with our first child but opted not to do any of them and were lucky to have a healthy baby. Things are different now though as I am over 35 and the stakes are higher. What has your experience with these been?

Fingerprints, Flour and Whiskey

2010-07-27T21:53:00.001-04:00

I am sure you’re wondering what those things have in common. Well, let me “splain.”

I took my mother to get fingerprinted for her US citizenship application today. The office where she had to appear for the fingerprinting procedure happened to be in Alexandria, but more specifically in the Mount Vernon area. I had never been to that particular office and wanted to leave plenty of time for the drive in case there was traffic. So we ended up getting there about an hour early. Shortly before we got to the office I noticed signs for George Washington’s Gristmill and Distillery. One of Paul’s brothers lives in that area, so we had driven by the gristmill/distillery many times. I always wanted to go see them because they seemed interesting but for one reason or another we never went.

With an hour to spare, visiting the gristmill and distillery seemed like the perfect thing to do. So off we went. We got our tickets, which were reasonable ($4 for adults, $2 for kids) and went to the gristmill first. It was pretty neat. My mom and I had seen mills back in Bulgaria and this one was similar but Nia hadn’t, so it was neat to show her how wheat is ground into flour and corn into cornmeal. She liked the big grinding stones and the huge waterwheel. We also learned that George Washington made really fine flour that he sold in Pennsylvania, New York, Boston, the Bahamas and Europe.

Then we headed for the distillery, which is only a short walk from the gristmill. There we learned that George Washington was the largest distiller in America in the late 1700s. We also got to see how whiskey is made. My mom was especially interested in the process and asked a lot of questions. I could see that she was thinking about trying to make whiskey. That is really not as crazy as it sounds because my family (on both sides) have been making wine an brandy for generations in Bulgaria. Some of my relatives even made wine and spirits industrially before the communists came to power in Bulgaria and nationalized their vineyards. When I was very young, I remember these huge 2-3-story-high wooden casks/barrels sitting in my family’s barns, which they had used for making wine (and had to eventually burn as firewood because they warped after sitting there unused forever).

But even though my family couldn’t make wine and spirits industrially anymore, they continued making some for our own consumption. I used to help by picking grapes and doing other odd jobs every year. To this day, my parents make their own red and white wine as well as brandy each year. Their wine is really good. The brandy (called rakia in Bulgarian) is very strong, kinda like vodka or grappa. I personally can’t stomach it – it’s too strong for me.

That was a long way of saying that my mom really knows about making spirits and it was cool to see her excited about whiskey. She wanted to know the proportions of grains and how long each part of the process took. Whiskey is another drink that’s not for me (guess I am a total lightweight), so it doesn’t much matter to me but it would be interesting to see her and my dad try to make whiskey in Bulgaria. I think it will be quite an experience for them. And yes, it is legal to make small quantities of wine and spirits for your own consumption in Bulgaria.

As neat as our visit to the gristmill and distillery was, we had to go back to fingerprinting. It took a little waiting and some paperwork but the fingerprints are done and the next thing is for us to hear about my mom’s naturalization interview. We got a book to help my mom prepare for the US history, civics and English language portions of the citizenship test. Because my mom knows very little English, I will have to help her with her preparation but I don’t mind. It’s the least I could do. Plus, it will help me remember some key facts for the FSOT, which I foolishly plan to take again next year.

Project Downsizing

2010-07-21T22:32:00.001-04:00

This project actually started in February when my husband got the Foreign Service offer. We sold and gave away (mostly gave away, really) a lot of our furniture and household stuff before the move. Then when we moved to DC our stuff was in long-term storage for a couple of months but when Paul got his DC assignment we had to take all of our stuff out of storage and try to fit it into our apartment. Since the apartment is smaller than our house, there was just no way to fit everything, so we found ourselves making donation piles again. We would have loved to get a little bit of cash for it but we donated most things to Goodwill and similar charitable organizations, so it will go to people who need it more than we do and we will get the tax write off.

And since we weren’t using our second car after moving to DC, we sold that too. We ended up taking it to Carmax and were able to get Kelly Blue Book value for it, so we were cool with that. It had been a good car to us but there was no point letting it just sit in the parking lot.

Here’s a glimpse at some of the stuff we said goodbye to in the last few months. Note the bright green dresser. Several women fought for that thing. Ditto for our chest freezer and a couple other things. Those craigslist people are hardcore, especially when you are giving things away! You don’t want to be between them and the object of their desire because things can get ugly!

Next up… our house in FL…, which has been kinda problematic, so wish us luck with it!

Cooling off at Deep Creek

2010-07-19T16:31:00.001-04:00

We took a trip to Deep Creek, MD last weekend with our FS friends the Fowlers, the Pratts and the Shows. One of Paul’s brothers, Ray and his family let us stay in their summer home there. Thank you so much, Ray and Mary!!!

It was fabulous to go to the mountains, get away from the heat and hang out with good friends. Here are several pictures from the adventure:

The Skinny on Ambassadors

2010-07-15T06:53:00.001-04:00

(from a kid’s perspective)

We were driving somewhere with Her Cuteness (our almost-7-year-old daughter Nia) last night when the topic of countries getting along came up. We were just about to explain to her what ambassadors were when she said, “Oh, I know what ambassadors are. They are people, who get embarrassed all the time.”

So now we know.

FSOT Score Breakdown

2010-07-13T16:36:00.001-04:00

I got my FSOT score breakdown yesterday. Not proud of it but thought posting it here will motivate me to do better next year. (That and I am just a sucker for pain and public humiliation.)

So, here we go: I needed a minimum of 154 on the multiple-choice part of the test to get my essay read. My score was lower, so my “brilliant” little essay was irrelevant.

My Job Knowledge and English Expression were not too shabby. They were not the highest I’ve seen but I am pleased with them, though I know I can improve them a little.

However, it’s the Biographic Information (Bio) section where things got really “epic.” Seeing my Bio score felt like falling flat on my face! It may well be the lowest Bio score I’ve ever seen! Part of it is that I didn’t finish the section but that can’t be everything. A score this “epic” seems to suggest that I didn’t really get what that section was all about. And to be perfectly honest, I didn’t really prepare for it either. I looked at my resume a couple of times and that’s it because that section was all about me and what I’ve done in the past. And I’m supposed to know myself, right? Wrong!

So, it will be back to square one with the Bio section. Because with a score this bad, the only way to go is up, right.

One tip I got from the yahoo FSOT group that would have helped me with the time, if I knew it before the exam, is to answer all the questions that don’t require examples first because they are less time-consuming and then go back to the ones that require examples. This way even if you run out of time you’ve answered all the easy questions and perhaps most of the time-consuming ones.

If you have any other ideas/suggestions on the Bio section, please, send them my way. I would greatly appreciate them!

“Demention”

2010-07-12T19:20:00.001-04:00

Nia has been playing teacher with her dolls a lot lately. She is very strict. When the dolls misbehave she sends them in “demention.”

4th at Air Force Memorial

2010-07-05T19:33:00.001-04:00

Our first 4th after joining the Foreign Service was spent with several other Foreign Service families.

First, we spent a few hours by the pool and the grills at the “mothership” (Oakwood Falls Church). Then around 6 p.m., together with the families of three of Paul’s friends from a-100, we headed for the Air Force Memorial (which apparently is where Life after Jerusalem also went for the fireworks, though we didn’t realize that at the time). All told there were 13 of us including seven kiddos (ages between 1 and 7) and two grandmas.

This was our second year watching the fireworks from the Air Force Memorial. We watched them from the same place last summer when we came to DC for Paul’s Foreign Service Oral Assessment. We really liked the location on a hill behind the Pentagon overlooking DC though there seemed to be a lot more people there this year than last year. It would have been great to watch the fireworks from the Washington Monument but there was simply no way we’d drag the kids downtown. So the Air Force Memorial fit the bill nicely and there was a concert at the memorial, which provided the background music for the show. That and there are actual bathrooms there, not just porta-potties!

Things got a little crazy when the sprinklers suddenly went on and a bunch of people got soaked. Guess someone forgot to turn them off for the 4th. We were fine as there were no sprinklers near us and they managed to turn them off eventually. The fireworks didn’t disappoint and everyone had a good time. Getting home took a while though not nearly as long as it would have taken us had we gone downtown.

Four diplomatic families; Mackenna and Nia; Nia and Daddy.

Nia, Babi (my mom) and Paul: the Air Force Memorial; the fireworks.

Not Foreign Service Material… Yet…

2010-06-30T22:30:00.001-04:00

So, I got my FSOT results today and this is what they looked like:

Well, not really but I did not pass the test.

Was I surprised? Not really.

Was I bummed out? Yeah, a little. It would have been nice to pass it but to be honest, I didn’t really feel like I knew everything. That and I didn’t finish the bio section.

Sooooo, I get to do it all over again in a year. I wish I didn’t have to wait a whole year but oh, well…

I already requested my scores for each section, just to see how epic my failure was. In case you were wondering, you just get a pass/fail letter (via email), no actual scores. If you want to know your scores for each section, you can request them, by fax. Fax???!!! Who uses faxes these days? Why not carrier pigeons?

So, the plan is to figure out where I fell short and work on those areas until my brain implodes or I know everything I need to know to pass the test, whichever comes first. That’s the plan, anyhow. Easy, breezy, beautiful, right? Wait, that’s CoverGirl… oh, whatever! You know what I mean…

Meanwhile, I was sorting papers around the apartment today when I came across this:

I am not sure where it came from or who the author is but it was just the right thing under the circumstances and it made my day, so I thought I’d share it.

Pop Topping It

2010-06-25T16:10:00.001-04:00

I have a minor pop top purse obsession. It started almost two years ago when I laid my eyes on these awesome bags by Escama. I had never heard of them but it was love at first sight. I just had to have one (or several). But because I am ~~cheap~~ thrifty, I couldn’t possibly spend $200 for a purse. So, I reverse-engineered it instead. I’m crafty like that. It took a while though as I am not a crocheter and after scouring the internet for weeks I figured out that these beauties were crocheted. It took even longer to collect enough pop tops to make a purse but many of my family, friends and colleagues pitched in and drank a lot of ~~beer~~ soda in order to help my effort. My first pop top purse was finally ready this past March. It’s a tote really (12x15 inches) and it took about 2000 pop-tops and 9 months of heavy drinking and reverse engineering to make . Here it is:

I love that purse. I wore it non-stop for five months, however, due to a crucial production error, the purse started disintegrating. In deciding what thread to use for it, I had picked cotton because it’s natural but that turned out to be a bad idea as the cotton thread couldn’t stand up to the intense wear and tear I subjected that purse to, especially around the edges and the handles. So the tote will need to be redone but I learned my lesson – use synthetic thread!

As I was still working on the first purse I realized that, while I love large totes, they are just too big for some occasions. So, I started thinking about a smaller purse that would fit just my wallet, phone, point-and-shoot camera and keys. After the first purse was done, I continued collecting pop tops and soon I had enough. I was itching to make it but had to wait for the two moves and the FSOT to pass. Which brings us to last week when I finally sat down and made pop top purse #2. It took about 1300 pop-tops to make. It measures 7x9 inches and still needs to be lined but that’s not preventing me from using it. And, yes, I did use synthetic thread for this one.

Two good European movies

2010-06-20T02:13:00.001-04:00

Paul (aka The Foreign Service Badass) and I saw a couple of good movies this weekend.

The first one was not new. It was a Netflix recommendation. It’s a 2006 German movie called The lives of others. It’s about life in the German Democratic Republic in the 1980s and 1990s. It was very interesting though painful to watch because it reminded me too much of life in Bulgaria during that time. It was almost surreal to think that we lived through all that and survived it somehow. I highly recommend the movie to anyone interested in life under socialism/communism. It’s good for German language practice as well. It’s a well-made, realistic representation of the time and the place.

The second one is new – The girl with the dragon tattoo from Sweden. It’s the film adaptation of the best selling book with the same name by Stieg Larsson. I had heard about the book and meant to read it but ended up seeing the movie first. Also a very well-made, interesting suspense/drama.

Both movies are definitely worth watching but they are not exactly uplifting. Both are rated R.

Let me know what you thought about them, if you’ve seen them.

What Would Don Draper Do?

2010-06-16T23:30:00.001-04:00

I am a huge fan of the AMC show Mad Men and I can not wait for the new season to start on 7/25.

So I was thinking about my blog and how it has become boring and serious and how there’s not much about the Foreign Service there lately, even though it was supposed to be about our life in the Foreign Service. But that’s what happens when the Foreign Service gives you (or your husband as the case may be) a domestic assignment.

So, there won’t be much Foreign Service related stuff to blog about until fall, which is when we are supposed to get our next bid list. I personally can’t wait to get my hands on that thing but will have to contain myself.

And you will have to put up with my random rants about whatever.

Which brings us back to today and Mad Men. It’s the most delicious show ever! If you haven’t seen it, you need to check it out. It’s about the advertising industry in the 1960s when people could be politically incorrect and sexist all they wanted. Everyone on the show drinks and smokes like those two activities are going out of style (which I guess smoking kinda did; drinking is still very much en vogue).

Of course, there’s plenty of eye candy in the faces of John Hamm (Don Draper), January Jones (Betty Draper) and Christina Hendrix (Joan Harris/H0lloway):

Oh, and they say things like:

“It's my purpose in life to bring America to the world. Whether they like it or not.” (Conrad Hilton to Don Draper)

“Remember Don…when God closes a door, he opens a dress.” (Roger Sterling to Don Draper)

“What you call love was invented by guys like me, to sell nylons.” (Don Draper to Rachel Menken)

“Kids today, they have no one to look up to... 'cause they're looking up to us.” (Don Draper to Roger Sterling)

“It wasn't a lie, it was ineptitude with insufficient cover.” (Don Draper)

And finally, here’s Don Draper’s Guide To Picking Up Women, a must see for any guy out there and a treat for any woman. Enjoy (you can thank me later):

Foreign Service Badass Wannabe

2010-06-13T22:43:00.001-04:00

So, I took the Foreign Service Officer Test (FSOT) yesterday. I have no idea if I did well enough to pass but I tried my best. I am sure I did better than the last time I took it 8 years ago, when I was clueless about a lot of the Americana questions. This time, I spent some time preparing, although with the two moves, packing, unpacking and all that jazz, I didn’t study as much as I should have.

Anyway, the Job Knowledge section was not as bad as I was afraid it was going to be. This is the section that includes questions on the the US government, US and world history, US culture, psychology, management, finance and economics, world affairs and more. I was still unsure about a few of the questions but I took “educated” guesses and hopefully guessed right. I finished with 10 minutes to spare, which was a shocker because I usually run out of time on standardized tests.

Next came the Biographical section where they ask you all kinds of situational questions about your personality and things you’ve done in the past. This seemed like a balancing act between sounding too arrogant and sounding like you haven’t done much. You also have to provide examples of things that you have done in Tweet-like fashion (limited number of characters). I got a little carried away here and ran out of time. I was so focused on providing the examples, that I didn’t even notice how many questions I had left when the time ran out. Not good, but very much in line with my past performances on standardized tests. Let’s hope I was almost done.

The English Expression section was third. That’s where you are given paragraphs/sentences with underlined sections to edit. This one has historically been my strongest section but some of the sentences were particularly messed up this time and required more thinking, so I ran out of time with one or two unanswered questions. Bummer!

The Essay section was last. I was a little nervous about the essay because I didn’t practice much for it. I wrote two timed essays a couple of days before the test and that was it. Unless, I count blogging as practice, which, of course, it isn’t because the prompts are self-imposed and there’s no time limit but I guess it’s better than no practice at all, right?

But back to the test essay. The prompt happened to be on the same topic as my undergraduate thesis. Of course, I wrote that thing like eons ago and the title is about all I recall from the experience but I somehow managed to put together a coherent little essay on it. That’s how I feel, anyhow. We’ll have to see if the people grading the tests agree.

But how I feel about the test is really beside the point. What matters is how I did compared to everyone else that took the test during the same test period because that’s how the FSOT is scored.

Realistically speaking though, my chances are not great because I was born and raised in Bulgaria and it is just harder to learn later in life all the Americana that people born and raised in the US absorb growing up. No matter how hard I try to learn all this stuff, I am still a transplant.

So, if I pass, it will be a miracle of miracles. If I fail, I get a year to learn everything I didn’t know this time around and try again. ‘Cause I’m not a giver-upper!