Unannounced 132nd Specialist Class Reunion at FSI

You know, I think I may have been the only person from the 132nd specialist class to even bother showing up for the reunion at FSI on Monday. Of course... it was unofficial... and unannounced... and... uh... made up by  me. BUT COME ON FOLKS!

Joking aside, walking the halls of the Foreign Service Institute... running into people I met on the other side of the world, I guess this makes me a true Foreign Service Officer. I scheduled some time on my R&R to stop by and see some of my (departed) friends from Chennai who were in training (or working) there. It was neat to be back, albeit briefly (and unofficially). I think that's one of the experiences (for better or worse) that IMS miss out on: extended periods at FSI. We don't tend to get language training, which tends to be the longest training, so we spend less overall time between posts. Similarly, we seem to get more funding for mid-tour training than many of our counterparts (at least at this post).

PS: That's a picture of Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean.

Promotion!

I got promoted! Whoo hoo, par-tay, celebraaaaaaate! Oh wait, it was an administrative promotion*; I earned it merely by not getting fired over the last 18 months. Well, whatever, it still counts! If I keep up this rate of promotion, I think I'll be running the entire Department of State in like... 10 years. NOTE: That is not how it works.

On a more serious note, my cohort received our 18 month administrative promotions from FS 5 to FS 4 beginning this pay period. It's the first milestone in our IMS careers, next up: Tenure**. Unforunately, getting tenure is a merit-based-competitive thing, so we may not all get it at the same time (on our first try). Then again, my cohort was pretty awesome, so you never know.

* An "administrative promotion" is a pay grade increase that is guaranteed as part of your hiring. It is non-competitive and kind of represents the end of your 'training period.' Getting them depends on your position and the grade at which you enter the service. Since all IMS have the same job and grade coming in, we all get an upgrade after 18 months.

** Tenure is a formalization of your job with the State Department. It represents the end of your 2 to 6 year probational employment. Effectively, there's not much difference (for Specialists), except that once tenured you're eligible for competitive-promotion. Also, if you don't receive tenure on your 3rd attempt, you're effectively terminated from the foreign service.

Actually a Diplomat, Part 3: Now I'm just Cheating.

It kind of seems like I'm cheating at this point. I mean, I'm not sure it counts as "successful diplomacy" when I "score" a mention in the Consulate's facebook feed... but you know what, I'll take it anyway. You know how many government agencies put me on their social media before taking this job? Zero (At least... as far as I know?)

"If I had to pick my favorite thing about living in Chennai, it would have to be the food. I’m a bit of a fanatic when...
Posted by U.S. Consulate General Chennai on Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Traveling in India (or: how I learned to stop worrying and love staying home)

It takes so much willpower not to use a Dr. Strangelove style subtitle for every post... Anyway, let me start off by specifying that this post is heavily biased by the fact that I have a 3 year old, who hates being in the car-seat. We ordered a "mifold" booster seat for him (pictured); we're hoping that'll be slightly better, but they're not even being sold yet.

Traveling in India is not like anywhere else I've traveled. It is an enormous country, with countless things to see, but every time we go to plan a trip, we encounter the same stumbling block. Namely? It is an enormous country... and while there are tons of things to see, they tend to be very spread out.

Almost every itinerary we find includes a 2-4 hour flight and then several (often per day) 2-5 hours drives. Ooty is an excellent example. Every major Indian city has nearby "hill stations," high(er) elevation cities that are used to escape the heat of summer by locals. Mumbai has many within easy drive of the city (2 hours). Chennai's primary hill station is Ooty, which is a solid 2 hour drive... from the nearest city, which is a 6 hour train ride from Chennai. Alternately, you can fly and then drive 4 hours. Sounds like an easy weekend, right? There are exceptions, of course, but it seems like all the things on our "must-see" list are grueling trips.

Sightseeing with a small child is already pretty rough, but the idea of doing it interspersed with periods of screaming about being in the car-seat has really caused us to become home-bodies. Other than for work, we've done almost no travel since coming here. It's a depressing affair that we're going to have to remedy in our second year - if we want to hit all of our "must-sees." On that note, over the last year I have been awed at how much the "veteran" officers at post have traveled.  I kept thinking they must have seen EVERYTHING... and now I realize, they probably just procrastinated like we did... and are rushed to see everything before moving away!

It's going to be a busy year.

Visitors

Visitors. Talk to any expat and they'll almost certainly tell you, "No one comes to visit you." It doesn't matter where you go, how cool it is, or how easy (or hard) to get to it is. The sad fact remains that far fewer people come to visit you than you (or they) think will come. When we got this job we heard a chorus of "We'll come visit you!" When we got assigned India, we heard a multitude of people say, "I've always wanted to go to India, I'll definitely come visit!" However, in the end... the showing tends to be poor. I like to think this isn't a reflection on us (I do bathe...) or the people involved. The reality is that people have limited funds, limited vacation time, or other obligations that tend to get in the way. Also, once you're gone, there's an out-of-sight-out-of-mind mentality.

Of course, we're not actually a good example, we've been fortunate enough to have a bunch of visitors, both family and friends. We've had people come for a few days or up to several weeks. It's been a huge morale boost for us. Every time a new person comes, you get the sense of awe and wonder of living in a new place all over again. There's a certain joy in dragging your visitors around town to experience all of your favorite or most unexpected things. We've definitely seen an appreciable increase in our moods while we have visitors. Besides which, it motivates us to get out and do things (fighting the constant intertia to hang out at home).

The downside to being in Chennai, is that almost everything our visitors want to see... is in north India, several hours' plane flight away. It's like visiting a friend in Florida, having always wanted to see the Statue of Liberty and Niagara Falls. Generally speaking our visitors just stop by on their way to see the more famous sights in India. Don't get me wrong, we still show people the local hot spots, and they certainly get a less touristy view of Chennai. We just feel bad every time we put someone on a plane to go see the Taj Mahal without us, because we're really not interested in seeing the same thing over-and-over when it includes 10+ hours of travel each way.