Sawatdii kha!

Or, in other words, สวัสดีค่ะ. That's Thai for hello (or good bye, but only if you're a girl. . .).  And I know that because My Man and I are taking Thai!  Most days I can hardly believe my luck!  Other days, I wonder what I was thinking when I gave up a life of leisure (OK, maybe not leisure, but comparative calm!) for the hectic craziness of full-time school.  It was actually quite a surprise that I got in the class at all.  When I initially tried to get in the class, there wasn't room for me, but when one of the registered students didn't arrive the first day, and it became clear that she wouldn't be attending, My Man lobbied hard to get me the spot (thanks Love!). The first day was a little crazy since I'd already made other commitments and didn't have babysitting lined up, but somehow I managed to get there in time for the afternoon classes.  My Man helped me catch up with what I'd missed that morning (having my own personal tutor at home is definitely one of the best parts of this class) and a gracious friend offered to watch kids after school until I could arrange something else. Since I've always worked from home, I've never had to arrange the logistics of after-school daycare, snow days, sick days, doctors appointments, etc.  It's been an adjustment to be sure, but I'm so grateful that the kids and My Man have been flexible and patient to allow me this incredible opportunity.  The house isn't as clean, dinners aren't as elaborate (or timely), and I don't have as much time to devote to being a mom/wife, but after only about 12 days of class, I can sound out Thai characters, introduce myself, tell you  all about my family (or ask you about yours), where we're from, what we do, and so forth.  That seems like a pretty fair trade to me. 

It's strange being back in school after an 11-year hiatus.  My brain has been complaining about the unaccustomed exercise but it's just as exhilarating as getting into shape again after a sluggish winter.  We are in class at least 5 hours a day (with a 1 to 4 teacher to student ratio for most of the classes, 1 to 3 in the reading classes) and then have a couple hours of homework each day.  But all that study is paying off.  And it's fun to be able to study and learn along with My Man.

To give you an idea of how it's like reading Thai, here's what it would be like in English (only pretend that you only know one in ten of the words): thisisachartofthethaiconsonantswehavelearnedtheonlyreallytrickypartisthatabouthalfofthemchangesoundsiftheyreattheendofasyllableohandalsothattheyredividedintothreedifferentclasseswhichaffecthowwordsarepronouncedandtherearentspacesbetweenwordsorsentencessoyoujusthavetofigureoutorguesswhentheyareattheendofthesyllablesandtherearelotsofdifferentfontsthatlookcompletelydifferenttousฝรั่งforeignersotherthanthatitsallverystraightforward.  (As an English grammarian, I can tell you that the lack of spacing, punctuation, and consistent grammar is killing me a refreshing change.)

This is a chart of the vowels we've been working on.  The only tricky part is that sometimes the vowels are assumed instead of written, or they change form and look completely different, and they can be written before, after, over, or under the consonants, or some combination of all of those.  And oh yeah, see those phonetic suggestions underneath?  Yeah, they don't really sound like that. My Man and I can already count in Thai to 999 (at least theoretically, we haven't actually tried going that high!).  Writing the numbers though, that's a whole different story.  Here's what the numbers look like:

I'm still not quite sure if I'll be in the class for 8 weeks or 16 or the full class.  I'm hoping they'll let me do 16, so I can go right up until school gets out for the summer.  That will be just long enough to get a good foundation but not so long that the class gets bogged down in diplomatic shop talk. :-)  I'll let My Man handle all that professional vocab, so I can focus on the important things like ordering ผัดไทย (pad Thai).  Yum. 

And speaking of pad Thai, My Man and I found a delicious Thai food restaurant near FSI called Sawatdii where all of the food is fantastic.  We've snuck off for a few lunch dates there, all in the spirit of research so that we know what to expect in Chiang Mai and to practice our Thai.  It's our hardest homework, really, but we've resigned ourselves to the fact that when you're trying to learn a difficult language like Thai, you really have to go all in, even if that means eating copious amounts of incredibly delicious food.  Frankly, I'm hoping there's a positive correlation to the amount of Thai food we eat and the level of our Thai language.  In fact, at the rate we're going, we should be able to read this in no time:
ร้านหนังสือของเราจำหน่ายสินค้ามากมายทั้งหนังสือภาษาไทยมากมายทั้งด้านความรู้วรรณกรรมนิยายและการ์ตูนจากหลากหลายนักเขียนนักแปลสำนักพิมพ์ทางร้านเรายังจัดจำหน่ายซีดีซีดีดีวีดีภาพยนตร์และดนตรีพร้อมให้บริการจัดส่งสินค้าทั่วโลกท่านสามารถสั่งซื้อสินค้าของเราได้ไม่ว่าท่านจะอยู่ที่ใดในโลกด้วยราคายุติธรรมซึ่งตรงกับสโลแกนของเราคือลูกค้ามีความสำคัญสูงสุดสำหรับเราเพราะฉะนั้นเราจะดูแลทุกการสั่งซื้อด้วยความรวดเร็วถูกต้องแม่นยำ

Mr. Diplomat

Time flies when you're studying to become a diplomat, and before he knew it My Man was standing to take his oath to become a U.S. Diplomat. 

Actually, it was the second time My Man was sworn in (there is an informal swearing in on the first day), but this time it was a formal ceremony to mark the end of orientation.  The ceremony was at Main State (downtown DC) rather than at FSI where he normally studies.  Deputy Secretary Burns (the #2 guy at State) was the main speaker and the one to administer the oath.  He told some great stories about his early days in the department.

The oath for U.S. diplomats is the same as the one that U.S. Congress members take and is very similar to the oath My Man took as a U.S. Army officer:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.

The ceremony was actually a little bittersweet.  The 175th A-100 class will now disperse.  Some are heading off to ConGen (to learn how to be consular officers for their first tour), some are heading off to language training, and some are heading off to their first posts in just a few weeks! 

Afterward, they all had a big celebration to mark the end and the beginning.  My Man felt like we really won the lottery with his first post to Chiang Mai, so he picked up the tab for the first few hours of the party.  (See?  He's already mastered the art of diplomacy.)

So now it's official!  I am married to a very good looking U.S. diplomat.  And he starts Thai classes on Monday.  Wish him luck!

Pack Your Bags!

Seriously, you're going to want to come visit.  But before I reveal the big news, here's how the day went.

The kids and I joined My Man at the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) just after lunch, where he gave us a tour of his classroom and the place.  We were way too early (wanted to get good seats!) so we had a while to wait and for anticipation to build.  We all placed bets about where we were heading:

My Man thought Tijuana or Santo Domingo.
I thought Guatemala City or Ankara.
Young Man thought Santo Domingo or Vientiane.
Darling Daughter thought Tijuana or Tegucigalpa.
Funny Guy was still convinced we'd be going to Russia (Vladivostok), even though we kept telling him it wasn't likely anymore.

And the winner was . . . no one!  We were all wrong!  Actually Young Man was the closest, at least he got the right region, but more on that in a minute. 

The flag ceremony was crazy.  So many people, so many nerves.  Everyone cheering at every announcement.  At the beginning, they announced that there were no "Lows" in the group.  That meant that nobody was being sent to anywhere they had listed as "Low."  That doesn't always happen, so that was a relief, but still, they only let you place 25 percent as Low, so it wasn't a guarantee that we'd love our posting.

They announced countries and people completely randomly, not alphabetically as I'd expected.  The kids were playing bingo (everyone had country bingo sheets and there were prizes for bingo winners) and I was trying to help them with that while at the same time marking off all the posts on my list so I had an idea of what was left for us.  It was a lot to track!  More than half the spots were gone by the time our flag came up on the huge projection on the back wall, with my anxiety and suspense growing each time the post called was not ours.  Gone were our Ankara, Turkey, spots.  Gone were Santo Domingo and Tijuana and Phom Penh and Seoul.  Vladivostok went to someone else.  Many of the Mexico and China spots were gone.  And then came the flag for Thailand and they announced, "Chiang Mai, Thailand . . ." and My Man's name!!!! 

The look on his face was priceless.  The lurching excited feeling in my stomach was crazy.  It was a complete and absolute shock.  I was giddy and weak and happy and relieved and incredulous.  Wow.  We're going to be learning Thai.  We're going to be living in a jungle in paradise.  We are so excited.

Here were the kids' initial reactions:

We spent the next couple hours in a whirlwind of talking to people, consoling and congratulating and being congratulated!  I haven't had time to research much, but the basics are that we'll be here until December, learning Thai and taking other classes to get ready (if there's room in the language class, I'll get to have Thai lessons too!).  Then we'll be there for roughly two years.  It also means that we should find out our second post pretty soon because My Man still has to fulfill his Russian language commitment, so we might know as soon as May where that will be.  It really was the perfect Flag Day--there will never again be a time of such anticipation and so much unknown, and it was definitely a great surprise.  Here's a picture of the kids again, after we asked how they felt about pizza for dinner. :-)  See, we knew we'd win Darling Daughter over quickly.

So pack your bags, get ready for a beautiful vacation.  You'll definitely have a place to stay with us.

3-2-1 . . . Flag Day! (or Snow Day?)

So, hopefully, Flag Day is just three days away now (or two if you don't count today, or one if you don't count today or Flag Day, not that I'm counting).  But we are looking at winter storm advisories that are scaring us just a little.  For some strange reason a few inches of snow scares people here and everything shuts down.  According to some reports we could be getting 15 inches of snow tonight and tomorrow (I think it will more likely be around 5 inches).  The last time school and the government were shut down it was for 2 inches.  Friday's weather looks clear, but will they be able to clear the roads in time?

We hope so!

To throw another curve in the game, today My Man got an email welcoming him to the Foreign Service Language Institute.  Unless they just sign everyone up in case they need language training, it probably means we're going somewhere that My Man doesn't speak the language . . . no Russia then?  It's hard to know for sure but it's definitely ramping up the speculation.  That could mean anything from Spanish to Thai to Chinese!

Stay tuned . . . And pray for Flag Day not to be delayed!

And on another subject completely:  Do I work hard to get valentines ready only to have school canceled?  We have a cute idea this year, but it's going to take some work, and I've been under the weather.  I hate to go all out only to have it canceled. But I suppose it would be worse to do nothing and have business as usual!  I guess we'll make the call Thursday. :-)

Spouse Day at FSI

So today a lot of the sessions at A-100 were relevant to spouses too, so we were invited.  It was kind of fun to go and see what all the excitement is about.  There were sessions on dealing with crises, healthcare options overseas, the family liason office, etc. but the very best one was the last session on building resilience.  Personally, this is something I really need to work on to survive and love our new lifestyle in the Foreign Service so it was a great class to attend.  The best part was this TED talk by Shawn Achor.  Watch it!  You'll be glad you did.

Disclaimer: The movie does have one slightly inappropriate reference about half-way through, so if you're watching with kids, that's just a heads-up. :-)