In the Beginning...

Right. A blog. It's nearly my 30th birthday, and 6 weeks from today I will start my new career as a Foreign Service Officer for the U.S. Department of State. Approximately 4-5 weeks after that my wife will have our third child, and we will find out where in the world we will be stationed. It's exciting, scary, and overwhelming.

Let me see if I can recap for you how we got here. In July 2008, I was working for a law firm in Springfield, Illinois. I did not fit in, so I took the Georgia Bar Exam with the plan that we could move back to Georgia, and I could find a job that was more fulfilling. In October 2008, my employers and I had a discussion about how I did not fit in. We decided that I should look for other work. I promptly registered to take the Foreign Service Officer Test (FSOT), while we considered our options. I took the test in November 2008 while looking for a job in Georgia.

By February 2009, we had relocated to Monroe, Georgia, where I had started a job as a public defender. Being a public defender is a great job, by the way. That's when I found out that I was being invited to the next phase of the process - only about 20% of the people who take the written test get invited to the Oral Assessment. I had to go to DC between mid-April and the first week in July. I went on July 6, putting it off about as long as I could.

I passed the Oral Assessment too. If I had to guess, only about 20% of the people who are invited to the Oral Assessment pass it - that's only about 4% of the people who take the written test. Thus, the clearance processes began. First, we all got our medical clearances. (Believe me, it is next to impossible to get a urine sample from a 2 year-old). Then they talked to everyone and their brother about me, so I could get a security clearance. Finally, they finished their investigation of me in October 2009 - nearly 12 months after I first registered for the written test.

Nothing happened for the next few months. Our lives went on as if this whole thing had never happened. Lisa was pregnant, Jacob kept going to Kindergarten, and Benjy was 2. Then one day, December 23rd to be exact, I got an email. Apparently, there was a spot open for me in the February training class. Could I please let then know by the end of the year? Wow. It's a once in a lifetime opportunity. How could we pass it up? Still, we have a life here, and a baby on the way. I like my job and we all have friends. Could we move again? It would be the 5th time in the last 7 years. Yes.

So now we are off, after a large amount of prep work and packing, to a new adventure. Of course, we can't help but to look at each other every once in a while and say "what were we thinking?"