Last month I was able to take a short but rewarding trip to Laos, splitting the time between Vientiane and Luang Prabang. It ended up being one of those trips that feels both busy and restorative, part work, part exploration, and part appreciation for a country that seems on the cusp of real change. For
Last month brought some news I’d been waiting a long time to receive: I was tenured by the Foreign Service Specialist Selection Board. If you’re wondering what exactly tenure is, you’re not alone. When I first joined the Foreign Service, I mostly associated the word with ancient college professors, people who could say something completely
One of the quiet highlights of the end of the past year was getting to return home to El Paso for the holidays, from late November into December. There is something grounding about being back in familiar places, especially after spending so much time overseas. Unlike when I visited over the end of Summer and
As another year comes to a close, I want to wish everyone a very happy New Year. For many of us, 2025 was not an easy year. It demanded flexibility, patience, and a willingness to adapt to uncertainty (important traits if you want to be in the FS). For those already serving overseas, it reinforced
With Myanmar on the cusp of their first elections since the 2021 Military Coup, I thought it would be a good opportunity to provide a brief recent history on Myanmar. While I assume most people reading this blog have some sense of where Myanmar is, whenever I am back home and tell people where I
I realize recently a lot of my posts have been more ethereal and less about my day to day life. A few readers asked me how I have been doing, where I am going next, and how are things in Myanmar, so I thought I would share. I have been posted to Myanmar for about
I always get asked by friends or family on all sides of the political spectrum how I could work for the government under X or Y President. In my three and a half years in the Foreign Service, I’ve learned that one of the most misunderstood parts of government work is neutrality. People often assume
Just an hour northeast of Yangon, the city of Bago (once called Pegu) is easy to overlook. At first glance, it’s a busy provincial town. But spend a day here and you quickly realize Bago is one of Myanmar’s most fascinating places — a city that has seen golden ages of empire, devastating wars, and,
I’ve been in the Foreign Service for three and a half years — just long enough to have settled into the rhythm of this strange, rewarding career, but not long enough to have lived through a government shutdown. Until now. Before this week, shutdowns were something I’d only read about in the news or heard
I don’t have much to touch on this week other than to comment that over the last year or so, this blog has been flooded with thousands of spam comments, mostly of Russian origin, posting nonsense adds or propaganda. I have to approve every single comment, so none of them make it to the comment
