One of the things I’ve come to appreciate about the Foreign Service is that no two assignments are ever quite the same. Even after settling into life at your permanent post, opportunities occasionally appear that let you step into an entirely different environment for a short period of time. Last month, I had the chance
SOAP BOX TIME During the Foreign Service onboarding process, we attest, multiple times, that we are worldwide available. It isn’t fine print, and it isn’t a theoretical requirement. It means accepting the reality that the needs of the Service may send you somewhere difficult. In MED this is almost a guarantee. Yet every Flag Day,
About 4 days ago, the first MP job opening in well over a year concluded. If you have been interested in the position and reading this blog, you likely have dug through some of the much older posts articulating the hiring process, and what to expect. Well…throw all that out the window. With this most
For the first time in well over a year, a short hiring window for MPs has opened, and it closes on July 22nd, 2026. If you have been interested in joining the Foreign Service, now is your chance. The hiring process has been drastically altered and I will go over it in a bit more
No, I’m not retiring. Having just a hair over 4 years of service, I am nearly 16 years away from when I would first be elidable. However, as I am now in my early 40s, been working fulltime for nearly 20 years, I have started to look with an eye toward retirement and realized that
Myanmar can be a dangerous place. It has been fighting a civil war off and on since the country was founded in the 1940’s, and reports in the news don’t necessarily paint a positive picture of the current circumstances on the ground, which leads people to frequently ask me what I do with my free
A few folks have asked me over the years what promotion’s actually mean in the Foreign Service, and specifically what impact they have for MED professionals. I have mentioned it a few times when discussing EERs and tenure, but haven’t really explained it well in practical terms, particularly for a MED professional working for the
Spring brings about a favorite time of every employee in the Foreign Service, their annual evaluation reports. The Employee Evaluation Report (EER) carries a lot of weight. Not just because it matters for promotions and assignments, but because of what it has traditionally required: time, careful phrasing, and more than a little second-guessing. Drafting accomplishment
Every April, Myanmar rings in the New Year with Thingyan, a week-long celebration defined by water fights, music, dancing, and a full reset of the pace of daily life. If you’ve experienced Songkran in Thailand, it’s a familiar scene, with similar traditions echoed across Cambodia and Laos. Having gone through it last year, a few
Four years in the Foreign Service, and somehow it still feels like I just walked into A-100. These years have moved fast, full of new places, challenges, and moments that stretched me well beyond anything I expected when I first signed on. It hasn’t always been easy. This career asks a lot, both professionally and
