Going out with a bang. (Forever and ever, amen.)

 For non- FS'ers, (foreign service'ers.  yes that is a word.  two actually.) there is a little bit of basic lingo you should understand.  A post is where you get sent to work in an embassy or consulate for a designated amount of time.  James' first post was Matamoros.  His second post will be Iraq.

Your first two posts are typically 2 years and then each post after that is generally 3 years.  When you have 1 year left at your post, you start to "bid" (apply for a job in our street-lingo) on posts.  Iraq is a dangerous post, and as such is a 1 year post.  So we gots to get our bid on.

Thus adding to the stress of getting married, moving to D.C., quitting my job, packing for Iraq, filling out incessant forms and getting medical checks...and well, moving to a war zone...we are simultaneously being asked to research and apply for 6-15 jobs.   

It's been stressful.  Period.

You can select 15 and 6 are your core bids.  You may or may not get selected by any of the posts you bid on.  Our core bids (currently and in no particular order) are:

• Santiago, Chile
• Jerusalem
• Panama
• Zagreb, Croatia
• The Vatican
• The Hague

I'd say we have about a 50% chance on one of the first four and about a 10% chance on the last two.  It's odd, but many, many other people besides us seem to think it would be a great idea to live in Italy.

Funny stories come out of this bid process.  In our larger list of 15, there is a post that I will not name... to protect the guilty.  Let it be said that I generally prefer to protect the guilty over the innocent, but that's another story. 

James sent an email to said post inquiring about their interest in, well, us.  Shortly after sending it we got the following out of office response from the guy who would do the hiring:

"If we worked together, I'm sure it was fun. I am out of the office. I
will be out of the office forever and ever, amen. ;-) God bless."

That's a Foreign Service Peace Out if I ever saw one.  Not sure if that should encourage or discourage us to bid on that post.  I'd be lying if I said I didn't wish he was staying.  That's the kind of guy you want to work with...fun.
Amen.