U.S. Foreign Service Officer headed to Wuhan, China

The mission of a U.S. diplomat in the Foreign Service is to promote peace, support prosperity, and protect American citizens while advancing the interests of the U.S. abroad. The work that diplomats do has an impact on the world as they serve at one of any of the more than 270 embassies, consulates and other diplomatic missions in The Americas, Africa, Europe and Eurasia, East Asia and Pacific, Middle East and North Africa, and South Asia.

The duties of a Consular Officer include to provide emergency and non-emergency services to American citizens and protect our borders through the proper adjudication of visas to foreign nationals and passports to American citizens. We adjudicate immigrant and non-immigrant visas, facilitate adoptions, help evacuate Americans, combat fraud, and fight human trafficking. Consular Officers touch people’s lives in important ways, often reassuring families in crisis. They face many situations which require quick thinking under stress and develop and use a wide range of skills, from managing resources and conducting public outreach to assisting Americans in distress.

Brunch

I never know what I am in for when I open up a text message from one of my Chinese students. Because of language and cultural differences the messages are often very endearing and entertaining. But others completely catch me off guard like the one I got yesterday from a fellow Chinese teacher, Shelly. "I am going to your house to deliver some fresh eggs." Since I was not expecting any eggs, I was a little surprised but met her at the door anyways and accepted a very large box of eggs. She explained that her friend lives on a farm and gave her a lot of eggs and she wanted me to have some. From the weight of the box I guessed that there were around three to four dozen eggs - that's a lot of eggs! I thanked her and told her that when I made something with the eggs I would call her so she could come over and try it.

That was last week and since then I have been inundating Sean with the eggs since I can't eat them all myself. He is quite happy about this since eggs are one of his favorite foods. However, for the last week we have been sharing omelets, fried egg sandwiches, scrambled eggs, egg salad sandwiches, deviled eggs and eggs with salsa and have decided that we are pretty much done with eggs for awhile. Since Sean and I both don't have classes Thursday morning we chose to make a big brunch together and invite Shelly over to eat with us. We made eggs with mushrooms, onions and peppers, chocolate chip pancakes and a big fruit salad. Shelly brought a student and a colleague over and they were thrilled to try some American food and speak English. They didn't eat that much so I am not sure they really liked it, but at least they tried everything. They were especially interested in trying (and translating) the maple syrup (from the US!) and salsa.

It was really fun and now I think I am down to about ten eggs. Too bad Shelly didn't give them to me a few weeks ago or I could have dyed and decorated real eggs in class for Easter!

Read More 1 Comment | Posted by Sarah Sanderson

1 Comment

David on April 26, 2010 at 6:06 PM

Glad to see that 黄小英 is still creeping around!

Wanderlust

In Mandarin: 旅遊癮 (lǚyóu yǐn)

According to my Mandarin teacher, the term 'wanderlust' can best be translated as 'a travel addiction or craving'. In the above translation, 'yǐn' has several meanings such as 'a strong impulse', 'a longing', or 'a desire'.

U.S. Foreign Service Officer headed to Wuhan, China

Brunch

1 Comment