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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.

Speech competition

Last week one of my students, Evans, asked me to be a judge for a speech competition a week later during the school-wide English Festival. About every day after he asked me, he sent me a text message reminding me where and when I was supposed to be at the event. I couldn't tell if he was scared that I hadn't understood him or if the contest was a very big deal.

Tonight was the speech competition and since it was the first of its kind that I have been to, I thought it was pretty interesting. I was told to be there at 6:30 pm though the speeches didn't start until 7:00. I spent the time chatting with other students and judges and wishing I had brought some papers to grade. Evans had dramatic music playing in the background and was busy getting everything ready to go. This included putting a red velvet tablecloth on the desk where the judges were sitting, handing out our complimentary gifts (a strange ceramic elfin doll) and water, and explaining (and translating) the evaluation forms.

There were to be 14 speeches with a singing performance mid-way through the competition. We were to judge according to their personal introduction, content and clarity of speech and response to a question. Unfortunately, the judges were not allowed to ask a question of our choice, we had to pick from a list which I suspect had also been given to the competitors to prepare for. Each speech lasted for about two minutes and included topics such as "ambition", "work and man", "friendship", "don't look back", "how to say future", "Shanghai Expo" and "Beijing Olympics." There was a wide range of performance styles and abilities and I actually had a good time watching and listening to the students. Some of them were students I had had last semester and some of them were my current students. I was especially entertained by the fact that the other judges (all Chinese) were intensely curious about the scores that I was giving to the contestants and were constantly sneaking peeks at my evaluation sheet.

The whole experience was pretty entertaining and was fairly well-run and organized and I wouldn't mind being a judge for another competition for this year's festival or for the next year's event as well.
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    Sarah Sanderson
    I am currently in Mandarin language training as a new diplomat in the U.S. Foreign Service. Sean and I depart for Wuhan, China in November 2019 for my first tour in consular affairs.
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