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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.

A day in the life of an English teacher in China

7:30am - Wake up, crawl out of my mosquito net, hastily brush my hair and teeth and pull on some clothes

7:40am - Make a cup of instant coffee, check my email, stuff my papers and activities for class in my backpack, eat a banana

7:52am - Walk to Building 59 for my 8am "Introduction to Western Culture" class

8-9:40am - First class of the day, lecture for the first 45 minutes on New Zealand and then play a board game about Australia and New Zealand for the second half of the class. Pick up out of control runaway dice no less than 15 times from overzealous dice rollers

9:50am - Get back to my apartment, chat online with friends, creep on the Face, read some blogs, check the news, answer some emails

10:45am - Steve comes over for help translating some university documents into English and to revise the contract for foreign teachers to add a "no dating your students" policy

11:15am - Ride my bike to the Foreign Language building. Visit the mini English library and check out the latest Time magazine. Chat with the other Chinese English teachers and the super nice librarian. They give me some fresh tomatoes. Head to the copy room to make some copies for class where the copy lady constantly corrects my Chinese and tells me to keep practicing my tones. Check the mail room - nothing today. Bike back home

11:40am - Wait for the other foreign teachers outside of building 59 so we can walk together to the teachers' cafeteria for our weekly lunch meeting

12:00 - Enjoy a lunch of cabbage, lotus root, hot pork soup, eggs and peppers and a bowl of rice while chatting with Jordan, Sean and Steve

1:00pm - Catch an episode of Dexter with Sean and Xing xing

1:45pm - Make some tea and head to my 2:00 culture class and teach the same lesson that I did in the morning

3:45pm - Walk from class to the bus stop and take the 23 for about 20 min into downtown to meet Xing xing for a cup of coffee at Starbucks. Yes, it's ridiculously overpriced. I only go there about once a month but it was awesome - the new Christmas flavors were out: dark cherry mocha and toffee nut latte. YUM

5:30pm - Walk over to Web my second job and look over the lesson plans for the night's classes.

6:00-9:00 pm - Teach three courses: a beginning private course, a business English class and an intermediate salon class.

9:06pm - Catch the last bus home and pick up wonton soup for dinner on the walk back to the apartment. Hang out with Xing xing and Qin Chen in the evening and decide to watch Top Gun.

11:00pm - Brush teeth, jump into bed and set the alarm for another busy day tomorrow
Read More 1 Comment | Posted by Sarah Sanderson edit post

1 Comment

  1. Ken F on November 25, 2010 at 3:11 PM

    Love that you mentioned creeping on the Face!!!

     


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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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