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.

Back on the grid

Good news - I'm back online! After about two weeks of communicating back and forth with Witopia I kind of gave up and got fed up with all the stuff that was taking me a long time to do and without any improvement. They have been a good VPN company for all the time I have been in China but ever since this last big firewall push, they haven't worked for me. I started asking around and a lot of other expats use a company called "Strong VPN." So I decided to give them a try ($10/month) and so far they have been great. They have live chat help and also remote help. I had never heard of remote help before but it was awesome. After spending a few hours trying to do the complicated set-up by myself, I gave up and retreated to the live chat help. At that point we both logged on to a program called "TeamViewer" which lets the tech guy in the US work on my computer from afar (isn't that crazy?! I didn't know you could do that!). In about 10 minutes he had the problem fixed and I was back on the American internet. I re-posted the pictures for the St. Patty's Day post and the "Pass the Salt" post so hopefully they will work now.

In other news Sean cooked a big Mexican dinner and I had people over for "Mexican night." Tacos, Mexican pasta salad, Mexican rice, spicy tortilla soup and guacamole - everything was delicious! Annika, a German teacher here, decided that we should start a "girls' night" once a week so beginning on Wednesday evenings all the female teachers are going to start hanging out (along with Qin Chen, Zhen zhen, Zhou Min and whoever else is around). It should be fun considering sometimes on campus it feels like every night is "guys' night." We have also started getting together with the Germans on Sunday afternoons for a "Sunday tea and coffee." They have real beans and coffee makers so they provide the coffee and I bring cookies or cake - it works out well for everyone!

Read More 1 Comment | Posted by Sarah Sanderson

1 Comment

Kate on March 30, 2011 at 1:58 PM

That's great news! I'm glad the technical stuff got sorted out.

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

Back on the grid

1 Comment