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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.

Thesis-ing

In exactly one week I have to hand in my MA thesis and I still have a ways to go on it. I really enjoyed doing the research for it because I learned a lot and had a really good time talking to and meeting different professors and students. However, actually sitting down to write page after page is lonely, isolating, and repetitive. Academic writing feels dry and boring - I want to inject feeling and emotion into everything but I fear my adviser will just roll his eyes and tell me to save that for Rotary speeches. The attention to detail is massive - the formatting, the citations, the table of contents, the appendices . . . it goes on and on for, let's be honest, something that nobody will ever read. I'm chalking it up to an exercise in self-discipline, patience, and academic writing practice.

Naturally, the weather these past few weeks has been perfect - sunny and in the 70s with a slight breeze. I've been avoiding other graduate students because they inevitably say that they're finished and already handed it in, which is not at all helpful. Interestingly, absolutely everything besides sitting down to write has become instantly more attractive and I look forward to doing things like cleaning, cooking, laundry and dishes, it's absurd. The process feels like trying to eat an elephant with a fork and makes me think of Ann Lamont's book/story, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, one of my favorite books of all time:

"Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he'd had three months to write. [It] was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother's shoulder, and said. 'Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.'"

So, with the windows open and with all my avian friends chirping away and having the time of their lives in the gorgeous springtime weather, I'm going to stop writing this blog post and start taking it bird by bird.

Also, these memes have helped:



Read More 1 Comment | Posted by Sarah Sanderson edit post

1 Comment

  1. Linde on May 9, 2017 at 7:13 AM

    Bird by Bird, Word by Word!

     


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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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    Grateful for my very tolerant, supportive and easygoing husband who's always game for a new adventure

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