Where are we going?

As I mentioned in a previous post, we received our bid list for assignments last week. Signing on to this job means I have agreed to be worldwide available, despite our preferences for or against a certain country or region.

The current bidding process requires us to clearly state three primary preferences (e.g. I want to learn a language, I don’t want to stay in Washington, beaches make my skin clear up, etc.) and then rate all the available jobs based on those. Our preferences include learning a difficult language, going to a post eligible for the student loan repayment program, and staying in D.C. until the baby is born.

Yesterday we had a meeting with my Career Development Officer (CDO). CDOs are the folks who will be assigning us to our first two posts. We got to talk over our preferences and get advice on how to bid. Many people find this process unhelpful, but we were encouraged by it. Our situation is a little unique because Malachi’s medical clearance might be downgraded from 1 to 2 (this would limit where we could be posted).

One other note: we took the Modern Language Aptitude Test on Monday and I scored in the 99th percentile. This was very encouraging to me as I look to tackle a difficult language.