試験に合格した!

From the State Department:

July 2008
BENJAMIN M. EGAN
XXXXX XXXXXX DRIVE
HENDERSON, NV XXXXX

Dear BENJAMIN M. EGAN,

Congratulations! The scores you achieved on your Foreign Service Officer Test (FSOT) qualify you for the next step of the Foreign Service Officer selection process – the Qualifications Evaluation Panel (QEP) review.

As you know, the Foreign Service selection process is a series of evaluations that can lead to an offer of employment as an entry-level Foreign Service Officer... Now that you received a passing score on the FSOT, your candidacy continues to the QEP review stage ... Once the QEP has completed its review, you will be notified by email whether your overall score entitles you to proceed to the next evaluation step of the selection process, the Oral Assessment...

Sincerely,

The Board of Examiners

So I passed the FSOT, but I don't have an interview yet. They're going to review my application from February (I already emailed the State Department to ask if I can update it -- shockingly they said 'no') and score, and let me know by mid-November if I should be planning a trip to Washington, D.C. I have less confidence in my application than I did in my test score. I'm sure the essays I wrote were crap, I listed Daniela as my reference on a number of jobs I had, and I didn't even bother to include all of the internships I had during college in the 'work experience' section. I'm going to get some books and study for the GRE. If I get the interview, I'll just be surprised.

This is however, proof that I'm a super genius. I knew it all along, but now I can quantify it.

Dave & Kelly Shutoff, August 16th, 2008

David Apples Shutoff and Kelly Maniac Reed got married on August 16th, this past Saturday. Dave and Kelly have been our close friends since Freshman year at Brandeis. Dave, Conor, Jeff, Mark, Kevin, Santosh, and I lived together on the same floor of Scheffres during that first year. Jeff and I lived in 108, Conor and Kevin lived next door in 107, Dave and Santosh lived a little farther down in 105, and Mark lived in 110. Daniela lived on the third floor of the same building and Kelly lived in an adjacent building, not a 3 minute walk away. It was magical to see such close friends of ours get married to each other and we're all thankful for an excuse to get together and get drunk.

The wedding was held at Habitat, a nature preserve run by the Massachusetts Audubon Society in Belmont, MA. Dave's family flew in from Seattle and Kelly's came down from Maine. With the exception of Daniela and I, almost all of the groomsmen and bride's maids live in either New York or Boston, so it was fairly easy for everyone to make it. It was a Jewish wedding, so there were a few things that I wasn't familiar with. Before the ceremony outside, Dave and Kelly signed a marriage contract, or ketubah. Daniela and Kevin acted as witnesses to the contract and also signed it, along with Dave's rabbi. A ketubah traditionally lays out the obligations of the husband and rights of the wife in the 'transaction' of marriage. In this day and age they are much more equitable in their language, and Kelly's sister (and bride's maid) Stephanie did a beautiful job painting around the calligraphy. Jews are also married under a chuppah, which in this case was a quilt sewn by Kelly's mom and to which everyone at the wedding submitted a decorated square of fabric. Dave's sister Sookyung, his cousin, Conor, and I had the honor of holding up the chuppah through the ceremony. I think being a witness to the ketubah is the bigger honor, but alas, I was disqualified for not being Jewish.

The pictures turned out great, the food was awesome (I had the salmon), the cake (うまい!) was beautiful, and we got some dancing in. Unfortunately Dave and Kelly only had the facilities until 4ish, so the dancing part of the afternoon had to be cut short. This was disappointing for me because I helped Dave come up with the playlist. And even more so because D and I love to dance and we were loose after drinking free booze for hours.

The untrained eye might see a screaming match in the picture to the right, but we are actually dancing. Daniela asked me not to post this one on the blog. Request denied.