Saturday, June 30, 2012

I swear

At long last, the orientation class is finished. It's been a long, intensive six weeks of lectures, field trips and exercises, all illustrated ad nauseam with Powerpoint slides, but as of this afternoon the 167th A-100 class is officially over. The culmination of our introduction to the Foreign Service and the U.S. State Department came with the swearing-in ceremony, which was held in the Dean Acheson Auditorium in the Harry S Truman Building. Here are a few photos:

 Before the start of the ceremony

Standing up when my name was announced

The keynote speaker was Patrick F. Kennedy, the Under Secretary of State for Management

The oath that we took at the end of the ceremony

The class photo. The official pictures were taken moments earlier - this shot was taken by my wife when the guests were given permission to click away. The woman seated third from right in the front row is Ambassador Carol Rodley, our class mentor. Yours truly is the grinning cue ball raising his left hand in the very back row on the right. 

Another family photo, taken at the conclusion of the afternoon's festivities

Following the end of the swearing-in ceremony, we returned home, whereupon I got out of my monkey suit and into something far more comfortable. We then went out to celebrate at the Dogfish Head Alehouse, where the 90 Minute India Pale Ale went down very well at the end of this very hot, very humid but very satisfying day:


What follows will be roughly six months of consular and Mandarin Chinese training before our scheduled February departure date for Shanghai 上海. It's going to be a lot, hot and busy summer.


4 comments:

  1. Congratulations! The family looks like the east coast is agreeing with them. You look so "adult" in your suit it's scary! Hope the storm wasn't too bad near you guys.

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  2. We got home from dinner, then a little while later the storm rolled in and from about 10:45pm Friday to 11:50pm yesterday (Monday), we were without power. An inauspicious beginning to my new career!?

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  3. Holy cow! See what you get for coming back to the U.S.? From what I'm reading, it looks like you're getting the full "bad weather" treatment from the East coast.

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  4. One of the first weekends I was here, we had tornado warnings and something like nine twisters in the area! Summer is going to mean heat, humidity and thunderstorms (like the one we had just last night). I can't wait for winter and the next "Snowpocalypse"!

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