Keeping Hope Alive

Another Foreign Service Candidate was just offered a spot in the January class. He is in the Economic track, and he scored 5.6. With a 5.6 in the Political Track, Dave probably ranks in the low 60s, but in Econ this man was number 23 and is going to the next class.

When Dave interviews in early January, he will land on the Economic track. He needs to do at least as well as he did last time to receive a call. This keeps my hope alive.

The other contingency plan was the Mandarin test, which he has scheduled for the end of November. But in only a few short weeks, he has a long ways to go to become conversational. Too many challenging conversations on the train reinforced that this weekend. Plus, he may be spending the next 6-8 weeks in the Middle East. They don't speak Chinese there, but maybe he could start working on his Arabic? The Mandarin seems like less of a sure bet, and so I'm comforted to see that a good score in Econ seems possible. And then we could get out of Asia!