I was misinformed as to when the State Department would give me my Arabic exam results. It looks like the contractor who runs the tests only provides scores once a week - every Monday morning. Having taken my test on a Monday morning, I’ll have to wait the longest amount of time possible. Fortunately, waiting is a skill I’ve perfected during this whole process.
The wait has also given me a chance to review every piece of my performance over those ten minutes, at least to the extent that I can remember anything that happened at all. I realized that my answer to one of the questions was actually pretty good, given that I understood barely a word of it. I answered “maybe ten years ago...” and then trailed off unintelligibly. That’s actually a reasonable answer to a lot more questions than you’d think, for example:
“Do you exercise or play sports at all?”
“Are you satisfied with your work?”
“How long ago did you begin the process of becoming a foreign service officer?”
The more I think about it, the more convinced I’ve become that I might have nailed that one. Only another few days until I find out. Do you think I can handle the stress?
Maybe, around ten years ago.
Friday, December 17, 2010
Monday, December 13, 2010
Han al-waqt!
I just finished my Modern Standard Arabic test with the people at BEX. What a disaster. I knew my nerves were getting the better of me when in my regular early morning lesson with the folks in Cairo, I could feel my consciousness start to sort of float away. I don’t know whether other people experience this or not: that part of an oral exam where you drift off and spend more time thinking about how you sound saying something than you do about what you’re actually saying? I’ve stress-tested this technique across a wide range of environments, and I can confirm that it’s a guaranteed way to sabotage yourself.
I called about five minutes early, only to have someone pick-up the phone and hang it back up immediately. It’s nice to see that government employees are the same in DC as we are here in the courthouse. We’ll stay late if we have to, but by God we will not start earlier than scheduled. If I’m in before 9:00, it’s because I want to read the newspaper for ten minutes, not to get a head start on serving the public.
We began with a pretty simple dialogue. There was surprisingly little opportunity to go off-topic on this “interview” portion of the test. Basic questions about the weather would get cut off before I had an opportunity to expand on, say, exactly why I hate winter so much in New York, or whether or not I think the summer here is even worse than winter. I felt like I was cruising along until I hit a question that I just didn’t understand at all. The tester rephrased it three times until I finally sort of understood and I apologized and stammered out an answer. When I asked for that second repetition, I could hear the two or three testers whispering with each other and writing stuff down. It was like a scene in a courtroom drama where the prosecutor has just revealed evidence that’s going to get a man hanged.
Having failed that section, we moved on to open discussion. This is where you’re given a topic and you talk, for at least a couple of minutes, on whatever topic you’ve been given. I think “open” is intended in the same sense that the ocean or a desert are “open.” The subject they give you is your means of survival, and you have no idea what it is or how useful it will be until they toss it to you. If they asked me about, say, my job, than I’ve been given a life-raft. This is because I can happily talk at some length about what I do every day and what I think of it - I can survive the open water with this subject. Now, I wouldn’t say that the topic they gave me was an anchor, exactly, but it sure didn’t float. If this were a desert scene, it would have been a bag of salt.
My answer included an unflattering discussion of the Republican Party. I referred to them as “Hizb Republican” (wherein I say "Republican" in English, but with some bizarre accent that’s meant to convey a certain foreignness). At one point, the tester said, in English “what is 'Republican?'”
I said, in Arabic, “well, there are two principle parties in the United States, the Democrats are liberals, and the Republicans are the opposite.”
She said again in English, “no, that is an English word, what do you mean by ‘Republican?’”
I answered, again in Arabic, “It is a proper name, like my name, Chadha, it is the same in all languages, like Hezbollah.”
She didn’t agree, and really, I was just stalling because I have no idea what they call the Republicans in Arabic countries - they probably consider them left-wing radicals or something. I compromised by turning the Arabic word for “Republic” into an adjective, but I think it was too late by then, as the damage was already done. The test ended directly after this and I’m to call tomorrow to get my results. There’s probably some rule that if the tester has to switch into English, than you automatically fail. One year of studying for twelve minutes of semi-coherent dialogue, trouble with a technicality, and probable failure as a consequence of both. Next time I’ll limit my discussion to the wicked “Hizbashay.”
My greatest hope (and my worse fear) rest on the fact that scoring a two really shouldn’t be so hard. Low bars are the worst though - they don’t let you feel that great if you pass, and you feel that much worse when you fail. The way I feel right now, I’d be very surprised to hear any good news. So I probably would feel pretty fantastic about making it through. And really, let's be honest, they have yet to make a bar so low that I’m not delighted to jump over it. I get a little thrill just crossing the lines sometimes.
When I get the inevitable bad news tomorrow, I don't think I'll feel too badly about facing another six months of hard-out study. The temptation to slack on my studies and lose all of this progress would be too great if I didn’t have a terrifying test to motivate me every waking minute of my life.
I called about five minutes early, only to have someone pick-up the phone and hang it back up immediately. It’s nice to see that government employees are the same in DC as we are here in the courthouse. We’ll stay late if we have to, but by God we will not start earlier than scheduled. If I’m in before 9:00, it’s because I want to read the newspaper for ten minutes, not to get a head start on serving the public.
I called back a few minutes later. This time, they answered and took down my information before passing me along to the testing team. Now, I won’t go into too much detail about the test’s subject matter - nobody mentioned anything about an NDA during my test, but the notoriously conservative folks on the A-100 Yahoo message board have me so completely terrified that I’m breaking some sort of Foreign Service code just by admitting the existence of the test (or the Yahoo message board, for that matter), that I’m going to hold back a little.
We began with a pretty simple dialogue. There was surprisingly little opportunity to go off-topic on this “interview” portion of the test. Basic questions about the weather would get cut off before I had an opportunity to expand on, say, exactly why I hate winter so much in New York, or whether or not I think the summer here is even worse than winter. I felt like I was cruising along until I hit a question that I just didn’t understand at all. The tester rephrased it three times until I finally sort of understood and I apologized and stammered out an answer. When I asked for that second repetition, I could hear the two or three testers whispering with each other and writing stuff down. It was like a scene in a courtroom drama where the prosecutor has just revealed evidence that’s going to get a man hanged.
Having failed that section, we moved on to open discussion. This is where you’re given a topic and you talk, for at least a couple of minutes, on whatever topic you’ve been given. I think “open” is intended in the same sense that the ocean or a desert are “open.” The subject they give you is your means of survival, and you have no idea what it is or how useful it will be until they toss it to you. If they asked me about, say, my job, than I’ve been given a life-raft. This is because I can happily talk at some length about what I do every day and what I think of it - I can survive the open water with this subject. Now, I wouldn’t say that the topic they gave me was an anchor, exactly, but it sure didn’t float. If this were a desert scene, it would have been a bag of salt.
My answer included an unflattering discussion of the Republican Party. I referred to them as “Hizb Republican” (wherein I say "Republican" in English, but with some bizarre accent that’s meant to convey a certain foreignness). At one point, the tester said, in English “what is 'Republican?'”
I said, in Arabic, “well, there are two principle parties in the United States, the Democrats are liberals, and the Republicans are the opposite.”
She said again in English, “no, that is an English word, what do you mean by ‘Republican?’”
I answered, again in Arabic, “It is a proper name, like my name, Chadha, it is the same in all languages, like Hezbollah.”
She didn’t agree, and really, I was just stalling because I have no idea what they call the Republicans in Arabic countries - they probably consider them left-wing radicals or something. I compromised by turning the Arabic word for “Republic” into an adjective, but I think it was too late by then, as the damage was already done. The test ended directly after this and I’m to call tomorrow to get my results. There’s probably some rule that if the tester has to switch into English, than you automatically fail. One year of studying for twelve minutes of semi-coherent dialogue, trouble with a technicality, and probable failure as a consequence of both. Next time I’ll limit my discussion to the wicked “Hizbashay.”
My greatest hope (and my worse fear) rest on the fact that scoring a two really shouldn’t be so hard. Low bars are the worst though - they don’t let you feel that great if you pass, and you feel that much worse when you fail. The way I feel right now, I’d be very surprised to hear any good news. So I probably would feel pretty fantastic about making it through. And really, let's be honest, they have yet to make a bar so low that I’m not delighted to jump over it. I get a little thrill just crossing the lines sometimes.
When I get the inevitable bad news tomorrow, I don't think I'll feel too badly about facing another six months of hard-out study. The temptation to slack on my studies and lose all of this progress would be too great if I didn’t have a terrifying test to motivate me every waking minute of my life.
Wednesday, December 08, 2010
Vocabulary Discrimination
A major difference between language learning in a defined setting and language learning on your own, is that when you’re on your own, the size of the universe is pretty much unlimited. If I study at the Foreign Service Institute, on the other hand, I can rest fairly assured that if I simply learn and know everything that I’m presented with (I know, easier said than done), that I stand a good chance of getting to where I need to be. After all, the folks teaching the language are the folks testing the language, and I’m not sure that you can avoid teaching with the test in mind if you’re already familiar at all with its contents.
Self-directed study raises a whole host of other questions. What to focus on? What is relevant? What should I emphasize? As my phone exam draws near, I find myself running a bizarre probability calculation as to what I think is most likely to be on the test. Should I be focusing on political vocabulary? Economics? Media? Particular current events? Is there an Arabic word for “Wikileak”?
I’ve developed an elaborate system of flashcards where words move in and out of various stacks scattered around the apartment, based on my how confident I am that I know how to use them appropriately. The goal for any self-respecting card is to finally make it onto the window-ledge in the spare room, which means I can pretty much ignore it forever. The problem is that some particularly stubborn words who refuse to be learned keep resurfacing - for example, I might be working on a set of new business meeting vocab I’ve thrown together, but because of my stragglers, the set might include the words: delegate, meeting, settlement, rabbit, authority, furry, representative.
To deal with this issue, I’ve had to create a new pile of cards, which is located on the floor between the headboard of my bed and the wall. This pile is for cards with vocabulary that I once thought important enough to learn, but now clearly have no place in an increasingly crowded study regime. “Spokesman” and “salary” can stay, but “zombie-fight” and “aquarium” are out. “Criminal” has to be learned, but “frosting” can wait. “Frisbee” can stay, but only because the Arabic word for that is probably just “frisbee.”
I guess we’ll find out soon enough if I made the right choices. I’m going to be pretty disappointed if the first question is “Candidate, could you please tell me if this is just about the furriest rabbit you have ever seen in your whole life?” I guess the best thing about this test is knowing what to expect when I inevitably have to take it again.
Self-directed study raises a whole host of other questions. What to focus on? What is relevant? What should I emphasize? As my phone exam draws near, I find myself running a bizarre probability calculation as to what I think is most likely to be on the test. Should I be focusing on political vocabulary? Economics? Media? Particular current events? Is there an Arabic word for “Wikileak”?
I’ve developed an elaborate system of flashcards where words move in and out of various stacks scattered around the apartment, based on my how confident I am that I know how to use them appropriately. The goal for any self-respecting card is to finally make it onto the window-ledge in the spare room, which means I can pretty much ignore it forever. The problem is that some particularly stubborn words who refuse to be learned keep resurfacing - for example, I might be working on a set of new business meeting vocab I’ve thrown together, but because of my stragglers, the set might include the words: delegate, meeting, settlement, rabbit, authority, furry, representative.
To deal with this issue, I’ve had to create a new pile of cards, which is located on the floor between the headboard of my bed and the wall. This pile is for cards with vocabulary that I once thought important enough to learn, but now clearly have no place in an increasingly crowded study regime. “Spokesman” and “salary” can stay, but “zombie-fight” and “aquarium” are out. “Criminal” has to be learned, but “frosting” can wait. “Frisbee” can stay, but only because the Arabic word for that is probably just “frisbee.”
I guess we’ll find out soon enough if I made the right choices. I’m going to be pretty disappointed if the first question is “Candidate, could you please tell me if this is just about the furriest rabbit you have ever seen in your whole life?” I guess the best thing about this test is knowing what to expect when I inevitably have to take it again.
Friday, October 08, 2010
On the Register
Every time I reach the point where it seems appropriate to complain in a public forum, I get what I want just a few days later. Almost immediately after wondering out loud why I hadn't made it onto the register yet, I learned that I had.
What this means in practical terms is that there is no impediment to starting my career as a diplomat - except for all of those other candidates who earned higher scores at the oral assessment, that is. The list is rank ordered based on raw oral assessment score, plus whatever bonuses you might earn from languages skills or military service.
My score on the oral assessment wasn't anything flashy, so I'm pretty far down the list. Throughout the summer, the number of candidates waiting on the registers has been growing faster than State has been able to hire them. If this keeps up, I don't like my odds. Luckily, I saw this coming and, round about this time last year, started studying Modern Standard Arabic. The foreign service badly needs Arabic speakers, and to recruit them, offers an enormous register boost to anyone who can pass a phone exam. The effect is big enough that even someone with the lowest possible passing score on the oral exam would be assured an offer if only they pass the Arabic test.
This is essentially where I am now. It's all in my hands - learn the language, and I can rest assured that when my clerkship ends in August, I'll be on my way to Washington. Fail, and I have only myself to blame. This is why I've doubled my tutoring hours to eight hour-long speaking sessions per week. At 7:00 every morning, I'm on the phone with my tutors in Cairo. Same thing, but for two hours, on the weekends. Fridays, thank Jebus, are free. In between lessons, flashcards, podcasts, al Jazeera, halaal carts or anything else that might help. Even Ms. C has started learning the language in a show of support. First try at the test will be at the end of December and then, practically, I'll have one more shot sometime in June before I have to start looking for an alternative, post-clerkship job. I'm already feeling the pressure.
I wonder what might happened if I'd put this kind of energy into any other aspect of my life over the previous thirty years? Never too late to grow up, I guess.
What this means in practical terms is that there is no impediment to starting my career as a diplomat - except for all of those other candidates who earned higher scores at the oral assessment, that is. The list is rank ordered based on raw oral assessment score, plus whatever bonuses you might earn from languages skills or military service.
My score on the oral assessment wasn't anything flashy, so I'm pretty far down the list. Throughout the summer, the number of candidates waiting on the registers has been growing faster than State has been able to hire them. If this keeps up, I don't like my odds. Luckily, I saw this coming and, round about this time last year, started studying Modern Standard Arabic. The foreign service badly needs Arabic speakers, and to recruit them, offers an enormous register boost to anyone who can pass a phone exam. The effect is big enough that even someone with the lowest possible passing score on the oral exam would be assured an offer if only they pass the Arabic test.
This is essentially where I am now. It's all in my hands - learn the language, and I can rest assured that when my clerkship ends in August, I'll be on my way to Washington. Fail, and I have only myself to blame. This is why I've doubled my tutoring hours to eight hour-long speaking sessions per week. At 7:00 every morning, I'm on the phone with my tutors in Cairo. Same thing, but for two hours, on the weekends. Fridays, thank Jebus, are free. In between lessons, flashcards, podcasts, al Jazeera, halaal carts or anything else that might help. Even Ms. C has started learning the language in a show of support. First try at the test will be at the end of December and then, practically, I'll have one more shot sometime in June before I have to start looking for an alternative, post-clerkship job. I'm already feeling the pressure.
I wonder what might happened if I'd put this kind of energy into any other aspect of my life over the previous thirty years? Never too late to grow up, I guess.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Clearance Granted
What a relief...ish.
After calling every other Friday for about two months, I finally convinced the customer service team at Diplomatic Security to send an email on my behalf to my adjudicator (with whom my file had spent the previous five months). Two emails, actually: the first only uncovered the fact that my adjudicator was in training and unable to process my file, but the second email found its way to his replacement. She almost immediately emailed a couple of easy follow-up questions that had apparently been pending for the better part of a year: "Is Ms. Chadha actually your wife" and "Does Ms. Chadha have a job." Two affirmative replies later, I learned that I had been granted the necessary clearances.
This all unfolded at the start of the months, and since then, I've been waiting to hear that my file has made it through final adjudications and that I've made it onto the hiring register. Unfortunately, not a word from anyone since then. Even the option of calling the customer service folks (who in most cases are only allowed to tell you that nothing has changed) is no longer available. Now that I've cleared the security hurdle, who do I call? I've tried the registrar several times, but she's been avoiding the phone and my emails. This kind of follow-up is not something I enjoy doing, but it's proven to be very necessary in this process. Good thing that chasing up litigants for every bit of paper they're meant to have filed provides the perfect skill set for this sort of thing.
After calling every other Friday for about two months, I finally convinced the customer service team at Diplomatic Security to send an email on my behalf to my adjudicator (with whom my file had spent the previous five months). Two emails, actually: the first only uncovered the fact that my adjudicator was in training and unable to process my file, but the second email found its way to his replacement. She almost immediately emailed a couple of easy follow-up questions that had apparently been pending for the better part of a year: "Is Ms. Chadha actually your wife" and "Does Ms. Chadha have a job." Two affirmative replies later, I learned that I had been granted the necessary clearances.
This all unfolded at the start of the months, and since then, I've been waiting to hear that my file has made it through final adjudications and that I've made it onto the hiring register. Unfortunately, not a word from anyone since then. Even the option of calling the customer service folks (who in most cases are only allowed to tell you that nothing has changed) is no longer available. Now that I've cleared the security hurdle, who do I call? I've tried the registrar several times, but she's been avoiding the phone and my emails. This kind of follow-up is not something I enjoy doing, but it's proven to be very necessary in this process. Good thing that chasing up litigants for every bit of paper they're meant to have filed provides the perfect skill set for this sort of thing.
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