Thursday, September 30, 2010

Area Studies Week 3

Once again, Planning Hard!

We are in the same room as last week. The tables have been re-arranged, which is a god thing. The new formation allows for 36 people to sit.

Remember that we still have 46 people in the class. The professor just encourages them to go steal chairs from other rooms.

Today he had us watch another film, With Fire and Sword. This one was in Polish and Ukrainian with English subtitles. Of course, it took ten minutes to get the subtitles on because no one bothered to prepare that in advance. Not that it mattered, since the layout of the room made it impossible for many of us to actually SEE the subtitles. Me included. So I can't tell you much about it.

And then partway through, he realized he had the wrong version of the movie, so we had to switch.

I guess we should cut them some slack. After all, this is the first time FSI has done area studies. Oh wait...

In other news, the promotion lists came out. I am genuinely happy for the folks who got promoted. I can't help but feel a twinge of bitterness though, as because I didn't get promoted the first time I was eligible, I am not eligible for my next promotion until next year. And chances are I won't get promoted then because conventional wisdom is that you don't get promoted out of language training.

Oh well. Hopefully I will get promoted before I finish my next assignment.

2 comments:

A Daring Adventure said...

Oh yuck! I'm sorry to hear that conventional wisdom and promotions after language training. :( That stinks. Big time.

Geoffrey Wessel said...

Do you mention your blog on your EER? Because you are probably the best recruitment tool State has, and that alone should earn you a promotion.