Transition

I am joining the blogging world, when the novelty of blogging has worn off and it is no longer considered unusual. I am a bit of reluctant blogger, but understanding the realities of my new-found path, I feel that this is the most efficient way to keep friends and family up to date on our adventures in this big wide world. I am also acceding to demands of a dear friend, valued colleague, and classmate K. Lovely K. has been begging me to start a blog prior to departing from the US, so that she can live vicariously through me, from the safety of her web-comic decorated cubicle. I anticipate a journey filled with lots of social awkwardness, nerdy glory, cultural firsts, commentary and of course large numbers of linguistic trial and error. As always, hilarity ensues.

Incidentally, today is an interesting day for my first post. My contract with a small and dynamic international consulting firm ends tomorrow. After I graduated from the best grad school on the planet – an Ode to SAIS post will hit the virtual presses soon – I looked for contract work as my days in DC were numbered due to the vagaries of my husband’s new career. I succeeded in finding coveted contract work through an amazing network of SAIS alumni. I think Shakespeare put it best – “parting is such sweet sorrow.” For the last seven months I performed the type of research, analysis, and writing that I got used to doing at SAIS as a paid contractor. I performed country risk analysis, market entry research, economic overviews, regulatory, legislative, and demand analysis. This was an amazing opportunity in a place where I felt intellectually challenged, contributed and learned a great deal. I made friends, developed professional contacts and had a great time completing my assignments. 

Alas, I also wrestled with the tentative hope of getting a spot in a language class prior to our departure. Thus, I am leaving to take advantage of a wonderful opportunity afforded to partners of Foreign Service officers, the coveted language course.  Although, I will miss my job and especially my friend K, I am also excited to start learning a new language! So for those that don’t know me, I am kind of a language nerd and besides English, speak Russian, Arabic, Hebrew, Ukrainian, as well as survival Spanish and Italian. With the exception of English, I will not use any of my language skills at our post. To rectify this omission I will start Tamil language class, a rather difficult language hailing from the Dravidian language family spoken by our future neighbors. Speaking Tamil is not an absolute necessity for where I end up working and most people that attended secondary school speak English. Learning Tamil will not only help me get around independently, it will also help me learn more about the place that we will call home for the next few years. I wish to respect our hosts by speaking to them in Tamil and hope not insult Tamil speakers by mangling their language - let’s be honest – mangling Tamil is the most likely outcome.

So Tamil – new alphabet, words made up of an average of 20 syllables, sparse punctuation, flashcards, and memorization – here I come!