I have had a string of serendipitous events that I have to share. First off, the morning of pack out I awoke to my clock on the wall that had stopped dead on midnight. The battery had expired my last night in the condo. It was a sign to say as if: your time is up here!
Then I went out to FACT raining in West Virginia and had a great week. (Please watch this video we saw about reacting to an active shooter scenario)
Last Friday night I shot up to Penn State for the Michigan game weekend. My friend had found a place to crash at the home of a wonderful woman who was also renting a room regularly to a guy from Brazil! They were having a party cooking Brazilian meat called a churrascaria! There were a few people there from Porto Alegre. I mean what are the odds?! I befriended a guy named Fillippe and his landlord! What magic!
The next day we tailgated and had a great time. Penn State whooped Michigan and it was a magical night!
I then returned back to DC for my first of between 6 and 8 more weeks of Portuguese language training. It is kicking my ass!
But eight years ago marked by this past week, I was in Poland with the USAFE Band covering some community outreach they were doing there. In fact, here is a video of me covering it. (scroll ahead to the 1:14 minute mark)
In this video they call my news piece, Airman Ambassadors! That day I met Kim Valdes-Dapena (now McConnell). She was a Foreign Service Officer on tour with us from the Embassy in Poland. I heard her introduce the band that night and then questioned her quite a bit about her job after the show. It was then I knew I wanted to be an FSO. Never did I think it would happen, but here I am!
Well today we finally met after 8 years at FSI!
I thanked her for sharing and showing me all about the Foreign Service. It was so awesome to finally reconnect after 8 years! She is married now with 4 kids to include triplets! Had to include a picture!
Now if I can only pass my Portuguese test! I should add that my Dad was in the hospital this week but he is doing better. Overall, I am very blessed and thank God for the universe smiling upon me.