Too bad this victory was immediately followed by  several miserable days of moving. But the good news is that we’re done, and everyone is settling in nicely — except maybe Abbey, who spends even more of her day than usual sleeping. (She’s never lived in a house with stairs before, and climbing them to tag along any time either one of us goes upstairs is proving quite tiring.)

We, however, love the new place. The hardwood floors. The exposed brick. The location. The two levels. The fact that you can open the front door and let in fresh air. In Andy’s words: “I think this is the only apartment I’ve ever had that I’ve actually liked.” Most importantly, it’ll be a good place to bring home the baby in 10 weeks. Or eight. Eight sounds pretty good right now, as I drag myself out of bed from the evening nap that’s become a part of my daily routine.

Actually, I’m thrilled. As much as I dreaded maternity business suits and an 8+ hour workday a few months back, now I actually find myself excited about the change. I’m tired of lectures. I’m tired of homework. I’m tired of theory. I want to do something. (Plus, Main State’s cafeteria is way better than FSI’s.)

I’ve lined up a bridge assignment with AF/PDPA, or in plain English, the Africa bureau’s public diplomacy office. I’ll start as soon as ConGen ends, two weeks from today, and work as close to my due date as I’m able. Seeing as how I’m going to Africa to do public diplomacy work, I expect the next few months to be both interesting and useful.

I just hope my colleagues take pity on me with the whole business suit thing, because I can’t bring myself to buy any maternity ones. Here’s hoping creative use of my existing wardrobe will suffice…

• Most applicants we’ll see in Benin are part of the Diversity Visa Lottery, which allows 50,000 people a year to come to the U.S. as legal permanent residents who wouldn’t otherwise qualify. Not every country is allowed to participate. Here’s a list of those that aren’t. (The other common ways to get an immigrant visa are through family relationships or through your job. Refugees and asylum seekers get immigrant visas too, but we won’t be dealing with those.)
• There are two different levels of family relationships, for immigration purposes. Spouses and children of citizens and legal permanent residents are allowed to come to the U.S. pretty much immediately. For other family relationships, like siblings, the wait can be much longer. For instance, the adult daughter of a U.S. citizen who applied for an immigrant visa in January 2005 is just now eligible to be interviewed. Yep, six years later. In certain countries, the wait time is even worse. For instance, coming from the Philippines and applying through your connection to your U.S. citizen sibling? Well, if your application was submitted before January 1988, we’re now ready to interview you for a spot. Yes, 1988. That’s not a typo. Twenty-three years.

Finally, a technical note about the distinction between “immigrant” and “emigrant,”  which people mess up all too often (a pet peeve of mine since my undergraduate days)…

• Immigrant: Someone living in your country who’s originally from another country. Quite a few of Yemeni immigrants live in Brooklyn, for instance. (You can also remember that an immigrant, which starts with “i,” is someone who came “in.”)
• Emigrant: Someone from your country who’s living in another country. To people still living in Yemen, those Brooklyn-based Yemeni are emigrants. (An emigrant, which starts with an “e,” is someone who “exited” their country, in a sense.)

(Thank you for tolerating my annoying public service announcement.)

Starting tomorrow: non-immigrant visas. Unless the whole government is closed because of the impending snow storm. But I’m not counting on it.

ConGen has somewhat of a cult following among FSOs. Why? It’s probably some combination of learning stuff that’s both interesting and applicable, and also the ridiculousness of the process. The training team has made up a whole fake country for the purpose of our learning. Within the context of this fake country, we complete case studies and do role plays on real sets, including a jail cell with an infamous rubber rat. At the end of the course there’s a graduation ceremony with awards given for things such as most convincing acting. So… it’s hard core, in a nerdy sort of a way.

So far our training has focused on nationality, who is and isn’t an American citizen. What it really comes down to is this: how does citizenship transfer from parent to child? For those born outside of the U.S., it’s more complicated than you might think. It depends on when you were born (the regulations have changed through the years), whether your parents are married, which of your parents is the U.S. citizen, how much time your U.S. citizen parent spent in the U.S., and so on.

One weird but interesting tidbit: citizenship is tied to blood, which can cause a host of problems concerning assisted reproductive technology. For instance, if a baby is born to U.S. citizens abroad using donor eggs and sperm from non U.S. citizens, that child is not a U.S. citizen. (Of course, if the baby’s born in the U.S., none of this is an issue.)

We’ve also talked about losing U.S. citizenship, which is much harder than I would have imagined. There are certain things you can do called “potentially expatriating acts,” things like becoming a citizen in another country, serving in a foreign military or working for a foreign government. However, committing one of these acts in and of itself doesn’t cost you your citizenship. You have to both do it voluntarily and with the intent of giving up your U.S. citizenship. That intent thing is key: basically, as long as you want to keep your U.S. citizenship, you get to.

How would these things come into play in our work in Benin? Well, maybe two U.S. citizen missionaries have a baby while living overseas; they would come to us to get a Consular Report of Birth Abroad in order to document the baby as a U.S. citizen. Maybe a Peace Corps volunteer has a baby with a Beninois national; is that baby a U.S. citizen and hence eligible for a passport? We would figure that out. Maybe an American-Beninois dual citizen wants to renounce his American citizenship so he has a better shot of getting a key job with Benin’s government; we would counsel him and walk him through that process. These scenarios are all, of course, hypothetical. For some insight into what Benin’s current sole consular officer is up to, check out several of his blog.

Next up in ConGen: immigrant visas.

(Security note — All the information discussed above is publicly available at www.travel.state.gov.)

I took my French exam today. The results: 2+/3.

What this means is that I scored a 2+ on the oral section and a 3 on the reading section. Since my goal was a 3/3, it seems like I passed one section, but barely missed out on the other.

But alas, it’s not so simple.

You see, in order to get bonus points on the management register, I needed a 3 in the oral section. The reading section doesn’t matter for bonus points. I could have eaten the articles instead of reading them, but as long as I scored a 3 on the oral section, I’d have gotten my bonus.

So what now? Well, since I’m an EFM and not an FSO, my French days at FSI are over until I’m actually hired. I can still take the phone test to get points on the management register in the traditional route, but right now I’m a little too burnt out on French to really think about that. What I will need to do, however, is find a way to maintain my French skills (or lack thereof – signed, The French Department) until we go to Benin. That seems like a good activity for after the holidays.

Alex wanted me to add two more things. Despite not quite achieving my goal, I’m proud of how far I’ve come in just six months. And French isn’t really just for jerks.

What makes this even more surprising is that I performed horrendously during my exam today. I totally forgot all the complicated tricks I had up my sleeve to try to seem more advanced than I really am. Worse yet, I made dumb mistakes I never make in class. I don’t know why this happened. Nerves, perhaps? It certainly didn’t help that my examiner just so happened to be the one person in the whole French Department who intimidates me, with her perfect accent and seeming disdain for every word that comes out of my mouth. (She subbed for my class a few months ago for one very, very long day.) Although, to be fair, she was perfectly nice during my test this morning, even during my exit interview while stressing several times that despite passing, I still really, really need to work on my accent.

In any case, I got my 3/3. This is good news because:

• I’m ready to say au revoir to French at FSI. It’s tiring. I need a break.
• I’m really proud of myself for passing. Even without the pregnancy, it was unlikely. With the pregnancy, I really thought it was impossible.
• I get the rest of the week off. Helllllo, Christmas shopping!
• Passing and moving on to other training will result in a longer Christmas break than if I’d remained in French. Sweet!

However, this isn’t all good, because:

• Since I can’t go to post until after giving birth, I’ll have to do something work-related in DC until May. Frankly, as much as I’m ready for a break from French, more class would have been a lot easier than what I’ll likely end up doing when my other training ends in February: a bridge assignment at Main State.
• French class has no dress code. Main State does. Have you seen maternity business suits? Yeah, me too. They’re horrible. And expensive.

In the long run, I’ll probably kick myself for getting my 3/3 on the first go — not just to avoid a potentially exhausting bridge assignment during my third trimester, but also because my French still definitely needs work. The idea of having intelligent conversions in French as a representative of the American government, well, that terrifies me. Trust me, no matter what FSI says, I’m not ready. For that reason, more training wouldn’t have been so bad.

But oh well. For now, at least, passing feels pretty good. As does all the lounging around I have planned for the rest of the week!

Alex: It seems like nobody passes the French test. I’m nervous.
Andy: I bet you’ll do fine, stop worrying.
Alex: Be quiet. You don’t have to pass the test. You don’t even have to take it.
Andy: Um, here’s our dog, play with her for a while.

Well, fast forward to five months later and the roles have reversed. While Alex still has to take the test, the pressure is mostly off of her. After all, we’re going to be here until August no matter what. What’s another month or two in French class but a chance to improve her speaking and avoid the need to buy maternity suits for a bridge assignment at Main State? Besides, almost nobody passes the test the first time around.

Me on the other hand, now I’m starting to feel the pressure. Let me explain. As an EFM, I have no real obligation to take the two-hour end of training exam. I don’t have to achieve a certain score in order to go with Alex to Benin. If I wanted to, I could just decide that today was my last day of French class and spend the rest of December sleeping until noon, hanging out with my dog and eating cereal directly from the box.

But I do have motivations to continue. First, the better I speak French, the better I will be able to conduct important business in Benin, such as getting our car tuned up or arranging for golf lessons on the country’s only golf course. And unlike Alex, my French training will likely end with my test on December 20 even if I fail. Typically EFMs aren’t able to get additional training.

Second, if I manage to pass the oral section of my end of training exam, that will give me bonus points on the management register. That means I won’t have to take the phone test that most FSO candidates take to get an extra boost. But if I don’t pass the oral section, I’ll still be able to take the phone test right away, and I’ll have a pretty good idea of my weaknesses.

So lately, the roles have been reversed. I find myself feeling a little stressed while Alex is more relaxed. I’m the one up early doing homework, grumbling when I’m interrupted, and she’s getting an extra hour of sleep.

Bon chance à moi.

It wasn’t that advice alone that made this seem like good time for us, but alas, here we are. And now I’ll let you in on a secret: being pregnant during language training isn’t necessarily all that sweet of a deal. Admittedly, I haven’t experienced pregnancy under any other circumstances, and I’m sure there are always challenges, but still, I think this must be especially rough. Let me explain.

Pro: The hours are good. You spend 4-5 hours a day in class (depending on the language) and then so some homework and lab work whenever it’s convenient for you. Not too shabby. This works especially well for doctors appointments and such.

Con: This schedule requires a great deal of initiative, which can be hard to come by if you’re not feeling well.

Admittedly, it’s probably a wonderful arrangement if you’re one of those lucky people who feels more or less normal during your pregnancy. Like my mom. She had absolutely no morning sickness whatsoever while carrying either my sister or me, so I naively assumed I’d be the same. Well, unfortunately, the maternity gods had something else in mind. Darn them.

From week 5 to 13 I felt nauseous and dizzy and tired pretty much constantly, and threw up several times many days too, even though I was able to eat basically nothing. Despite this, I managed to miss only 1/2 day of French class in body, as hard as that was to pull off. Knowing that any sick time I took now subtracted from the amount of (paid) maternity leave I could take later was good motivation.

So, I showed up. I went through the motions of what I was supposed to be doing. And I think if I had been working a normal job, while I clearly wouldn’t have done my finest work ever, I would have at least gotten by. But with language learning, showing up and going through the motions doesn’t cut it. Even though I was at FSI physically, I was definitely not there mentally. My body was in triage mode: focusing on keeping crackers in my stomach instead of hurling them on my classmates took precedence over the nuances between lequel and dont. (Dear classmates, you’re welcome.) In language training, if you’re not able to absorb the information, you’re not getting by; you’re getting nowhere.

Before I started feeling bad, I was also doing a fair amount of studying on my own too, but these last two months I’ve spent the majority of my non-class hours sleeping. (And bossing around my husband, Andy insists that I add.)

From week 13 until now, week 17, I’m definitely feeling better, but I’m still not 100%. As much as I’d love to give the same amount of effort to my French studies as I did the first few months after I started, it’s just not possible.

Come to think of it, language training during pregnancy might not be so bad if I were the sort of person who was able to alter my expectations of myself accordingly. Unfortunately I am not that person, which I guess is the real problem. (And, I’m sure very few of you fellow FSOs out there are that sort of person either.) So, I’ve been feeling horrible physically. And on top of that, I’ve been feeling guilty for not being able to study very much. And as a result of that, I’ve been feeling frustrated about not making as much progress as I’d like.

Yes, there are definitely certain advantages to being pregnant during language training (being in DC rather than some far-flung country for medical care is another of them), but it’s not a completely painless journey. I just thought you should know.

Good: Successfully arriving at our first hotel in Nice, and explaining that we were early but asking if we could leave our bags behind the front desk until check-in time.

Bad: Successfully arriving at our hotel in Marseille and having no idea what the staff was saying to us. I blame the Marseille accent.

Good: Reading and completely understanding the service disruptions posted at the tram station in Marseille.

Bad: Struggling with the Marseille public transportation website which was only in French. I’m going to blame the accent again with this one.

Good: Negotiating, in French of course, some extra conversation classes at our school in Nice.

Bad: Failing to negotiate, even in English, a discounted rate on our breakfast in Marseille.

Good: Ordering dinner in French every night and always getting what we asked for.

Bad: Somehow accidentally ordering a coffee at a bakery when we’re pretty sure we didn’t ask for one.

Good: Realizing that everything we’re being taught at FSI is real. The words and phrases we learn aren’t just theory like imaginary numbers in math. They have real uses outside of the classroom. They are part of a real language that millions of people use every day. Learning French is not just some futile exercise designed to demoralize students at FSI. Understanding this gives us a great deal of motivation to keep going despite the difficulty.

Bad: At the same time realizing just how far we still have to go to be remotely conversational in real world situations. It’s great that we know two words for “car.” Unfortunately there are probably six more that we’ve never heard. We found that we could ask questions and usually understand the answers. But when we were in situations where we had no idea what to expect, and people were speaking at a normal rate without dumbing it down, things got real tough real fast.

Our trip was a good one and we walk away feeling motivated as we head down the final stretch (maybe) of our French lessons.

The fact that we could be sitting in Turkish class two years from now trying desperately to avoid using French is not something we allow ourselves to think about.

• Synonyms. Just when I was starting to think I finally had a big enough vocabulary to communicate somewhat effectively in French, I read an article in class today and understood pretty close to nothing. Why? Synonyms. So far I’ve avoided them. My thinking: if I already know a word for something, why waste brain space on another? I’m better off learning something new. Unfortunately, Francophone writers aren’t cooperating and using only the words I’ve chosen to memorize… Darn them.
• Idioms. These are actually worse than synonyms because I can usually translate them, but then I find myself confused and frustrated when my translations make no sense. What do I mean? Well, this isn’t the best example but it’s the only one coming to mind. My professor was talking about a classmate who had to go home early because she was “sick in her heart.” My classmates and I looked at one another, worried. She had heart problems? Oh my God; that’s serious stuff. But, no. Apparently in French, heart sickness really just means nausea. Okay, not the same thing at all.
• FSI microwaves. Every kitchenette microwave I’ve encountered at FSI lately has seemed to have the magical ability to retain the smell of the last 27 things it cooked. And, I know FSI is a multicultural place and all, and that’s great, but what in the world are you people heating up in there anyway?
• French writing style. Perhaps a little-known fact for those of you who didn’t know me before my Foreign Service life: I have a Masters of Fine Arts in Writing and have published quite a bit of memoir, personal essay and travel writing. And I still teach writing classes on the side. So, I like to think I’m qualified to spot bad writing. Let me tell you, French writers are either universally bad or (more likely) have a completely different style. In almost every article I read I come across at least one ridiculous thing that I’d never let my students get away with. For instance, today: an article started by describing a giant outdoor art installation promoting nuclear energy, which cost something like 3 million dollars. A bird flew in and broke it. Now, cut to the next paragraph. We’re talking about famine and how many people are suffering worldwide and how there’s nothing anyone can do. One bird can ruin a 3 million dollar art installation, and yet people can’t figure out how to eradicate famine. Um, no. That’s just not a strong enough connection. Sorry.
• A new TV show called Bridalplasty. A commercial for this just came on. Apparently brides-to-be compete to win plastic surgery in time for their wedding. What? When I see ridiculous things like this I can’t help but imagining what foreigners visiting America must think it says about us, like when we’re in Japan and shake our heads in wonderment at their bizarre game shows. Except this is way worse. (On a related note, now seems like a good time to go on the record as officially supporting Sister Wives, a reality show chronicling a real-life polygamous family. It’s actually surprising great, and not even in a voyeuristic, I-can’t-believe-this-baloney-is-on-the-air sort of way.)
• My looming end-of-training exam. This test is the only thing French department students talk about these days. At least once a day in class or at lunchtime conversation tables there’s a new report about how many more people failed, what’s wrong with the test, how we’re all doomed too, etc. I’m as guilty as anyone of the gossip, but it’s still annoying. We’re all type-A people; we’re not used to failing. I don’t want to think or talk about it anymore.

So, yes, I guess I’ve been a little perturbed lately. But you know what? I’m still getting paid to learn French. That’s pretty freaking cool if I do say so myself, and definitely worth the annoyances.

Except Bridalplasty. There’s just no justifying that.