Happy New !

Christmas Day Mass at Fort Pilar, Zamboanga

Something great happened towards the end of 2010. I received the good news about my three-year attempt at a job I had been eyeing. 

I will finally be changing my work address in a few months’ time, thus, new route and more new stories.

But the road to this job has been nothing but difficult. Three years is not exactly a short time. The wait, however, is worth everything. 

A merry Christmas indeed!

I started taking the Foreign Service Officer Examination in 2007,  the year I became a regular employee at the school I was teaching in. My father introduced me to a possible career in foreign service; he had a brief stint at the Philippine Consulate in Manado, Indonesia. He supplied me with stories of diplomatic life. I was attracted to the perks! Initially that was what got me interested; I was thinking of formal dinners and meeting important people. I’d fit in there, I told myself. I took the exam only to fail it. The exam confirmed my academic capacity. It was ambitious of me to have taken it. My failing the University of the Philippines College Admission Test in high school should have reminded me.   The next year, I took the test again. I got nothing to lose. The exam then was free. More prepared this time, I successfully made it to the pre-qualifying exam, which was the first in a four-step examination. That year I  went on to passing the next step which was the three-day written exam, qualifying me to take the oral exam, another three-day ordeal. I failed that oral exam. My answers were probably  wrong or the examiners did not see in me the makings of a diplomat. Yes, it was painful and frustrating, but it was a short-lived frustration. The good Lord had always armed me with optimism and an accepting mind. He had better plans for me. 

I think the better plan came the next year when I was invited to re-take the oral part of the exam in 2009. It’s in the exam rules that an examinee can re-take an exam within the period of the pre-qualifying exam’s three-year validity. I read like crazy and started seeing the importance of diplomacy. Weeks after I sat for the orals, I received the news that I was eligible to take the last part of the process – the psychological exam in the summer of 2010.  This was not an ordinary test; in fact, I think this is the most difficult test of all. It was like taking the three earlier tests all in one day, and many examinees failed this last stretch.

To make the long story short, on December 22, 2010, I received the good news at the time when my mother lost her twin sister. My Tita Lilang cannot be replaced, but the news of my acceptance in the department surely cheered my mother up.


Now, I shall wait for President Noynoy's signature to officially start my career in the foreign service.

I'm just happy. I really am.