Many people are saying if COVID's around long enough its sure to run into your country's Overseas Voting cycle and if you're running your country's Overseas Voting cycle you're sure to be around someone who has long COVID many people are saying this
And so it came to pass that this AHOP...
...tested positive...
...right as the vote-by-mail was about to kick off...
...and while symptoms were mild...
...trolling was not.
Still, once I recovered and cleared quarantine, the rest of the election period went by quickly (if blurrily) and before I knew it we were already at the final counting stage...
...and the physical challenge for posts around the world became who could stay up through the night/time-difference while 30 copies of everything were being printed at dot-matrix speed...
...who would have people just crash under their tally tables...
...and who would have AHOPs fall asleep sitting up while delivering returns to the Embassy
Has the Batch really been at this for 15 years now? Per the Department's livestreamed anniversary celebration, yes, yes we have been here since the Consular section was a back-alley basketball court!
Not as somber as the Oscar's In Memoriam segment, but still a solemn reminder of one's purpose, dedication, and existence before the e-passport
...and while the current boss at Sydney was the Headline, if you scroll through the article (or the event livestream) you'll find another familiar name from here down under.
Confirmed! Hold on, let's check with VAR sideline for any offside...
Onside! Ruling is confirmed! Crowd/staff goes wild! Onward to Plenary!
But, seriously, a most happy and humbling moment. I didn't have to attend in person, but every candidate abroad still had to appear virtually in case there were any questions. It was great that the Committee Chair kept a nice account of the proceedings, with a copy of his remarks and a list and images of every appointee posted on his social media.
the chosen slideshow screengrab indeed perfectly captured my honor and appreciation (not to mention relief at not being called for recitation during the hearing)
The Department's anniversary used to be celebrated with an all-hands gathering of personnel at our huge auditorium, a long program of speeches/awards/performances, and - if we were lucky - a huge-ass delivery from Jollibee Libertad. Now you'd think with the current community quarantine and everything, the DFA wouldn't be able to stage anything this year -- but they did! Virtually! With all of the ceremony and significance, just none of the Jollibee. Understandable! And very well done! Plus, the thing was livestreamed to all the Foreign Service Posts around the world.
leading to "do we wear filipiniana while we watch" discussions around the world
Highlights!
1:45 - The music beat dropping in time with the countdown clock then breaking into a hype reel is some NBA playoffs starting-five intro video level. That's also some 1917-level tracking shot of my old parking lot-to-auditorium path.
4:18 - Speaking of the auditorium, they used its trippy ceiling light fixture as image placeholder. As well they should.
7:15 - Group shot of the Department's senior officials. They take online direction well.
36:18 - Recognition of Loyalty Awardees, i.e., those who've been in the foreign service for many, many years. Included in the 40-years of service group is a batchmate who became an officer well into his career, which leaves the rest of the batch teeming with pride as well as apprehension everyone will think we're all the same age.
50:28 - Speaking of being proud, one of the cited Outstanding Employees of the department is a former staff of mine at my old office. I take no credit for her skills and success, but do wish to point out that our unit also had personnel named Grace, Hope and Star and it was my idea to have our office Christmas card just be a picture of all of them with the caption "Get it? Get it?"
57:58 - First intermission number! Brought to you by the latest batch of FSOs, Batch...(checks program)... XXVII?!?. Good Lord, there have been over a dozen batches of officers since mine already?!!! I feel so old. Not 40-years of service batchmate old, but still, old. Anyhoo, out of this latest batch, a crowd favorite emerges online
1:03:09 - Second intermission number! An original composition by our Regional Consular Office in Tacloban! This joint slaps!
1:18:10 - Special Citation to Foreign Service Posts for their repatriation efforts. Whassup, Sydney! And everyone else!
1:26:27 - Essay reading from an accomplished/awarded FSO writer. She speaks her truths on the paradoxes of foreign service life. The Constant Gardener and Office Concierge shout-outs speak to me.
1:34:02 - Next intermission number! A cool music video from members of the more senior and experienced Batch IX. Where other FSO batches are still notetakers, this batch is already Point-To-and-Hit-the-High-Note breakers.
1:40:50 - Whoa. The Special Awards for Achievements in Other Fields section features some truly prolific writers and authors, as well as a freakin' gold-medal winning fencer!
And here I sit, on my couch, blogging about Star Wars and Fantasy Sports.
Anyway, great job, production crew. I'd edit me for time, too.
Happy to have just hosted/emceed our first full-fledged webinar for the Fil-com -- on Financial Literacy no less! Happier still that no Kids-Crashing-BBC-Live-Interview level of mishaps took place during recording.
The Philippine Consulate General in Sydney in partnership with the Philippine Trade and Investment Center-Sydney invites the Filipino-Australian community, international students and professionals and anyone interested to this Financial Literacy Webinar held on Thursday, 16 July 2020 at 6PM AEST.
The Landbank of the Philippines’ will also give information on the launch of OFBank’s digital-only, first branchless bank in the Philippines where Filipinos overseas can open an account online without the need to be physically present in the Philippines.
Genuinely touched to take part in a red carpet movie event as meaningful as the Australian premiere of "Quezon's Game". Modern and memorable venue, fascinating guests and, of course, great film. Long build-up, yes, but strong emotional pay-off at the end. (it suddenly got dusty it my section when the boats with the lights appeared)
Just days after the CarMin exams, ONE MAIN IDEAL and I (plus CRANIAL AGAIN) are called to front-and-center duty and receive the Vice President during her trip to Sydney. In a continuing case of CarMin cosmic comedic timing, the week of the VP visit and of our return from the exams coincided with the start of the Global Conference of Head of Posts back in Manila -- meaning our Ambassador and ConGen were flying out of Sydney just as everyone else was getting in. Fortunately, the program of Fil-com meetings, Women in Business fora, and even Lady of Penafrancia mass attended by the NSW Premier was swift, substantive and straightforward, and carried out without any major hitch.
The Career Minister exam is probably the last professional/qualifying test I'll ever take in my life (not counting The Voice auditions), and should put a cap on my epic Lame LawyerDorky Diplomatexam trilogy. What are the stakes? Well, if I ever hope to reach Ambassador-rank or be appointed Head of Post or achieve my dream of being called Kamahalan before retirement age, I have to pass the CarMin test -- the sooner and the less number of tries the better.
My Chronicles of CarMin then.
Where in the World is CarMin San Diego?
I previously described the Bar exam as dense New York and the FSO exam as sprawling L.A. The CarMin exam is that leafy waterfront suburb you aspire to settle in mid-life that's filled with the familiar and the comfortable -- but also with can-i-pay-the-mortgage stress and what-school-do-we-send-the-kids-to anxiety. The whole thing is actually a six-week long battery of different tests, with the main written portion a two-day ordeal covering Diplomatic and Consular Practice, International Politics, and International Economics. Now, you would think that all those subjects are fairly well-defined and that CarMin examinees already regularly handle and know them as part of their daily jobs...but the World's a Big Place, man! And it be changing all the time! So someone who's been a Consular Officer could still have a huge blind spot on, say, the United Nations, while a Geographic Desk Officer might have a huge blind spot on what's going on outside their region, while an Administrative Officer could just be literally blind because they're usually in windowless offices and get no natural light all day and no one really visits anyone in admin. (shoutout my office concierge homies)
Batchmates, Assemble! Virtually!
For a variety of reasons, not everyone from a particular FSO Batch will be asked or be eligible to take the CarMin exams of a given year. In my case, about half of my original FSO batchmates (including ONE MAIN IDEAL) plus a couple of FSO I's from other years got invites - a lucky thirteen of us in all. Fortunately, we were geographic assignment/substantive specialty-diverse enough to collectively cover most of the CarMin subject areas. A new viber group and shared google drive for review materials was obviously needed, but a full "we're putting together a team" montage would have also been deserved.
there's always that one guy in every gang who doesn't know how to tech
(spoiler: it was me)
The Ultimate Mock CarMin Exam Reviewer
The shared google drive was quickly inundated with lengthy review materials and unopenable zip files (my bad), and it became clear real quick that getting through every subject would be terribly tiring and time consuming. Luckily, I could shave some time and stress off my review process by taking advantage of favorable conditions at my post and review-via-easy-listening-osmosis many local lectures and events, such as Head of State Foreign Policy Speeches...
key foreign policy takeaway/great summer movie title: Pacific Step Up
...Dialogues with Superpowers...
key foreign policy takeaway/great summer movie title: An Unbreakable Alliance
...Regional Free Trade Agreements Talks...
key foreign policy takeaway/great summer movie title: Dispute Settlement Mechanism
... and ASEAN (again)...
key foreign policy takeaway/great summer movie title: Industrial Revolution IV - This Time it's Bio-Digital
But in keeping with the nature of this blog, my true "Mock" required reading syllabus reads:
*International Politics
*International Economics
*Diplomatic Practice
*Consular Practice
And for extra credit/study hack, listen to Francis M's visionary "Ito Ang Gusto Ko" over and over and you'll learn/memorize 90% of the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals 2030.
chorus alone name-drops 7 SDGs. word.
Agoda Idea
The full schedule of the whole exam process was a doozy: over six weeks(!) at different venues scattered all over Mega Manila, we would be subjected to a grueling battery of psychological evaluations, executive training courses, written exams and panel interviews. The sheer length of the activities and their varied locations meant it would be more time efficient and restful (but also staggeringly expensive) to book oneself a room and crash somewhere nearby rather than commute or head home everyday. So unwittingly, we all became experts in Philippine tourist/non-POGO accommodations and conditions -- quite useful for the economic portion of the exams!
hello again trip advisor search filter results, my old friend
See Ya When We See Ya
In a case of cosmic comedic timing, the weekend ONE MAIN IDEAL and I needed to leave for Manila to start the exam process was also the birthday/mandatory retirement/departure of our old Congen...
...which meant ONE MAIN IDEAL and I would not be around to substantially brief our new boss or show him around the city or otherwise help him settle in Sydney. Awkward!
on the other hand, travelling back to the Philippines together with the outgoing Congen meant we could mooch off her airport courtesies
Psych!
Touchdown Manila, and we have to get right into it. Because the first of our three(!) psychological evaluations was scheduled to start at 6:00 a.m.(!) the day after our arrival, there would be no chance for any long reunions or reminiscing with old friends -- literally the first time I heard the voices of batchmates I hadn't seen in years was when they yelled "hoy, bili mo nga kami ice tea" at me at the 24-hour East Avenue Jollibee outside the testing center. All these personality encounters and evaluations just confirmed that some things happily never changed among the batch...at the same time, man there were still a lot of things about them I didn't know and didn't want to know!
to be fair, batch leader HARMONIC EGG CARE was having none of my "I kinda look like Jason Bourne" reveals either
I Got to P
The bulk of our time in Manila ahead of the exam was spent attending "5Ps", a specially designed three-week long executive training course for civil servants meant to immerse us in the latest and most essential leadership, management and public service concepts -- and boy there were a lot of them. My head was filled with so many Dilbertesque catchphrases, buzzwords and initialisms, I honestly couldn't remember what 5Ps even stood for. I know Public was one, and I think Performance was another. What else...Power? Perseverance?
Pits?
But it wasn't all just abstracts and think-pieces. The course was also laden with real world case studies, project presentations, and a whole lot of what must have been Michael Scott-inspired team exercises/shenanigans.
Capped off by the "How to Wacky" module
We've Come a Long Way from Getting Our Clothes from the DFA's "Boy Barong" and "Ate Terno"
The middle of the 5Ps program coincided with the poshyal ArteFino Fair at Rockwell, and many of my batchmates were willing to brave crosstown traffic in the name of some cultural diplomacy shopping. Personally, I wasn't that keen on going, but was told by the LLDD-Hyphen-L that I had a weak fashionalista game, and ArteFino could help.
she's not wrong
Surprise surprise, by the time I got to the fair, the LLDD-Hyphen-L had already messaged many of her social media/enterprise friends and contacts and had hooked me up with some sweet sweet modern barongs, enough for me to catwalk through the rest of the review.
"Who here can't dress themselves without their wife?"
Highlight of My Career
Dala ng pangangailangan, almost all of my study reading was done on screen rather than on paper. I didn't know much about tech, but I did know that printing out all of the required review material stacks would kill a small forest and take up all of my mandatory pasalubong excess baggage. Plus, Stabilo Boss was very expensive now so I could no longer afford to do my go-to law school move of highlighting EVERYTHING on a page for fear of leaving out something important
from the mind of a topnotcher (or serial killer, psych exam test pending)
Missing the Misses
I wouldn't say the pressure of the CarMin exams is any heavier or lighter than the Bar or the FSO exams, but it is different. You're farther along your life and career, your personal situation's probably changed, and the overall stakes are just no longer the same. Whether I passed the CarMin or not, I was already and would remain a (lame) lawyer and (dorky) diplomat...BUT if I failed, it would mean my professional progression would stall, everything spent around the review would have been wasted and, most nakakahinayang of all, all that quality time away from the fam would have been for naught. I mean, just in the six-week window I was in Manila, I missed the LLDD-Baby:
....nailing another RAD exam
...learning how to butterfly
...receiving academic achievement awards
...becoming a total boss at Mario Kart
...and representing her school and competing against older kids at the state regional spelling bee
for real, I learned how to viber video real quick and sneak-watched her rounds live during the 5Ps program
The LLDD-Hyphen-L for her part wasn't doing me and my long distance husbanding guilt any favors by regularly sending me her workout OOTDs
for real, the REAL reason I learned how to viber video real quick
We Had to Pray Just to Make It Today
Speaking of pressure, it was at once soothing and heartening to have batchmates who would brave rush hour traffic and light 13 candles at Baclaran church every Wednesday night.
the glow is so divine
If that wasn't enough, batchmate GEYSER JOHN would go all the way to Manaoag(!) every weekend and offer mass intentions for everyone.
Pasalubong Diplomacy, Nailed It
It's a good idea for every CarMin exam batch to try to beef up their studies by arranging their own special briefings and lectures in addition to the prescribed review program. These could be done with senior officials, esteemed academe, and other people in town who might know what's up.
Or even with people from out of town via videocon. 'Sup Washington D.C.? Sorry to wake you up with "paano ba mag screenshare?"
It's also a good idea for the batch to arrange some token gift bags for the lecturers' troubles. In our case, we thought it'd be cute to fill the bags with the best known chocolatey goodies of our respective countries of assignment, like chocolate bars from Belgium or chocolate covered dates from Bahrain
or chocolate covered excess baggage from Down Under
Yeah, the goodie bag served as a great equalizer. Whether the special lecturer was a preeminent authority on international law, or an assistant secretary or head of a department office, or even a home-based geographic desk officer batchmate, the chocolates uniformly conveyed how grateful the batch was for the guests' time and efforts, and the guests themselves all seemed to appreciate the bags with equal fervor.
except the Usec for Memo who was all "ba't mas maliit yung bag ko?"
Tonight...with Dick and CarMin
So after a month-plus long buildup of 5P training, psych tests and special briefings, exam day finally arrives.
yet the batch seems disturbingly undisturbed about everything
Officially, its more dauntingly called the "Two-day Technical Knowledge and Writing Skills" portion of the examinations, but not to be too anti-climactic about it, it was all just a hazy blur to me. The most distinctly memorable thing about the written exam was that it wasn't even written -- not in long-hand, anyway. No, CarMin examinees are each stationed at their own long table and individually assigned sleek laptops where they must encode their answers, save them on special drives, and then print out hard copies -- all while facing two big-ass monitors up front with countdown clock displays visually screaming the time ticking away. For non-techies and non-touch typists like me used to passing tests in Pilot signpen, the CarMin computer set-up could have been daunting and nerve-racking, but I've seen Gattaca and that scene in Swordfish enough times to know how smart, suave, beautiful people can coolly handle the situation.
So yeah, the written exam seemed over real quick.
Good Panelling
After the written exam, there's one Final Boss Fight...well, bosses actually. CarMin candidates would be grilled by a panel made up of current and former Foreign Secretaries, Ambassadors, Special Envoys and other Senior Government Officials. The sheer weight and cred of the panel, plus the fact that the interviewees are themselves no longer newbies, could make for some pretty interesting and potentially fraught exchanges. And remember those policy blind spots you might have developed over the course of your career? You can never ever play that card. You're expected and ought to be able to confidently and convincingly speak at length on EVERYTHING. So yeah, the CarMin candidates still be stressed even after the written exam ahead of the panel interview.
Fortunately, JOIN EVASION ‘COS NASA AJAR was one of the first interviewees to arrive and cut the tension with his irrational exuberance
and sartorial choices
End In View
The panel interviews ran really long -- we were more than an hour behind schedule after just the second interviewee -- which was a good thing! Long interviews (presumably) mean the panel found you engaging enough to keep on, short ones might mean they mentally buzzed you out. But everyone was still exhausted towards the end, and there was still one final FINAL activity to get through the following day. We had to travel to Tagaytay and take part in a seminar on (*checks notes*) "Enhancing People Management Skills through Increased Self-Responsibility". Unwieldy title perhaps, but the seminar was actually smoothly structured towards getting everyone to de-stress after the exams. It helped that the venue had gorgeous, relaxing views and every turn.
although i guess it was still too soon for the batch to be totally chill
But seriously, the seminar was a perfect way to decompress after all that we had been been through. The moderators had this young, hip teacher-who-talks-to-class-while-straddling-a-turned-around-chair kinda vibe, an in-house band played Buwan at every meal, and there was even a meditation session that was so hypnotically relaxing the whole batch feel asleep agape -- as in tulo laway level. So s'all good, seminar. After six hard weeks of tests, interviews and evaluations, everyone had a last chance to work on their wellness, reflect on themselves, and truly understand who they were and what they were made of.
but really, the Department could have saved a lot of time and money by just judging every personality on how they "wacky"
Epilogue
No one knows exactly when the exam results will come out -- best guess is some time before Christmas. So the batch leaves Manila like its a final Tribal Council on Survivor: vote tally still hanging, everyone has to get on with their lives, and there's still a long Probst jet-ski ride back home to look forward to.
I head back to Sydney the day after the end of the seminar, my excess baggage now made up of choc-nut and choco-butternut munchkins. Upon touchdown, I immediately turn on my phone, anticipating the loving welcome message and workout OOTD pic the LLDD-Hyphen-L has in store for me.
The first texts that appear were fit alright.
Yep, she signed me up for a gym while I was away. To work off the chocolate covered stress-wait eating.
