Foreign Relations

I don't know what I think anymore about writing personal blogs. It's one thing to write about a specific topic that may be useful to someone, but it's another thing to ramble on endlessly about oneself. I can do that in a journal with my fancy Montblanc pen and all my thoughts will remain safe and off the grid. What motivates this? To be known but in a nearly anonymous way, unless you know your friends are reading. I used to write blogs more often. It actually was a good way of keeping track of things. But why must it be online? Because I am much more motivated to write if I know it will instantly be online. The possibility that someone will read it is created. If I just save it to a document somewhere, it feels dead and disconnected. And for some odd reason I think something more fully exists if it carries this dual nature and also exists online. Some people are paranoid about posting their thoughts online. How personal can something really be though? If one person is thinking or experiencing it, than there are thousands, perhaps millions of people who have felt or thought the same thing. That said, it is wise to be discreet, especially if you are pursuing certain careers. As I am applying to the foreign service, I've thought I should go back and delete any sort of online entry that shows weakness. I'm not sure how serious I am about this. I mean going abroad and joining the foreign service. I want to get out of town for awhile and travel. I miss traveling and I'm fairly bored right now. Maybe bored isn't the right word. Just frustrated with life maybe. Then I think, I probably shouldn't be saying that. It won't look good during the in depth security clearance. I won't look driven enough. I just want to pass the test, then we'll see what happens after that. Some people say it's easy and some have said it's the ultimate "smart guy test." I kind of take offense to this expression. If you said, "It's the ultimate smart girl test," it means something completely different or not much at all. I just want to take it, pass it and prove that I've retained some knowledge from my very expensive education and that my brain still works. A fairly substantive part of the test relies on English expression. Easy. I looked at a few examples of the "Job Knowledge" portion of the exam. I mysteriously knew what the Monroe act, decree or what have you, of 1823 was and what that means for Latin America today because I vaguely remember giving a report on President Monroe in 5th grade. I have AP US History to thank as well. A false sense of comfort? Yes, I think so. Yet I'm concerned because I've read about people who study for an entire year for this. I plan to study for two weeks, maybe. Possible weak areas: I never took Stat 101, Macro Econ or Poli Sci in college. Art, Linguistics, Film, Italian seemed so much more important at the time, and they still do. I plan to read the annotated constitution and all of the amendments. I recently brushed up on the first 100 years of American History. I should probably keep going. With all that said, there's only so much one can study for something like this. Either you know it or you don't. And I think if I am supposed to pass it, I'll pass it. Either way, I think taking tests like this is fun. If not, there's something else I'm supposed to be doing. Something mysterious which I must climb to the top of a mountain to discover, but the secret to my destiny will only be revealed after mastering several ninja moves. I do think it would be a respectable adventure, joining the foreign service or the aforementioned mountaintop ninja quest. It would be exciting, working in a far off land somewhere over the rainbow.