After a year (A. YEAR.) of bidding, I am thrilled to announce that my husband has been officially HR paneled for the onward assignment we will be heading to after we leave Chengdu, China!!
If you're DS, you will immediately recognize how CRAZY OFF THE CHARTS **YOU-HAVE-GOT-TO-BE-KIDDING-ME-INSANE** it is that we just got Tokyo as our ownard assignment. I mean, we're already overseas! So this gives us two back to back overseas tours! Without having gone to AIP! And without even doing a DC tour! (And with his wife getting her blog shut down over and over again!!) Because, thus far, James' career path has been: BSAC, Houston Field Office (1 year), Mandarin language training at FSI (1 year), Chengdu, China (2 years) and then a second overseas tour right after that.
This literally never ever happens, you guys. Ever. And Tokyo?? It's such an amazing assignment it's, like, even better than what DS AIP folks get coming out of AIP.
We actually were initially given the handshake for Tokyo almost two weeks ago. And James and I both decided that it was, like the .gif above says, just like a dream.
We literally couldn't believe that it could possibly be real. Tokyo? TOKYO??? Like I said, AIP bidders with blackmail materials on high up folks who are also willing to sell their own body parts (and children) don't even get Tokyo. Even after the handshake, James kept waiting to get an email saying that the whole Tokyo thing was a mistake and that he'd actually been assigned to clean toilets at FLETC with his own toothbrush. We weren't going to tell anyone about Tokyo until he was HR paneled and officially given his TMOne for Tokyo. Until it was in writing. Signed, sealed, delivered. Only then, we said, would we tell people.
James was HR paneled today. So now it's official.
I can FINALLY tell the whole entire year-long-bidding crazy story. But not today. Today is actually for the bottom line information. Sort of like I'm letting you read the very last page of the book before I start telling you the story. Today is for saying the big stuff, like: we got Tokyo.
There is other big news to share. Such as: I'm not going. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'll go to Tokyo sometime, but I will not be going with James and the boys when they initially travel to Tokyo at the start of James' assignment.
I will be going SMA (apart from my family) and staying in the Washington DC area while attending Georgetown University. You see, Georgetown admitted me to a highly selective and very prestigious math/science/health sciences program (a kind of program where only twenty people total are admitted), and I will be starting in the fall. I just can't pass this opportunity up. I have actually known about this since last April, but chose not to blog about it for many reasons (will say more later). I did try foreshadowing, though, which is why I've blogged here and there about Calculus and how badly I suck at being an EFM. Just so people wouldn't be TOO terribly shocked when the whole Georgetown thing went down.
The last news item I have right now is that I have already left Chengdu and am already in the United States. Actually, my younger son, Zachary, is with me, also. I had to leave Chengdu earlier than James and Matthew in order to get things ready for me to go to Georgetown, and also so that we could cope with whatever came our way. James hadn't been paneled yet when I left and we knew that anything could happen.
I will explain everything - the bidding saga, the Georgetown saga, etc. - in the next blog post. But for now?