Good news! My accommodations request was granted and I will be taking the FSOT next Saturday morning at 8am in Sarasota. I'm so relieved that my request was approved, because no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't get my typing up to a speed where I felt comfortable that I would be able to finish in enough time.

This weekend I have worked my way through some more practice questions and dedicated some time to working my way through the study outline posted in the Yahoo Group. Fortunately (or unfortunately) I've been stuck on the couch all weekend because I rolled my ankle doing Crossfit yesterday morning. I'm grateful for the forced study time because I've been crazy busy at work for the past several weeks and haven't gotten as much studying done as I had hoped for. I've got less than a week to be ready now. Here's hoping this week is productive.

Labor Day

Call me crazy, but I took the Labor Day weekend off from studying. I figured my kids needed to actually spend time with me, so I sacrificed the 3 days away from the office that could have been used for reading & and studying to go canoeing and hiking with the family. I may end up regretting this choice when I get my FSOT results back, but this is time I will never get back with my kids. They grow up so fast, you know? I can't believe my little girl is nearly a high-schooler...(with an attitude to match)!

When I announced to the family that I was going to pursue a career in the Foreign Service my daughter was less than thrilled to learn it meant moving away from our current location. She has been through so many moves over her life and adapted unbelievably well. Now that she has a solid group of friends here, she is sad to know that she may be uprooted yet again. But this past weekend, she  told me that she's now "OK" with whatever happens (and wherever we go) if I pass the test and make it into the service. This solidified my feelings that I am doing the right thing for the family.

This week, I will be back to studying. I am going to focus my efforts on the essay. I have always been a decent writer and usually score pretty well on essay exams, so I'm not overly concerned about this part of the test, but I don't want to fall into the trap of being too confident, so I figured I would spend some time working on practice essays just to be safe. Besides, I haven't had to write a timed essay since I took the Bar exam, so it can't hurt to practice. I'm most concerned with the time limit, especially knowing that my typing speed sucks, since it is essentially one-handed. So, I'm going to work on typing essays within the 30 minute timeframe, even though I am applying for extra time, because I would rather be able to do it like a normal person just in case something gets screwy with my accomodations request.