Flag Day!

Today was a VERY exciting day for new foreign service employees: flag day is when your first assignment is announced.  A ceremony was held (with family invited) to announce each person's first post.  During the ceremony, they announced a post, country, position, and then the person's name for the assignment.  Here's the flag I received:

It wasn't the flag I was expecting - if you're like me, then you wouldn't've recognized the flag for Washington DC.  But I _was_ expecting to get posted to DC.  It was interesting to experience the event, though, and to talk with others about their upcoming posts, which include China, Liberia, Mali, Nigeria, Chad, Lebanon, Barbados, Peru, Mexico, Sierra Leone, Congo, Russia, and more.  It's pretty wild to me to think that most of my fellow students I've gotten to know during the last three weeks are going to scatter to all kinds of places all over the world - I mean, obviously that's what was going to happen, but something about today made it more real somehow.  Interesting stuff!

(This post written while listening to Duran Duran Rio.)