Friday, July 16, 2010

It's always tease, tease, tease - The Clash

The first round of September invites have gone out.  I didn't get one. This time, I'm #50 on the list (my worst position yet) and invites reached at least #31.  So, at most I was 19 away from an invite.  Not moving in the right direction here.  A few more invites may go out in a second round, but I don't think they'll close a gap of 19.  No September class for me.

I have gotten two non-FSO related offers though.  I recently converted my two-family house into two condos and I put them on the market last Monday.  By last Thursday, I had accepted one offer, and then on Sunday after an open house, I accepted an offer on the other condo.  Both under contract within a week.  So, despite all the horror stories in the news about devastated real estate markets, I had a very good week.  Of course, there are still inspections to do on this 100+ year old house.  I won't consider things safe until the p/s is signed.  If things stay on schedule, they should both be signed by the end of next week.

The plan was to sell my house in anticipation of the offer.  Since home sales typically take a while, I wanted to get the ball rolling, and then when I'd made the June or August classes, I could participate in the home sale from afar, having done all the prep work.  Well, the June and August classes passed me by, but the home sale has stayed on schedule.

This does put me in a great position for my Plan B, which is to get some intensive Spanish training.  It'll be easier for me to concentrate on grammar rules without the worry of covering my mortgage.  

I'll need to put my stuff in storage while I'm gone.  It'll be a bit of a pain to do that, but I have a head start since I've already boxed up and gotten rid of a bunch of stuff in order to stage the house for sale.  I don't have that many things anyway.  Even though I've owned this house for six years, I'm not much of an accumulator.  I don't see an empty space and feel a need to fill it.  Having moved eight times in the eight years before buying my house, I learned to love being lean.  I've spent 15 years in Boston, always thinking I would move within the next two years.  This overdeveloped case of wanderlust has led me to value the idea of being able to move quickly, even if that hasn't been needed.  

If the Spanish thing works out, I'm most likely in line for the February class next year.  There is one more class this year, October, and then a bit of a break until the January class.  I won't have taken the language test by the time the January invites go out (early November), so hopefully I'll pass the Spanish test and make it in February.  

It's a bit of a drag to know that people I passed the OA with will already have been FSOs for a year at that point.   Bad luck with how long my security clearance took.  One month earlier clearance would have meant getting to a-100 a year before I'm hoping for now.  Nothing I can do about that though.