Silence -- Tishina

The recent blog silence is generally due to two factors:

Factor the first -- not a whole lot going on. Jack has been under the weather recently. Very crabby and a bit feverish. We figure it may be due to the two new teeth coming in on the bottom. He's not sleeping well, and so neither are we. My parents were in residence this weekend, and the 4 of us (sans Jack, who stayed home with a babysitter for the first time) went to see Phantom of the Opera at the Kennedy Center. A good family friend played the lead female role, which was very cool to see. She's got a voice on her too.

Factor the second -- Tomorrow is my Russian exam, hence the bilingual title above. I initially was to study Russian until mid-September. Then, owing to a staff shortage and other exigencies, we moved up our departure and I was to take the exam the end of August. Now, in response to the problems with passport application delays, I, along with many of my colleagues at FSI, have been drafted into service to work through the 2.5MM application backlog. So I'm testing tomorrow and starting 3 weeks of adjudicating passport applications 9 hours a day, 6 days a week, on Monday. Needless to say, I would like the additional 7 weeks of language training, but I think I'll do fine on the test tomorrow.

Tomorrow by 3:00 pm I should know whether I am, indeed, proficient in Russian.