The Resurrection Will Be Televised

Forget the Revolution.  It won’t be televised.  The Resurrection of Christ will.  Well, Easter will be.  Hundreds of channels will be broadcasting Easter services on April 12, 2009, from Baptist, Episcopalian, Catholic, and other churches.  April 19, 2009, though, is Pascha, Orthodox Easter.  Leading up to that, though, we bring you the following information:

GOTelecom in association with FAITH, presents “Pascha — The Resurrection of Christ” coming to your local ABC affiliate this April.  The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North America is responsible for this.  I can’t wait.

About the show: http://www.goarch.org/special/paschaabc

Airing dates/times: http://www.goarch.org/special/paschaabc/network-coverage

Enjoy!

Red Wolf

In Pursuit of Foreign Service

In my search for work, I have looked a lot of different places.  One place I’m going to work real hard to work for is the U.S. Department of State as a Foreign Service Officer.  I’ll give a nutshell of what a Foreign Service Officer (FSO) is and how one become one in a little bit.  The really important parts of this, though, are that you get to see new places, meet new people, and explore the world with a diplomatic passport.  That’s right, a diplomatic passport.  There’s a whole list of benefits that go along with being a FSO, but it’s really hard to get to.

So, what is a FSO anyway?

FSOs are the people who work in the embassies who manage the embassy; work with people on lost passports, new visas, and other consular matters; promote trade with US companies in foreign countries; inform people and governments of other countries on US values and policies; help advise the ambassador and other US dignitaries on the goings-on in a country to help dictate policy; and so much more.  With that, there are five FSO tracks: Management, Consular, Economic, Public Diplomacy, and Political.  Each FSO is considered a US Diplomat with all the rights and privileges thereof.  FSOs are, of course, US Government employees and receive all the benefits that implies, including pension, medical, cost of living adjustment (which is special for FSOs), and so on.  See the appropriate page on State’s site for more info.

Okay, so how does someone become on?

This is a basic distillation of the page “Becoming a Foreign Officer.”  Basically, you pick a career path, then register for the Foreign Service Officer Test.  The registration for the FSOT is essentially the job application.  You fill out pretty the same information you would if you were applying for any other job.  You’ll get an e-mail that tells you you’re registered and about when you’ll get an e-mail for when you can reserve a seat for the exam.  The FSOT is administered by ACT, the same guys who write the university entrance exam of the same name.  Once you take the exam, you send in a written narrative.  A few months later, you find out if you’ve passed to this point, and then you go to an oral assessment.  If you pass that, it’s on to medical and security screenings.  Past that, you’re pretty well in, and ready for orientation, training, and assignment (or so the web site leads one to believe).  Oh, and, most important, you MUST be a US citizen to be a FSO.

More about the test.

The rough guess out there is that 30% pass the FSOT, and 10% pass the Oral Assessment.  For those that are fuzzy with statistics, that’s a 3% total pass rate.  Yikes!  I’ve done some reading, and there are some really good resources for studying out there.  ACT offers a study guide for $23 on their web site.  Test Prep Review offers a practice test series for tons of different tests, including FSOT.  The best advice I’ve heard is to be well read.  There are some magazines, journals, and newspapers that could be invaluable.  Standard advice is to check out the print versions, as well as any RSS feeds or Podcasts available.  Below is a list of publications with any web stie links I can come up with.

• Foreign Affairs — http://www.foreignaffairs.org/
• Foreign Policy — http://www.foreignpolicy.com/
• U.S. News & World Report — http://www.usnews.com/
• Newsweek — http://www.newsweek.com/
• Council on Foreign Relations — http://www.cfr.org/
• The Economist — http://www.economist.com/
• BBC World News — http://www.bbc.co.uk/
• The New York Times — http://www.nytimes.com/
• Washington Post — http://www.washingtonpost.com/
• Reuters News Service — http://www.reuters.com/
• St. Petersburg Times (Russia) — http://www.sptimes.ru/
• The Guardian — http://www.guardian.co.uk/
• Al Jazeera (English) — http://english.aljazeera.net/
• Deutsche Welle — http://www.dw-world.de/
• USA Today — http://www.usatoday.com/
• The Associated Press — http://www.ap.org/
• Local newspapers — Check the papers for URLs.

And there are many more news sources to explore.  While the others cover the world, the local papers will help keep you informed on local news and events.  It’s important to get your news from more than one source so that you can get a full view of the situation.  Above lists independent, US, UK, Germany, Russia, and Arab news sources as well as international opinion sources.

So, that’s what I’ve got, and that’s what I know.  Hopefully, I can pass the exam, narratives, and assessment.  And, now, for a late warning.  If you’re looking for something by someone who knows what they’re doing, you came to the wrong place.  On the other hand, why not see if we can work this through together?

Cheers,

Red Wolf.

A Poem / Song

The Grand Masquerade

We’re having a big party, and you’re all invited
The doctor, the dentist, the teacher, the preacher,
Even the old Wal-Mart greeter;
Your roommate from college, your sweetheart from high school,
That guy you smoked hash with out by the public pool;
Everyone’s coming, the presidents, too.
Come dressed to the nines, mask over your true face,
And join us in the dance, the Grand Masquerade.

CHORUS:
We’ll dance and we’ll sing,
Pretend everything’s fine.
See no war, no strife,
No sin, no lying.
No telling who’s who,
True memories will fade,
When you come to dance
In the Grand Masquerade

The preacher, he smiles, drinking under his mask.
His despair is great in the loss of his faith.
The doctor’s kind face hides his darkest sin:
The poor man he didn’t cure, ’cause there’s no money in them.
We all have something to hide behind our faces
But this crowd could put you through your paces.
Charles Hart and Richard Stilgoe said it right
Come join the paper-faced parade tonight!

CHORUS

This big ball is not some one-night-only,
But it’ll leave you bereft and lonely.
You’ll see a face for everyone you know
And that will be the face they want to show.
No knowing your friends have daggers on their lips
And loose them behind you after a few sips.
You know you already follow us in the dance,
So why do you try to catch a second glance?

CHORUS

Work

I need a job, just like about 10% of the population of the United States.  What a time to be looking for work!  It doesn’t matter what kind of work you’re looking for, there are jobs out there to be had, you just have to look.  Even among massive layoffs we can find jobs.  I’ve got just a few suggestions below, and some links.

Temp Work

Most of us hear the words “temp agency” and we think it’s the bottom of the barrel.  In reality, there are jobs you can only get into if you go through a temp agency.  Some executive class jobs are that way.  Here’s a short list of temp agencies and their specialties.  You might want to check the phone directory for others in your area.  The ones I’m listing are in Knox and Blount Counties in Tennessee.  Information is taken from YellowPages.com.   One of the nice things about YellowPages.com is that they link to web sites.

Kelly Services
http://www.kellyservices.us/
25 Categories in the professional, service, and labor.
Locations across the US

Manpower
http://us.manpower.com/
8 Categories:  Administrative, IT, Scientific, Industrial, Engineering, Business Professional, Contact Center, and Finance
Locations across the US.  Web site has an office locator.

Employbridge
http://www.employbridge.net/
Parent company of several other employment agencies.

Others to look into:  AppleOne, Snelling (Knoxville Office), AeroTek, and Randstad.

Federal Government

If you’re looking for a career with benefits to kill for, look no further than the United States Government.  Most US Government agencies require US citizenship, but not all jobs require it.  The following web sites are US Government web sites where jobs can be found.  Some agencies and bureaus post on internet job sites.  More on those later.  While USAJOBS (see below) is the main place to go, it’s a little like Monster or HotJobs in that you upload information, but may have to repeat it on the employer’s own application web site.

USA.GOV — http://www.usa.gov/
This web site is more of a generalized site, but there is a lot of good information on the site concerning the government.  It’s not a bad place to look before deciding if you want to look further into what the government has to offer.

USAJOBS.com — http://www.usajobs.com/
This is the Office of Personnel Management’s main web site.  Sounds like it’s just for one office, but the Office of Personnel Management is THE centralized source for government employment.  If there’s a job opening in almost any agency, bureau, or office, it’s on this web site.  The exceptions are many of the Intelligence Community members (National Security Agency, CIA, and so on).  If you want to work for the National Park Service, the US Army as a civilian, or any of more than 100 others, then this is the web site you want to visit.  The government hires for, almost literally, everything.

Intelligence Community — http://www.intelligence.gov/3place.shtml
The IC web site doesn’t have job postings, but it does have links to IC members’ web sites and their employment pages.  The IC includes the CIA, NSA, FBI, and several others.

Job Search Web Sites

Job search web sites are hot stuff, and semi-old news.  Typically, the way it works is that you upload a resume that prospective employers can search.  In addition, you can search job listings to see what’s available.  I only know of two.  If anyone who manages to read this knows of other, please post them in the comments.

HotJobs — http://hotjobs.yahoo.com/
That’s right, Yahoo! bought out HotJobs some time ago.  Still great.

Monster — http://www.monster.com/
The other biggie.  Worth the time.

Classifieds & Want Ads

These might seem old and outdated, but they really can’t be beat for local work.  Check the printed newspaper as well as their web sites.  Don’t miss out on the classifieds many local TV stations list.  Each of the Big-4’s (FOX, ABC, CBS, and NBC) local affiliates’ web sites tend to have local(-ish) job listings.  (I say local-ish because the broadcast range of Knoxville’s affiliates span into Southeastern Kentucky and the panhandle counties of Virginia, but they don’t have any listings for those areas.)  Also, check out Craigslist.  Craigslist has more than just job listings, but the key here is work.

Other Options

Do you have a favorite place to shop or eat or go out for drinks?  Is there some place you’ve looked at and thought, “I think it’d be fun to work there”?  There are all kinds of places that may be hiring.  Sure, things are tough all over, but you can’t know unless you try.  Try asking for a manager or the owner (depending on the size of the place) and see if they’re looking for anyone.  Put a resume and application on file anyway.  It really can’t hurt.  And, you never know, you may get a call!

That’s just my tuppence worth.  Anything anyone else has, please send them in the comments.

Food for Thought

I ask for your prayers.  Not for myself, but for a man I met today; Clarence Fox.  Pray for shelter, food, long life, health, peace, salvation, visitation, and furtherance in all good things to come.  The following is not a brag.  Not in the least.  Merely my story for the day.

I had a rough night, and slept maybe 2 hours.  I tried to take a nap this morning between classes, but couldn’t get to sleep then, either.  So, I walked from the International House at UT to the Cumberland Ave. Strip to hunt up some food.  This is normally not a problem, but I’m tired, cranky, and hungry.  Not a combination to provide easy answers.  I wanted one thing, decided it was too far, and went for something else.  Anyway, as I pass McDonald’s, a guy in a knit stocking cap and dirty clothes and jacket came up to me.  He said something like, “Excuse me.  Hey, I’ve got this watch here.  It’s a nice watch.  Can I sell it ot you to get some food?”  I stumbled through something about not having any cash, but I’d be willing to buy him lunch.  We went over to McAlister’s.  I told him to get what he wanted, and finally got him to own up to wanting coffee and the meatloaf.  We sat and talked, and he told me he was hitchhiking from Richmond, VA, to somewhere in Florida.  He talked about travelling by hitching, how he was trying to get to the truck stops at Watt Rd., though he didn’t know that, just that they were about 30 miles away.  I told him to get some cash and get the bus to Farragut.  I have some blank (lined) note cards in my backpack.  (I was using them to write down the list of people’s names to include in my prayers.  That’s a project that will take forever.)  I drew a cross on one and wrote the words “Orthodox Church” on it and told him that, if he really wanted to pay me back, to look for that kind of church and that kind of cross.  One that looks kinda like this:

He asked if he went there that he’d find help.  I said that he would, hoping that he really would.  I finished, whished him well, and went off to class (which I am sitting outside of, waiting to go in).
I pray he gets where he’s going.  Please, pray for him, too.

Peace,

Red Wolf

“I’ve been looking for
That heart I’ve never known
Searching for someone to sing me
Sweetly home
Sweetly home”
– “Nathaniel Miles” by Justin Mathews