Bidding Update #1

The update is that there is NO UPDATE.  I’m freakin’ going insane here people.  Everyday I get up expecting that we’ll start seeing changes to the list and every day it’s the exact same list.  And as with many bureaucracies, information can be hard to come by… which basically means you don’t know how long you’ll be waiting for and what the hold up is.  I’m a little ball of stress, I tell you!

If you’ll remember back to my first post about the bidding timeline, you’ll recall that there were 4 key dates:

1. Receive list on August 1 (this did actually happen on time)
2. Watch the list narrow as those ahead of us in line pick their assignments (we were supposed to start seeing these drop off late last week but there’s been no changes thus far)
3. Submit our bids (will depend on when the list actually gets narrowed, which it will)
4. Receive our assignment (first week of November)

The piece that I neglected to factor in was my medical clearance.  I consider my arthritis a non-issue because it’s easily managed with a few pills and I haven’t had a flare-up since I was 18.  The State Department views it a bit more seriously and has given me a class 2 clearance, meaning that I am limited in where I can go in the world.  Prior to each bidding period we’ve submitted a list of preliminary posts that we plan to bid on.  Usually it’s been no problem.  This time, I’m not so sure.

We submitted 8 this round so far.  We only have heard back on 2 and both came back rejected.  The part that makes me nervous is that these were both relatively large cities, which doesn’t bode so well for the other 6 (some of which were even smaller).

Can you see why I’m stressed now?  We have this nice list of options at the moment but I know that by the time we submit our bids (after the preferential bidders have selected and Med has narrowed our choices) there may not actually be many places left that we feel excited about bidding on.

I am trying to remind myself that things tend to work out in the long run AND what often appears to be a bad option ends up being people’s favorite tours.  So there’s that to keep in mind.  I just wish someone could fast-forward time and tell me where we’re going.  I always do better once I have information.  It’s when it’s all ambiguous that I get anxious and start making up stories about the horrible things that may happen…

On tap tomorrow: yoga and a massage to get my anxiety in check.  Let’s hope vacation sufficiently distracts me as well.

Stupid bidding.  I’m done wasting energy on you.