Well, it's approximately the 1 year mark for a few different things in my life: In mid-October last year I finally moved into my apartment after 3 months in a hotel; in mid-November, I received my car (one day before Thanksgiving!); approximately a year ago I started working in American Citizen Services.

After one year, Caracas really feels like home in many ways. It's hard to think that in less than a year I'll be uprooting and moving everything elsewhere. At this time next year, I'll likely be living in Washington, DC, studying Hindi. I have settled into my apartment here pretty comfortably, and am looking forward to visits from friends and family over the next few months. Just this month, I have moved back into the visas section of the embassy, after spending about a year in ACS.

It's a significant change in job duties and environment. Instead of being one of 2 or 3 officers in ACS, I'm one of 14 in Non-immigrant visas (NIV), and start interviewing visa applicants at 7:30 each morning, and finish somewhere between 3 and 4 each day. We generally do an average of 80-110 interviews per day per officer. In many ways it's more stressful because the work is non-stop and we must be suspicious of people all day long. In other ways, I enjoy having more camaraderie with a larger section of co-workers. I really enjoy my coworkers, both American and Venezuelan, and work is largely enjoyable, despite the stresses that it involves.

Recently, I attended the Marine Ball, the 236th birthday of the Marine Corps. Most U.S.embassies around the world are guarded the Marine Security Guard (MSG). For a marine, it's an unusual but prestigious assignment to be posted in an embassy msg position. US Embassy Caracas' MSG consists of 8 marines. Besides manning "post 1" (the main entrance of the embassy) they maintain a 24-hour guard of the embassy, watch out for security violations (classified information not locked up at the end of the day). While their mission is to protect the embassy and the classified information within its walls, they also run weekly drills that affect the entire embassy (fire drills, bomb drills, intruder drills, etc.). The marine ball takes place worldwide annually to celebrate the marine corps existence and to recognize our appreciation for their service.

I also recently took a cross-country trip with several friends to a picturesque city called Merida, known for its mountains and beautiful scenery. We had a lot of fun paragliding, driving through the mountains, and being outside the city.