The things I do for my country

So America Week was a success. I got another chance to see a performance by a great NGO, Rupantar--which spreads important public service messages using song, dance, and painted scrolls, so the songs can be understood by the blind, deaf, or illiterate. They always look very colorful too:


But during this musical performance and others over the last week, I was faced with one of the truly most difficult things about the Foreign Service: the diplomat head bob.

I tend to be a very passive audience member. I don't naturally have a lot of rhythm (James will vouch for this fact), so I usually just sit still and soak things in during musical performances. But when you are a diplomat sitting in the front row, you feel like you have to go one step further than just not looking bored--you have to look positively engaged and thrilled to be sitting in that audience.

So I start to feel like my normal mode of listening doesn't properly convey how diplomatically thrilled I am. At which point I start to engage in the dreaded diplomat head bob--attempting to bob my head in rhythm (NOT EASY) to show how engaged I am. It sounds like I am trying to fool people, but the truth is, I was already enjoying the performance--I just felt the need to try really hard to share that fact with others.

Foreign Service Officers: we live in tough places, we face hardship and danger, and we bob our heads vigorously, whether we are rhythmically-inclined or not--ALL FOR AMERICA.