State Intern Continued

I really can't believe that it is already May. I have seen other interns in my bureau come and go and I am still here. A lot has been going on, meetings with State and USAID, attending hearings for House Foreign Affairs, Senate Foreign Relations etc. It has been a great experience and since my last post I have done a lot, much of which I can't really discuss in detail, explaining the frequency of my posts. There was a nuclear summit here, causing panic on the metro system, and there was also a volcano in Iceland that grounded a lot of diplomatic flights that had been planned. I finally got to see Lizzy and Sara too!

At State, I have been doing lots of research as usual, I helped my bureaus Green Team organize a park clean-up to improve the neighborhood, and make their offices more green. Also as an intern you pretty much get volunteered for everything..so I helped with a Model UN Conference that was being held at State. It was really interesting, there were high schoolers, and even middle schoolers pretending to represent countries in UNGA. They even had remarks from the A/S of my bureau which covers all the international organizations. I realize how great it is to have the government immediately around, I wish that I would have been introduced to diplomacy at such a young age. I did meet some students though, that had lived in Washington their whole lives and have never been the U.S. Capitol building which is hard to believe.

Speaking of the Capitol, I am going to add a new chapter to my residency starting next week, I'll be working for a Senator on the hill. Hopefully I will be working with her senior foreign affairs staffer, but I am interested in seeing how politics works on that side of town. State doesn't report to any sort of constituency, so the actions of the employees are much different in a personal office of a senator. I also do not know my way around the Capitol building, and the Senate office buildings, so that will be interesting to learn. I was told there will be up to 30 interns in the office which is a little weird to me who has been in this office with two interns. But we will see how it goes, I will report back on that later.