Internship

I had my second day at my internship today. Yesterday I pretty much got my proverbial ass handed to me as I struggled with the reality of waking up for work at 9 am (I know, I know). My new boss was speaking to me in acronyms until he noticed my eyes glazing over and he looked at me and asked "Do you want a coffee?" "Ah, yes please" was all I could come up with. Luckily they have the big industrial coffee maker where you pour whole coffee beans in one side and water in the other, and out comes fresh espresso. It makes a terrible racket, but that is the price of quality these days.

Today was much better. As the office native English speaker (all of my coworkers are German nationals), I have been charged with proofreading all correspondence, and today I was given the assignment of writing an invitation to our little security shindig to a British member of the European parliament. Then I made some calls to various hotel bars to get our post-conference shindig together. All part of my shindig-related duties. Since I am handed memos in German to research, I am learning the language. That and the fact that some joker set my laptop to German. (What the hell is "das inbox?") Oh well. I adapt and react.

Honestly, if you asked me one year ago "Paul, where would you ideally like to be in a year?", I would have said "Sitting outside on a sunny evening, drinking Belgian beer and arguing Turkish foreign policy with Germans." And that's where I just got back from. I just want to say thank you to everyone who made this experience possible. I know that this can't last forever. I know that one day I will wake up and it will all be over. But I'm having the time of my life, and I'm old enough to recognize that. And it wasn't possible without the help of a lot of people and I tear up when I think about you all.