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.

Early Morning

It's about 5 in the morning here. I have been working on my papers all day everyday this week. We have had people camped out at our house in and out for the past few days. Last night, Sandenga, Holly and Alexandra were here until 2 am or so, tonight Sandenga is here. Rob's around here somewhere; sometimes he'll come out of his room and microwave a waffle. Last night I went to bed at around 6, and got up a little after noon today. I have all of Saturday and all of Sunday, and will probably just stay up into Monday morning and turn my papers in then (they are due at 3 pm but I have to go print everything out somewhere, and I am guessing they'll be as good as they're gonna be by Monday morning).

I got an internship offered to me today. I will be working for an NGO (Non Governmental Organization) called COPURA which puts on conferences, mostly about border security and information security in a European context. It'll be my job to call members of the European Parliament and European Commission to try to get them to come, I think. It sounds like I will meet a lot more highrollers in the Brussels scene. It's a small office, the 3 employees are German, and the office is about a 4 minute walk from my house, luckily for me. It's unpaid, but it has the chance to become paid after 3 months, if we're all digging it.

Well, that's what's going on with me. My clothes stink and my hands hurt from typing and there are birds chirping, so I think it's time to go to bed for awhile.