Week 3:
Let’s Get Down to Business

June 26, 2016

As my first real week at the Embassy draws to a close, I can’t help but look back and marvel that I live in this beautiful city, with this incredible opportunity, and that I get to come back to Cornell and share it with the campus. I can think of many people for whom an experience like this may be worthwhile, and I hope that my experience of going through the application and clearance process can help others down the road. While a pain at the time, the rewards are already well worth it. Due to the 4 day weekend, I’ve still not had a full 5 day week here at the Embassy, but in the past 4 days, I’ve already done so much.

In Consular, I’m still working on the long term projects that I discussed last week. I’m spending my time searching for new emergency contacts for the Embassy, drafting up new example forms for the ACS services, and working to update the software and display for the screens in the waiting room for ACS and Visa services. On top of that, I’m helping to work on the Fourth of July party for the Embassy, which has taken up a lot of my time. As I previously said, I’ve been helping coordinate the sponsors, and that has recently entailed me compiling the logos and making sure they’re in the right format for the poster. Sounds like a simple enough task, right? That’s where you’d be wrong; it’s taken many hours of my week to work on it, and is certainly not as simple as I initially thought. However, I feel that I’ve done a pretty good job getting everything together, and I cannot wait to see the payoff. This celebration is going to be incredible, and I’m looking forward to being a part of it.

It’s been interesting having this first work week where I got into the nitty gritty details of my projects. I’m not naïve; I know that not all work is fun and that there are menial tasks that need to be done. I also know that as an intern, I’m on the low end of the totem pole, and that oftentimes those tasks will fall to me. Now that I’m on the other side of things, I can see how these tasks are pieced together to create a cohesive system. Yes, this logo compilation task is not high profile work, but it’s important work: without me doing this, either it wouldn’t get done, or someone else would have to do it. If it didn’t get done, then we wouldn’t have sponsors for the event, in which case we wouldn’t have the event at all! If someone else was to do it, such as one of the FSOs on the staff, this work would be detracting from them being able to do their jobs, which entail protecting American citizens and making sure that people are safely entering and leaving our country. So being an intern with State isn’t all networking and getting cool projects and changing the world, but its important work, and learning about this work is a much better representation of what a career in government would be like.

One of the more incredible things that has happened this week is that I got to meet Dr. Jill Biden during her visit to Argentina. She is traveling around South America, going to a variety of schools and towns, but she spent a night in Buenos Aires to come to the Ambassador’s residence, to meet local authorities on education, and to speak on Argentina’s Friends of Fulbright program, an opportunity created by Ambassador Mamet and the staff both here and in Washington. With Friends of Fulbright, Argentine students are able to participate in an exchange program to come to the United States to study Economics, Business, Education or Political Science at an American university. As the first program like this in the world, it’s amazing to have been able to attend, and to hear both the Ambassador and Dr. Biden speak. Also, the food was great, so it was a good use of my Wednesday night.

In terms of my personal life, this week has certainly continued with the theme, as I’ve learned the joys of adulthood. This is the first time I’ve lived away from home in a non-dorm setting, and doing this in Buenos Aires has certainly been eye opening. The Embassy does provide us with housing, and while I have shared pictures previously showing that the apartment is quite nice, more time has revealed a plethora of problems. My closet door fell of its hinge on Tuesday morning, our washing machine doesn’t work, and most importantly, our front door does not fully function. First the plate holding the handle on began to come unscrewed, but as time passed, it slipped more and more, until one night it fell out altogether. With the collaboration of seven friends and the help of the US Marines, we were able to fix it somewhat, however any time we wish to leave our home, we have to push the plate back against the wall, put the door handle back into the door, open the door, and then leave the handle on the coffee table beside the door and close the door from the outside.

Really though, if we’re being honest, the most exciting moment of my week has been to get internet. The installer came for two hours, but it was well worth it to finally be able to FaceTime friends and family and have access to the internet once again. Between recipes for cooking, researching what to do in Argentina, and (most importantly) Netflix, I’m one happy camper.