Week 4:
The Struggles of Being an Adult

This week has been a bit crazy, as we’re in the final days before the Fourth of July party. There is so much to get done, and I’m really excited to be here to experience an event like this. The work with sponsors has been interesting, and I have a new appreciation for customer service, as the amount of communication and confusion is astounding. However, it’s been a great experience, and I’m glad to have had it, and to now know that a career dealing in marketing is not in my future.

This upcoming week, I’m going to be more focused on living in Argentina, as the work I did this past week was very similar to what I’ve been doing in previous weeks. As a young adult who has never lived outside of her parents’ house or residence hall, this has certainly been an eye-opening experience. To be honest, I certainly had no idea what I was getting myself into. My lovely roommate has been great, and has helped me more times than I can count with some of the basics of apartment living. I’ve felt pretty naive at times, but there have been some moments of bliss in the void of knowledge I need to learn.

One of my proudest moments has been my cooking of meat: up until this point in my life, I’ve not been a fan of touching raw meat, and have always had someone else do it for me. I know this may sound silly, but my fear of eating under-cooked meat and my ability to pass that task off to someone else has gotten me this far in life, but no more! So, to conquer this fear, I bought myself some ground beef, headed to the kitchen, and got cooking. It was the kind of thing that once I started it, I was okay, but the initial contact was what was difficult. However, my hard work paid off, and as you can see from the photo, the result was some delicious (albeit a bit overcooked) ground beef, which I put in my pasta sauce and enjoyed quite a bit, eating my tagliatelle with lots of oregano and a glass of Malbec.

However, some of the realizations I’ve had have not less fun. I’ve been having some medical issues recently that have been affecting my internship, and have made my experience here much more stressful. It started the second week I was here, and resulted in a visit to the emergency room, where I was told it was just due to nerves and travel. However, after another week of worsening symptoms, I found another doctor, a specialist this time, and they have helped me get an actual diagnosis. What I have going on is not fatal by any means, but it is serious enough to involve multiple doctors appointments and certainly a lot of stress, and I’m very much wishing I was home. The multiple doctors visits have affected my work, I’ve been distracted because of it, and plans to go to Igauzu Falls this weekend with the other interns now doesn’t seem possible. However, there’s always a silver lining to every situation, I’m learning a lot about how to be an adult, and that I’m a lot more competent at “adulting” than I previously thought I was. Looking at the bright side is important.

One thing that I did this week was to accompany one of my supervisors on an ACS case in which an AmCit (American Citizen) was injured abroad, and needed the Embassy’s assistance. While I am not, for obvious reasons, at liberty to discuss the details of the incident, I can talk about my reflections on it, as it was certainly a very hard day. In light of my hospital visits, the reality of a fellow citizen being gravely injured while overseas certainly struck a chord with me. I have traveled quite a bit in my life, yet always with my family or some sort of formal group, so this is completely different. I wanted to have a more independent experience, part of the appeal of this program was that I was able to have such an immersion into the work and personal life of a Foreign Service Officer. On this ACS case, I got to see how the work was relevant outside of the office, and the direct impact this type of job can have when assisting Americans abroad. As an intern, I know that the work that needs to be done as a foreign service officer isn’t always fun or life changing, however, this experience reminded me of the direct impact that my work can have, and how I could see myself doing this kind of thing in the future.