At the parliament of men (women)

I was in 5th grade when I made a diorama of the United Nations headquarters. It was made out of illustration board held together by elmer's glue and cut-out paper flags glued on toothpicks. I did not have the dream of working for the UN then. All I wanted was to impress my history teacher and receive a grade of 90% for the project. Who would've thought that nineteen years later I would be walking the halls and corridors of the very buildings I modeled my diaroma project after? Well, my history teacher certainly did not.

"250 out of 5000. That's the odds of getting accepted to do internship at the UN headquarters," exclaims the assistant secretary-general as she welcomes the interns in the orientation program. I guess I was lucky to have a supervisor who knows someone from the inside. Although the statistics may seem overwhelming, it was some other thing that struck me the most in the welcome ceremony. Even at the start of the orientation we were already referred to as future diplomats. The heck, I never really imagined myself becoming a diplomat. All I wished for was to become a policy analyst. That's all. Environmental policy analysis and none of the international relations stuff! I never had the skills of playing with politically-correct words anyway. Nonetheless, here I am amongst the company of the world's established and would-be diplomats. I wonder where this brief stint at the parliament of men (women) would take me. Only time will tell ... approximately five years from now.





To my 5th grade history teacher, I think I deserve 100%.