In which I fall madly in love

....with my internship that is.  Yes, I've found my true calling in life.  That is, if it doesn't work out with Prince Harry.  I mean, being royalty wins any day, and he does like the blonde ladies.

Anyway,  I am the International Relations Intern for the Communication, International Relations and Development department at the National Institute for Sport, Expertise, and Performance (INSEP).  Yeah, it looks pretty sweet in my email signature.  I have a desk, a phone, tape, and a spinny chair.  I have officially entered the working world and it feels goooooooood baby.

Basically, I work at the Olympic Training Center in Paris.  Their facilities rival the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs.  I'm doing my dream job, but in French!

I can't really say what my major duties are, since on any given day I could be working on a hundred different things.  So far I've written reports, done research on foreign delegations, and prepared fact sheets for our people who go on international missions.  I also go on tours with groups, keep records of some financial stuff, and translate official documents to English.  I have real responsibilities, which is more than I can say for some of the people in my program (sorry all you coffee makers!).  Plus, my boss is 24, and is like really concerned that he's going to give me something boring or that I'm not enjoying my time.  I think I convinced him I like interning there when he had to tell me to go home three times on a Friday because I didn't want to stop working.

Oh yeah, and then there's the fact that I work all day with Olympians hanging around.  My boss is the 2010 men's gymnastics world champ.  He's on Google.

This is my third week of six, and I started to get some more responsibility this week.  I am going to be the one dealing with some upcoming foreign delegations that are visiting.  I also found out that this huge update to one of our reference booklets that I've been working on is going to be distributed with MY NAME on it!  Like, people in the government and various Olympic committees are going to get this.  I'll forever be in their archives, so they can't forget me.  As if anyone could.

Jonathan Horton?

An unexpected perk of this job is that I get to feel like a spy pretty much every day.  There is way more political intrigue and backstabbing than I would have thought.  I really can't go into any more detail than that.  And I'm not joking, I had to get security clearance at work.  Isn't that cool??!

Can't you just feel the gold medals?

So long story short, life is better than good and I'm going to Deutschland this weekend.

Aufwiedersehen!