This past week I went to my first briefing. Briefings are plentiful and usually open to anyone who happens to hear about them, so it's not as if I received classified information or anything. Nonetheless briefings are packed with info that I wouldn't normally have access to, and therefore I have fallen in love with them. I told my Staff Assisstant that I'd go to any briefing, and was immediately reminded to think twice before admitting to liking anything lest I get stuck doing it forever. Wise words which I did not heed. Luckily every briefing I've attended thus far has been thoroughly interesting, but eventually my strategy is going to backfire. I don't really listen to what briefings are about before volunteering to go - a tendency which led to the following conversation:

Staff Assisstant: Ok someone needs to go to a briefing for the Health LA. Whoever is interested in the topic can take it.

Me(raising my hand like I think I'm in school or something): Ohme oh me oh me!

Staff Assisstant: ...it's about frog mating habits in the tropics and their relation to 18th century colonial tax code...

Me: OH ME I SAID ME I SAID ME!

Staff Assisstant: ...and you'll be required to transcribe the proceedings word for word and do additional research on insect populations that serve as frog food....

Me: oh I love that topic! It's my favorite, I just can't wait to g---

exasperated Staff Assisstant: There is no possible way you are listening to me Meghan! No one likes these things, it is inhuman and and you are STILL not listening to me! So what do you have to say for yourself?

Me: So I can go?

(Staff Assistant throws briefing announcement at me and curls up in fetal position under her desk)

I need to take a moment here to recognize the incredible tolerance and dedication of Staff Assistants everywhere. Their pay is pathetic, they work until they don't remember why they pay for an apartment, and they are graced, day in and day out, with the presence of multiple interns not unlike myself. Moment of silence, folks.

I may have taken a few liberties with that conversation, but trust me, the truth is not far off. All of this is by way of saying that I went to a briefing on the new Human Rights Commission the UN is trying to create, and I liked it.

This is not to say I understood what was going on. They asked for questions at the end and I couldn't bring myself to ask the only question I could muster up - "Uh, once more from the beginning guys?"

This is because briefings are designed to make you feel like a small silly girl. Everyone there knows more than you do, and they smell fear, so don't even pretend you know what you're talking about. Luckily, I get to stay quiet and soak up information most of the time, so there is little chance for me to embarass myself. Even better news - I can go as much as I want! Scores of briefing notices come to the office every day, and my supervisor is very supportive of my ridiculous need to go to everything. I am lucky.

So ends my ode to briefings. More substantive things next time, I promise.