Indispensible Intern

I’m such an intern. If you need any smattering of random tasks done, ever, just call on me. Today, we went to an elementary school in Tooting to hold a Veterans’ Day event. I had previously made these activity sheets and briefed Sadiq on his speech. At the event, I helped arrange food, mix juice, and other set-up tasks. All of that was normal. I happened to notice a piano in the room where we were though, and went to tinker a little. Leah, the office worker in charge of the event, then said “that’s a great idea! Why don’t you play background music while people are arriving? That’ll make it really nice!” So I played the handful of pieces I still have memorized, improvised on “God Save the Queen” for a little while, and enjoyed myself. Then, Leah realized she had forgotten her camera, so she came running over to me to ask if I happened to still have mine. Since it’s always in my purse, I did, and thus rescued her PR shots for the next newsletter. By the end of the highly successful event I was convinced that yearbook editor definitely deserves to still be on a resume, and maybe I should consider adding pianist as a line somewhere. When I came to parliament, those weren’t really two skills I expected to be using in the line of duty.

The best part of the event was watching how much Sadiq loves kids. He effortlessly communicated with and teased them on their level, and they all seemed a bit in awe. It probably helps that he has elementary school aged children, but it was nice to see that he genuinely enjoyed being there; it wasn’t just some random event for political gain.

This evening, instead of working on my paper, I decided to go venture down the street to the BYU Centre. That was a blast! I got invited to go on one of their field trips tomorrow morning, and I met lots of people, and I actually ended up taking a dozen girls down to Parliament, Westminster Abbey, and Buckingham Palace where we took pictures of it all prettily illuminated. They’ve only been in the country for two days, and were acting very touristy – I was almost embarrassed by it. I’m still obviously American but I’m not perceived as a “tourist” in the streets any longer. People thought, since I was still in work clothes, that I was their tour guide. In any case, spending an evening with Mormons was delightful.