From the Desk of an Intern: No AC in DC

My internship at the American Scholar began with an end. Two ends, in fact. On my first day with the literary journal, there was an office retirement party thrown for the two senior editors who were leaving by the end of June. People congregated around the catered buffet and chuckled into their glasses of champagne. Smartly dressed men and women from the executive committee of Phi Beta Kappa revolved around the room. The low hum of smalltalk eventually dissapated when Bob Wilson, the Editor-in-Chief and my boss, stood up to give a glowing speech about the combined 70 years Jeanie and Sandra had put into the Scholar. Everyone applauded, and a few coughed to hide their sentimentality.

I felt like an intruder.

Despite the fact that everyone was friendly and open, I felt like I was impeding upon everyone's intimate and vulnerable moment. Amid tears and bittersweet smiles, nearly everyone extended their hand to me, curious about this strange girl nearly 20 years younger than most of them. I became very aware of the juxtaposition between the farwell of two women everyone knew quite well, and the introduction of this nervous sweaty intern.

My anxiety and sweatiness hadn't worn off from that morning, when I had scrambled into the office half an hour late, getting lost in the whirling streets of D.C. in 95 degree weather. My boss, worried, told the men working at the Argentinian Embassy next door to keep an eye out for me. During the rest of the day, the A.C. hadn't been functional either. I must have been quite an interesting conglomeration of bodily functions to see and smell. Thankfully, no one seemed to noticed, or were at least polite enough not to mention it.

After that interesting start to the week, I was thrown head-first into the interning life. My boss assigned me two research projects and as the week worn on, I learned bits and pieces of information about the filing and organizing work I would eventually be doing. If I did everything I needed, there was even a possibility I would get to read submissions and give input about them. My heart skipped a beat at that last part--me, a lowly intern, would actually be able to give my opinion of official submissions by professors and lawyers and professional writers from all over the world? My thoughts would, if only marginally, be taken seriously?

That's when I knew I had the coolest internship out there.