The Commissary = Heaven

Staff members at the UN have access to the Commissary, which allows them to order practically anything in the entire friggin' world at reduced prices. Literally everything. Especially American foods. Unfortunately, interns do not have access to the Commissary. However, my awesome roommate Martin has a connection and we got the hook up on some Commissary goods. We spent most our meager summer stipends on a Commissary spree to get our American food/Belgian beer/expensive perfume fix. We scored tortilla chips, salsa, some Dolce and Gabbana perfume, and bottles and bottles of Chimay. Thanks for making my summer amazing, Commissary.
At work today, I got the chance to help out on some interesting, substantive projects. [Well, let's be honest: those substantive projects were prefaced by a solid two hours of putting together binders for a counterterrorism conference. Those binders did look pretty fly, though.] One of the projects involved putting together a database of all the written constitutions of the world, which required me to 1) locate and 2) read through North Korea's constitution. Here's my favorite line from the preamble:

"Comrade Kim Il Sung was a genius ideological theoretician and a genius art leader, an ever-victorious, iron-willed brilliant commander, a great revolutionary and politician, and a great human being. Comrade Kim Il Sung 's great idea and achievements in leadership are the eternal treasures of the nation and a fundamental guarantee for the prosperity and efflorescence of the DPRK."

And it only gets better from there.

It's Going Down

Early this morning, North Korea announced it had conducted its second nuclear test. Just before the announcement was made, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) - organizations that are both housed at UN Vienna - detected the test.

According to my roommate, who works with CTBTO, the place is like a "war room" right now. An emergency meeting among all delegations to the IAEA and CTBTO, as well as all Security Council members, has been called. I hear Obama is heated. Go figure.