For me day starts at 10 or 10:30 a.m. You may say it’s too late. I’d agree you if you asked the same when I started internship at March while being under the impression of making internship at the governmental structure responsible for foreign affairs. But after a week I understood that staff is late almost always even they have to start their working day at 9:00.

Sometimes there is nobody except a few people in the department when I come, and there is nothing to worry about because nobody will express dissatisfaction with an intern (me) just because I’m at the right place – my office-table – working with documents.

As we (interns) are not specialists yet we are doing boring office work: printing, copying, maximum we can be allowed to do is translating texts from foreign languages to Uzbek and Russian or vise versa and be “MFA internal post officer” to run between our department and the last, the sixth, floor where the apparatus of the Minister is located. That’s, by the way, is the happiest and most honorable part of internship when you can see the people supposed to run the foreign policy of the republic!

Processing documentation and archiving them is a daily routine interns face with and that is the work prepared every year for upcoming internship period – from March to mid-May.

It’s obvious that our internship is aimed, firstly, to gain skills and knowledge to continue the research of our bachelor’s thesis. Others (including me) are getting preparations for future MA degree programs which ask for extra time and efforts. However, when I asked to give me some time in the evening to take a materials from Brutish Council, my internship supervisor refused by saying “It’s not your academic university where you can use reasons to leave during lectures. That’s the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. If you need to leave you should ask for the permission of the head of department in a written form.”.

And, of course, as other interns I’m (or I was?) interested in making career at this foreign policy governmental structure. After finding out the salary rates (130 000 UZS) and perspectives (work for at least 2-3 years to be assigned to the diplomatic post somewhere which depends on your relatives, but not on talent, knowledge and skills) I decided not to fall into dreams of my future as a diplomat but to accept the realities.

Because I don’t wanna be among those who come at 8 o’clock in the morning and work till 9-10 in the evening, and have salary of 100 $ per month while having a family which is in need of having good living conditions. And that is also a reality existing within MFA workers. Even we think that every governmental worker is a rich person. It’s not a fact.

My intern working day ends at 6 p.m.