I've been meaning to visit the Australian Embassy for ages, before I left I had an idea of working there in the second half of the year as an intern. Yes, I know this is a photo of the Canadian Embassy, but the guards at the front of the Australian Embassy wouldn't let me take a photo. I should have just taken one without asking, but I wouldn't put it past Chinese guards to confiscate my camera or something. But anyway, I actually got to meet someone in the Australian Embassy, Clayton, and he showed me around and told me about what it takes to be a diplomat.
Which is quite a lot, as it turns out. The average age of entry into DFAT is 26 or 27, and the people who get accepted have an impressive amount of experience, so that gave me some good perspective for the future. I am definitely going to need to go back to Uni and study a further degree, a Bachelor of Arts really isn't enough. I thought that's what I would do anyway, but I still don't know what that next degree would be. But back to the visit, I got in touch with Clayton through one of Dad's patients, David, who used to be head of recruitment for DFAT and was High Commissioner to Sri Lanka and a bunch of other cool things. So Clayton showed me around the Embassy, then we went for a coffee afterwards. He told me that there aren't currently any interns at the embassy, and he doesn't know if they'll have one in the future. So that kind of killed that idea, which is really the only idea I had before I left for China to fill the second half of this year. But strangely enough, I didn't mind too much. Whatever happens next, it'll just be a chance to gain some experience and hopefully keep improving my Chinese, so I just need to find a different way to do that. Actually finding something is kind of daunting, which is the next big thing that I need to worry about. I'm leaving it pretty late to start looking for positions, but what with study and everything, finding time is pretty hard. Anyway, here's hoping!
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