After recovering from COVID and isolating for 10 days I am now back in the office! Luckily I wasn’t completely cut off from my internship, the wonders of the internet meant I was still able to WFH and work virtually and still complete assigned tasks, particularly listening to constituent voicemails and taking note of what the people of Oregon find important. I have really enjoyed so far meeting so many new people, particularly my fellow interns; it is great making new friends from America! The weather has started getting slightly warmer, making the morning walks to the Senate building a little more bearable!

When I applied for this internship, one of my biggest hopes was to improve my writing and research skills, and so far they have already improved immeasurably. The research I am doing for my office, and the constituent letters I am creating have been great in helping me achieve this.

This week we were lucky enough to visit the Australian Embassy who hosted us for a brief – we were fortunate to meet the Australian Ambassador to the United States, the Hon Arthur Sinodinos, and Elizabeth Willis, who is the Senior Congressional Liaison Officer. Picking their brains for little tips and knowledge was amazing and is one of my highlights of this trip so far. It was also great to meet other embassy staff and hear stories about their careers in DFAT, a career path many of us are interested in.