"You gotta have life your way. If you ain't losing your mind, you ain't partying right." - Young Jeezy

They had a wonderful Carribean choice sing

Another slow day today. But at the very least, I had a meeting about this new project I'd be able to work on. So I did do a little bit of work with that, but I didn't end up going to any meetings today because I didn't want to keep skipping work... even though I'm going to very academic things that are teaching me about the UN and how it works...(although there was also no meeting I really had a particular interest in).

I ended up sitting at work, eating the sandwich I had gotten yesterday and just doing some research, chilling at work. 

I had originally planned to go to the Swedish Midsummer festival downtown at Battery Park and the
n the Pride Rally, but then I got this cool invite to go to the Swedish Festival at the UN, so I decided to stay for a bit and try to head up.

Went to this party instead

My friend came up and we waited together until it was time to go. We tried to head up.

We got rejected hard. Even though I told them I had RSVP'd, they didn't care, simply because I had an "A" badge. 

The A badge is interesting. It is also known as a "scarlet letter" here at the UN because you cannot do ANYTHING with it. Constantly have to go through security while everyone else just goes through the normal metal doors, we cannot go to any of the councils unless we're going to the visitor's floor, we can't come in after 6pm or on weekends, and a whole load of other things. We're pretty much seen as bottom of the pile and scum. We don't really work here even though we do all this work. That's the intern life.

Even janitors and those who ring up the elevators and other service members don't get anything past an A badge. It's the worst. However, interns at the other Missions to the UN, are technically

Midsummer Festival

"diplomats" and have a "D" on their badge and are able to get into anywhere in the UN at any time and bring in any person.

Should have applied for the Canadian Mission.

At least we had a back up plan, we decided we were going to go to the "Caribbean White Party" where everyone had to dress in white. We headed over to the party quite early, there were barely any people there, grabbed some drinks and some food and enjoyed while we waited for other people to show up. 

The literal White party

We ended up meeting with a few other people. And here, I met someone quite distasteful.

At one point, I was introduced to someone, the intern at the Mission for the Philippines, who took my
badge, looked at it and then said "oh, you're from Mainland (as though being born in Mainland China is a bad thing? As though I'm directly from there? As though he's better? AS THOUGH ALL THESE THINGS?)." 

The look of shock spelled on my friend's faces reflected part of what I felt - mixed with a bit of anger. I could not BELIEVE he said that to me, with his tone of voice, the condescension and just everything about it. Honestly that has probably got to be the most offensive thing anyone's said to me in a long time, and I've had some pretty bad racial slurs said to me. I could not believe not only the nerve of him saying that but the fact that he thought it was okay. A) It is never okay to assume where someone is from. B) You are not better than anyone else no matter where you are from. And especially after talking to this guy, I could 100% tell that he was NOT better than anyone else. C) Who is raised that poorly and that badly, especially as an intern for a Mission to the UN. 

ABBA cover band! 

I was disgusted and left. I did not want to deal with some bullshit like that. I feel like his existence is
a negative tone on this earth.

Moving on.

We made flower crowns!

It was quite a good time, we had food, drinks and then my friend and I sneaked upstairs to the Swedish event and we made some flower crowns, had some Swedish drinks and listened to an ABBA impersonation band play.

Friends <3

It was pretty damn cool. I'm sad I missed out on the opening remarks as well as the 'feast' but it was
all okay, since my friends and I ended up dancing and enjoying our night regardless.

Afterwards, we headed back downstairs to Carribean White party, where it was lit up, people were dancing and the music by the DJ was good. Some people were really going at it! 

My friends and I danced for hours on end and then headed over to a friend's beautiful and super gorgeous apartment where we played card games and then headed home from the long day - I spent almost 14 hours at the UN today.