First Day!

So I know it's Tuesday, but I figure I'll go ahead and blog about the exciting goings on during my first day at the VIC.

The first thing to know about the Vienna International Center is that the building(s) is/are crazy. Check out the image here:
The orange and white buildings on the left side of the complex comprise UNO City looks cool, right? Here's another view, incorporating the train station where I get off.


So cool! Now let's check out the floorplan.
AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

So, as you can see, the shape of each "wing" is two of the triangular type figures made by three mutually tangent circles, each of those connected to another at a vertex, than a further vertex is connected to a central ring structure (and I find it funny that C building looks like a C). This means that every floor of every wing looks almost exactly the same. The numbers begin at one vertex and progress either clockwise or counterclockwise (depending on the building), and there's some color coding that's supposed to help distinguish this patterning, but basically, you have to memorize your route from one place to another. That's okay, though - I feel like I'm getting the hang of it.

My office is in B-tower, and it's actually great - I'm in there with the press officers and their assisting staff, the office basically handles all media representation and a fair number of publications that are meant for the general public (ignoring, for instance, extremely technical documents and the like). The staff is really fun and I get along with everyone (I hope), and overall it's a really great division to be working in. They were even familiar with Knoxville! As soon as I mentioned it, Greg said that he read an interesting piece in the News-Sentinel that pertained to the IAEA - you can find it here. After getting a very friendly orientation and tour of the place, I sat in on my first press conference. These officials were talking about livestock.

"But wait!" you say. "You're working at the International Atomic Energy Agency...why are you talking about cattle?"

Well, the IAEA actually has a longstanding partnership with the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN) and lots of nuclear research and technology goes into effective agriculture and food. For example, I read an article yesterday about how IAEA experts use nuclear hydrology to trace the flow of different isotopes in water to determine which aquifers are renewable and which are not, and that helps developing countries manage their water supplies better. Yesterday, they were talking about effective nuclear testing and even more radioactive isotope measurements that would help track livestock diseases. Neat stuff, yeah?

Now on to the important stuff: the UNO City Cafeteria complex. Overall rating? Not bad. Affordable, convenient, vegetarian friendly. In candor, it kinda makes me miss HUDS...but I'll reserve that judgement for a few more days. :)

Today, though, was an exciting day in a lot of ways. The Board of Directors had an informal meeting and a straw poll on the candidates for the next Director General. It was a closed door meeting, so the press was all huddled just outside conference room waiting for the results of the poll. Even though it was a short meeting and basically involved a lot of standing around and watching people talk/write, it was neat to se how these sorts of evens look from the other side of the camera.

This afternoon, I got a brief outline of the project I'll be working on for the length of my internship. My task will be to look through President Obama speeches, statements, and press releases to create a comprehensive assesment of the current administrations stance on nuclear non-proliferation and on the IAEA. I'll have to create a timeline of how these positions have changed over time, and also look at other administration officials (e.g. Hilary Clinton). It seems neat, though! It's very much a real-time assignment, and I'm sure I'll learn a lot of US policy.

Alright, that's it for now, but expect some pictures that I actually took in the next post!