March update and what I do...

Dear All I miss you. -Patrick

This was going to be my post, but I thought that might not satisfy some of my greedy readers (Jenna).

It has been six weeks since I hopped across the pond and life is going well.
Work is going swimmingly. I do so many different things on a daily basis.
When I get to work I check my e-mail and see if we have received any visitor requests (when federal employees want to travel to a different country they have to receive clearance) If the people have been cleared I approve them and take down their information in case they are involved with one of the embassy’s pet projects or if someone at the embassy might want to meet them.
Then I go to news websites and look to see if there are developments that I need to know. For example: Political developments or economic ones. I monitor them and track them.
Sometimes I get special projects, which are often related to cables we receive. Cables are requests from Washington for us to do something or for information. The first cable I worked with was a demarche (official communication between governments) requesting that we ask the Swedes what their laws say in regards to distracted driving (using a cell phone or texting while driving). Apparently, the US government wants other countries to consider banning distracted driving….
I also have research projects where I become an expert on a subject. For example, I was recently researching the new Bio-fuels initiative which is a congressional mandate to have a certain percentage of bio-fuel mixed into all fuel over the next 10 years. Interesting but not exactly stimulating…
I had a little excitement this past week I was given the chance to attend a meeting to discuss nuclear proliferation. Three Swedish experts held a panel discussion about nuclear nonproliferation, eliminating nuclear weapons, and peaceful use of nuclear energy. Two of the experts were former ambassadors to the US and were also very involved with the UN on issues of nuclear proliferation and the other was…
HANS BLIX. I was a little star struck by Hans. He was the former head of the IAEA and said that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction. If you have seen Team America You will understand that I kept seeing visions of him in an aquarium just about to get attacked by a shark… this did not happen.
I felt strange going to this talk. I got to take a taxi (on embassy expense) but it was weird because I was one of the youngest people there (other than some college kids) and yet I was representing the US… strange but cool.
I am working on updating the background notes for Sweden. Specifically the economic and Political sections of the notes…. Look for it coming soon ok maybe in like 4 weeks.