By Parker Ball

My 7-month journey abroad has now officially begun!  I have three months ahead of me interning with the U.S. Department of Commerce in Bangkok, Thailand and following that, I will be studying at Maastricht University in the Netherlands.

A little backstory before I begin: I was stationed here in Bangkok with the Marines from 2013 to 2015, where I worked here at the Embassy with Marine Corps Embassy Security Group (MCESG) Region 3 as an administrative assistant.  I fell in love with the city and the country as a whole, so it definitely feels good to be back!

I have wrapped up my first couple of weeks interning and I even got to enjoy a four-day weekend (Memorial Day and Visakha Bucha Day) a little bit ago.  The first week consisted of getting acquainted with my co-workers, obtaining my different accesses, and starting on some of the work I will be doing.  In our office, we have two Foreign Commerce Officers (FCOs), 12 Thai Nationals and myself.  Thus far, I have been reviewing documents from the Thai Nationals and routing them up to the FCOs for approval, typing up memos, and participating in meetings with Thai and U.S. companies in order to get a sense of how the FCOs and Thai Nationals negotiate with those companies in Thailand.  Additionally, I have been tasked to work on 2 projects – a business networking event at the Ambassador’s house and the July 4^th celebration held at the international school, Bangkok Patana and I can honestly say that it has been a great start here in Thailand.

Other than that, I have mostly been getting over jet lag, eating street food and seeing some old friends.  I also finished my first week by doing the Hero workout Murph, that honors Navy Lieutenant Michael Murphy who was killed in Afghanistan on June 28, 2005.

(The picture is the group that I did the workout with.)

Well, these next 7 months should be fun!  I hope that you join me along the way!  Until next time!

Parker Ball is a second year SIA student, focusing on Business & Economics. He completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Minnesota and served in the Marine Corps.