What I learnt in my first internship.

Like in our school days we were made to write essays on our "first" experience of something (my first dog, my first award, blah, blah), I will now tell you my first encounter with an internship. Before a child gets into law school, he/she has the most puristic view of an internship, especially an NGO internship, considering NGOs are like the superheros, who, with 'non-governmental' support, try to save the nation. I, too, always wanted to work for an NGO which helped the deprived and worked towards the betterment of the society. So, when I came to know we had to work for an NGO in our first year, I was delighted. Finally I had the chance to serve my motherland! Before the vacations began, I asked a few seniors what to look for in an internship. Their answers like "yaad nahi yaar, main toh bas ek hi din gaya tha,certificate leke wapas aa gaya" and "actually, I don't remember. It was quite insignificant" left me confused. Weren't internships supposed to be the most important part of law school? Didn't people die to get into places like NHRC and UN organisations? I decided I wanted to work nevertheless, and searched for a few NGOs in my hometown and gave the details to the placement cell. After waiting for sometime, when none of the NGOs replied, I contacted them on my own. Finally, I got an internship at an NGO which works for water conservation (yes, so much for saving humans) and river cleaning. I still did not give up. I went to work and on the first day, the head of the NGO told me I was to do some paperwork and later, I will be sent for a field trip to see how the water conservation plants worked (I was excited out my wits, trust me). Since a month I have been doing paperwork and with 2 days left for my internship to get over, I don't see that field trip happening anytime soon. So, for around a month now, I have been handling the accounts of the NGO. The accounts run into crores and my maths is as good as my dog's, so you can imagine how much fun I had doing my job. Everyday from Monday to Saturday, 11 to 5, I suffered. I wanted to call some NGO to save me from the torture. But, there is one thing this internship taught me- patience. Doing accounts for 6 hours everyday, I feel like I have been trained to digest any sort of monotony life could offer me from now on. I can sit staring at a wall for an hour straight and trust me, I'll survive. I found out internships are overrated, first year law students are of no use to any NGO and I sacrificed my beautiful vacations to save water. Sigh.