Do I gala?

Coughing and nauseous I still went to work yesterday. It's unpaid, but I like it, and my colleagues/classmates are pretty fun to be around with. Less than three months till the big moot event, things are beginning to get busier. Tonnes of emails to write, sponsors to solicit, hotel rooms to arrange, over a thousand copies of memorials to be worked through and reviewed... plenty of work left.

Well, even though it's unpaid there are side benefits... like lunch with a (former) minister, corresponding with judges of the international courts and tribunals and other VIPs. And apparently my colleagues and I have been invited to an gala dinner at the Peace Palace.

To be honest, I'm not really keen on the whole idea. The invitation came from the (obnoxious) head of the society, I was supposed to meet last week, himself. Only €70 to enter, and it'll be filled with movers and shakers of (high) society. Going in a suit ad tie would be considered 'underdressed', we were told. Wear a tuxedo, 'avec decoration' (French for whatever badges or emblems of honour you can pin on your chest).

The idea just makes me shudder. To me it just stinks of snobbishness. I imagine it to be a gathering of gentlemen with tophats and ladies evening gowns and funny hats, one more outrageous than the next, caviar, whisky and cigars. The very essence and decadence of the bourgeosie, the very thing my left-leaning SOASian years repelled against.

Besides, I don't even have a tuxedo. Though I do have a "Stop the War!" and smiley badge.