Memoirs of Service: Diana Negroponte

I will always fondly remember Diana Negroponte, whom my co-workers and I spent many months with. She was working on her dissertation and took up office at the Cultural Affairs Section, directly above the library. The module she used was diagonally across from mine. She brown-bagged her lunch and ate with us in the staff room. I have no idea why, but I was often the recipient of the dessert her kitchen staff prepared for her. Like all Americans, however, she would not get too close to the locals. Whenever she felt that she was revealing too much of herself she snapped back to a safe distance and put on a cold, "British", front.

I did love her for three things.

First, her dissertation was on poetry and not some boring, foreign-policy treatise.

Second, she was mischievous, and liked escaping from her security escorts. She once walked all the way from the office on Buendia to her residence in Forbes Park. Her escorts, of course, were flustered and totally not amused. I pointed out to her that she could get held up on the road, but she replied that she usually had nothing on her person. Touching her fancy choker she said, "It's just a piece of metal."

Third, and most importantly, she wrote only with a fountain pen, using delicious, brilliant, black ink in a flourishing, post-Victorian cursive. How can anyone not love a person who uses a fountain pen?