"the office"

"the office"
Originally uploaded by borderlys

This is the entry I sent to the listserve to the IISD as part of my internship program. It's nothing new, but I wanted to keep it somewhere, so if you have some free time, you can learn a bit more about what I am doing....

ok, so I am going to try not to be completely envious of Alison and the others that are currently in HOT countries, as it appears I have landed in a Latino version of Britain. Much like Vancouver, it's cold and rainy and gross out right now; but when it's nice out, it sure is nice out! I suppose that comes hand in hand with living on the waterfront and arriving at the tail end of winter. The 91% humidity (and lack of sleep) didn't help me avoid the sniffles either! So here I am, drinking some homemade ginger and lemon tea, getting ready to tell you all about my first two weeks here.

If, for the training week, we "hit the ground running," then I do believe I have hit the ground here darting in a 100m sprint! The days have just flown by since I first started, and the entire APC team has made me feel more than at home. My first assignment, to help me get to know the team a little bit better, consisted of re-writing everyone's teaser bios (the few sentences that appear next to their photo on the public site). I have to say, what an accomplished, inspiring bunch of people! The richness of the organization is its diversified and world-wide staff. Today for example, I was had to help test the Moodle chat and whiteboard functions by participating in a chat session with people from South Africa, Mexico, Czech Republic, the Philippines and Canada! I sift through at least 50 emails a day (some of which are irrelevant to me), but the weekly updates always give me a laugh. They are a mix of work and personal life that have that water-cooler conversation feel to them. Aside from re-writing some of the site content (I will also have to produce some French abstracts and articles based on the PDF of a new African initiative), I have also been put in touch with some international media outlets, for which I will be the liaison (yay!). This is because the information coordinator for the site (who also happens to be Canadian!) will be leaving the organization, so I will be taking on some of his roles and assignments. The added responsibility however, also means that I have been putting in some extra hours on the side to read up on ICT policy and some of the site's content. It's been great though, and reading has not felt like a chore; rather, I see it as a matter of interest and concern for a job well done. Further to this, my manager and I met today in her home office to discuss the media monitoring project I will be working on based on the previous intern's recommendations. I'm starting to work on it as early as tomorrow, and would like to have the matrix and evaluation system semi-finalized by the end of the month so that I can work on the monitoring for the next 5 months. I'm also looking at ways of making this a long-term project that they will continue once my term has finished.

Since it's a virtual organization, I don't know that many people here yet – fortunately though, both my roommates have made it easier for me to meet people. I've also found a cute little yoga studio (which you can read about here : www.borderlys.blogspot.com), where the people are friendly.

I've attached a photo of my work space with my co-worker Analia. It's in a house-turned-office, owned by some young architects. I also posted a photo of the view, two steps out my front door. You can view more photos on my flickr page: www.flickr.com/photos/borderlys . Consider yourself warned - they aren't all * ahem * work related. You can also read my somewhat irregular ramblings of anything and everything on my blog (see above).



Hope you are all well!



Lisa