A Redeeming Weekend

Thursday was relatively unexciting, another day of classes in Nyon. Friday morning we had a lecture from someone who works with hospital home care in Switzerland, which was interrupted when one of the girls from our program came in after having been in a car accident while on her bike. She was pretty shaken up, but luckily has nothing more than a few scrapes and bruises. I was really excited that our schedule of classes for next semester was finally posted, so after class I was using class to figure out my spring schedule. Around noon, Earl, our academic director, came in and basically kicked us out, saying that today was a day meant for research “in the field,” and that we were not to be using it for wireless. He really just doesn’t understand how we need internet, especially since a lot of us don’t have any in our homes and barely get access otherwise. It also annoyed me because his perception of “in the field” basically was wandering around Geneva, walking up to receptionists of large organizations and hoping to talk to people. In fact, for many of us “in the field” just translated going to a different library to get some wifi access anyway.

After having lunch with Erin, I first went to the Graduate Institute of Development Studies (IEUD), and after waiting 30 minutes for the receptionist to get back from lunch, learned that a certain professor could help me, but he wasn’t in the main IUED building. I wandered down the street towards the street address and luckily it wasn’t very far away. When I went upstairs, the lady there told me that the professor had been in some kind of accident and was sick and they weren’t sure when he’d be back, but I could try going to IEUD to see if anyone else could help me. I go back to IUED and get the name of another professor who wasn’t there either, but the receptionist gave me their email addresses. Then I stumbled upon the Philippine Permanent Mission to the WTO, and decided I would give going up there a shot, sheerly due to the fact that I myself was Filipino. When I got up, I told the receptionist that I was a student doing research on development and public health and asked if there was anyone who I might be able to talk to for a few minutes. He replied that most of the people there were busy (as I expected), but said he would see if he could find anyone who could help me. Luckily, he came back with someone who was nice enough to talk to me about development in the Philippines, but I felt like such a bad interviewer since I hardly had questions prepared and hadn’t done any background research since I certainly hadn’t known I’d be going to the Philippine Mission that day. Then, I went to a lecture given by IEUD on UNHCR and the Cold War that I’d seen posted at IEUD and that happened to be going on that day. The first half of the lecture was in French, so I didn’t really get a lot from it, and I tried talking to the second lecturer (who spoke English) afterwards but he only gave me a website I could use then moved on to talk to other people.

So Friday was semi-productive in terms of my “field study,” but was still kind of annoying. That night a bunch of us went to Sara’s (the girl who had gotten hit by a car) for a taco night we had been planning and to celebrate her birthday (which was the next day). We made tacos and watched Man on Fire, and it was a very good night. Saturday I went to Lausanne with Erin B, Erin L, Nadia, Ebun, and Ria, for a day of shopping! I ended up spending much more money than I had planned (that is, I hadn’t planned to spend any), but I bought a calendar of some really cool photomontages, 2 dresses for 14.50 CHF each (about $10-12), and a tank top for 5 CHF. Went home for dinner of fish – still can’t believe I’ve been eating fish here! During the night I went out with Beza and Sara for drinks in Geneva and for Sara’s birthday again, I had a yummy Mango daiquiri which made me appreciate being a girl and being allowed to order girly drinks. I slept in till noon today, which I hadn’t done in months, so that was really nice! Later I’ll be meeting up with Erin to study French, as we have our finals already this week! The next week we’re going to Bern and Luzern and then we’ll only have one month left abroad, doing research and visiting Barcelona and London! Hope everyone is enjoying their weekend.