The weeks have become rather unexciting, with days spent mostly in the library doing research or at least pretending to half the time (the other half of the time I actually am working). I went to a conference at the UN that, in conjunction with my research in services trade, has somewhat put me off to working with big organization. I suppose every business has its territory of jargon that you eventually get used to, but it seems more and more like all people at big international organizations (and sometimes even small organizations) do is talk and talk and research and have seminars and discussions and write policy papers but never actually do anything. A lot of my service research has been centered around the WTO’s General Agreement on Trade and Services (GATS), which is all about negotiations and commitments and disputes and for someone who went into it not knowing anything about it there sure is a lot of legal jargon and many other things that don’t translate into English at all for me.
I had an interview with someone I met while at a WTO conference, a British ex-pat (I know appreciate the concept of ex-pat much more after having lived abroad for a few months) married to an American and living in Spain. He’s an independent consultant specializing in the GATS and basically helped me understand what I’m researching in a bit more human terms. We talked at a café and ordered hot chocolate and a snack, and since I requested the interview I tried to pay at the end but he insisted since “a lady never pays.” I was pretty excited about the whole British way of talking and his own sort of charm and the whole accent and “chap” sort of talk… at the Christmas Market we went to today it was at an English church and everyone there was from the UK, being surrounded by all the British accents made me pretty excited to go to London on Thursday!!
Yesterday night Ria, Erin, and I made pumpkin bread with the canned pumpkin they had each received from their parents. I used a Mihalik recipe and Erin had her own as well, but I didn’t know that my recipe made massive amounts of batter (supposedly two loaves but it seems those must be pretty big loafs) – all in all we made maybe a couple dozen muffins, a loaf, and also filled a heart-shaped cake pan with batter to make some pumpkin bread-cake. It was pretty amazing, let me tell you, and afterwards we watched Blood Diamond since Erin’s dad brought her movies when he came to visit.
One of the things I love about my host family is how I get the German and Swiss culture – my host mom was born in
I know going to be an utter failure at keeping my posts short, but considering I only write them once or twice a week I figure it makes up. Today I went with Erin and Ria to the marché au puces (flea market) my mom’s been working at preparing all week, and wandered around the outdoor market that had been set up in Nyon as well. Then we went to
2 comments:
where are you staying in london?? you'll love it there besides the fact that it's super expensive :)
Yay for shorter posts!! :)
I'm jealous of your research assignment, since I'd like a career with the WTO someday! We'll definitely have to discuss it when I see you again. It sounds like having quite a multikulti experience, as they call it, living in Die Schweiz, and your host mom sounds like an interesting person who can cook up some delicious food! Also, I am apparently the only person in the world who is annoyed by the british accent, even moreso by the irish one.
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