Land of Acronyms and the Worst Smelling Cheese

Guten Tag! I am so sorry that it has taken so long to update everybody on the happenings here in Grand-Saconnex. Since my previous post, I have found myself getting into a bit of a groove. Classes have begun and slowly but surely I am getting back into the academic mode. I am currently taking four classes: Two PS classes and Two ECON classes to be exact. All seem to be quite great. I am especially enjoying my European Economic Integration course with Professor Low. Professor Low is the Chief Economist at the WTO and he is both quite intelligible as well as a very personable person. His knowledge of the inner workings of the WTO and really the world as a whole is quite astonishing. It is quite weird being in classes with sizes ranging from 6 people to 12 when at home my class range has always been classes of 20 to classes of 300. It seems that every time I make a snide comment, I'm called out on it. But no worries my friends, that does not stop me! In fact, I have come to think that the professors here are much more laid back to both their Europeaness as well as the small class sizes. As an example, in my last International Business class we went on quite the non sequitur making fun of Canada. And what a swell time it twas.

Other than classes, my internship has taken quite a bit of my time. I work for the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development which is headquartered in Châtelaine, Geneva. I am interning with the Intellectual Property Protection Division which deals with the issue of keeping IP rights strong while still allowing for the dissemination of knowledge to the developing world. ICTSD does not take a position in any negotiations, instead they remain unbiased and merely try to get both sides talking to foster progress. My supervisor is Ahmed Abel-Latif, a former Egyptian Diplomat who was stationed at the Egyptian Mission in Geneva. If you can believe it, he is actually more disorganized than I am. Sadly, for some incomprehensible reason he would like me to work every other friday which cuts down in my traveling plans which means that I now must figure out which cities I would absolutely love to go and which I can leave off. It also means that I may just have to come back to Europe as well :).

My Job details are as follows:

I write articles to be published in Bridges, the ICTSD publication whose readership is in the thousands.

I set up meetings or dialogs between Countries, NGOs, or just important people to discuss IP issues

I take random quizzes given to me from Ahmed for no apparent reason

I check ESPN every once in a while to make sure my Hawks are still kicking arse (british english version on ass)

I stare out of my giant window and look at Mount Blanc, Jet d-Eau, and soviet bloc era buildings

I drink a lot of water giving me excuses to go to the bathroom, and to go to get more water

A slight aside on this water. First off, people here like their water as they say 'with gas' or basically carbonated. Thats just weird. Secondly, we have this thing called POWER WATER which is just regular water infused with oxygen gas. Its supposed to make you more powerful and work harder. I don't believe it.

This brings us to the poll question of the day. There are two possible trips I would like to go to on Spring Break, one goes to Istanbul, Troy, and Athens. Another brings me to the UK, Ireland, and Scandinavia. I cannot decide which trip to go on so I'll leave it to my loyal readers. Please comment on which trip you would think is better. If you are lazy you can say E for the Turkey/Greece trip and W for the UK/ Scandinavia trip.