My internship at the UNESCO Office in Brazil has ended! It’s a cliche, but that doesn’t make it any less true: time has absolutely flown by. Not just this summer internship either. This time last year, I was returning home from Peace Corps to start my master’s at Penn. Now I’m one semester away from finishing. (And to those of my cohort who have finished, congratulations!) During … Continue reading Tchau, Brasil!
The end of my internship experience brings with it an odd and familiar sentiment. I simultaneously feel as if a) I literally just got here yesterday, and b) my current schedule/routine has been my normalforever. It’s a feeling I know well, but is maybe more concentrated given that this experience has been condensed into the confines of a summer. Mostly, however, as my final week Roatán rapidly … Continue reading So long, Roatán: Final Reflections
From the day I started my internship, my supervisor said she wanted to take me along with her on an official mission. From the beginning, it was also relatively clear that it would be tricky to shuffle a mere intern through the process of official travel authorization at UNESCO. The opportunity came, however, to test the system, and – spoiler alert – we beat it … Continue reading Mission … possible
Something that has amused me since my first day in Brazil is that my shower has ‘winter’ and ‘summer’ settings. It’s ‘winter’ here, and the ‘winter’ water temperature of my shower is “lukecold” on a good day. If there’s any chance that the ‘summer’ water is even colder, I’m not going to fiddle with it. Yesterday, I was amused to learn the English word elucubration via … Continue reading Amusement
Hello again, everybody from Roatán, Honduras! As of today I have officially been on the island for one month. In some ways it feels like I’ve been here for a while, I’ve gotten used to my new routine, found a favorite coffee shop, and gotten to see most parts of the island. Mostly, however, I seriously cannot believe how fast the time is flying by! … Continue reading A Mid-Summer Update
Some of my favorite work activities in Brasília so far have been official meetings, especially interagency meetings. UNESCO in Brazil being just one part of a larger organization, and UNESCO itself being just one of many agencies in the UN system, our office in Brasília communicates and collaborates a lot with other offices and agencies in Brasília, in the region and in the world. This … Continue reading Meetings
I wanted to mention a few other things about getting to Brasília and living here. Even though some of my points could be summed up with I don’t know, I’m keeping them in, so I remember what I didn’t know, and so I can give better advice at the end of my internship. Visa: I’m not an expert on the visa situation for interns traveling … Continue reading Details
Brasília is not like any other city I’ve ever visited, let alone lived in. It was designed and built from scratch relatively recently (1960). From above, it looks a little like an airplane, and it’s often referred to that way. There’s a ‘fuselage’ and a northern and southern wing. The fuselage is the seat of government as well as the location of several other symbolic … Continue reading City
“Attendants please prepare for landing.” I slowly turned my head to the right to see the sun glisten the ocean through the plexiglass – blinding me. We were hovering the immense body of water, and still I didn’t see the landing strip. I had to trust the plane wasn’t going to be gulped by the water but instead touch land with it’s — THUD. Welcome … Continue reading Roatán Reflections
As I mentioned, it’s already been two weeks since I came to Brasília. It seems longer to me, because I already feel quite at home. Getting here was easy. I flew from Philadelphia and had one layover in Miami. One thing that was the tiniest bit tricky was timing. We were scheduled to land in Brasilia at 5:00 am, and we ended up arriving early! … Continue reading Home
The International Educational Development Program 