Connecticut College CELS Internship Blogs 2007

I began my internship on Monday with the Program on International Health and Human Rights (PIHHR) at Harvard School of Public Health. The office is a small office within the school located in the Longwood Medical Area of Boston. Longwood has many of the very well known hospitals in Boston as well as Harvard's Medical School. On my first day, I was given a tour of the building itself as well as the Longwood area by Jesse, the Program Assistant. That particular day, only one other woman was in the office because everyone else was traveling, some to New York, some to Brazil. The office itself only has 6 people working in it, but PIHHR is involved with many other organizations as well. Everyone in the office travels constantly and each speaks 3-4 languages. The program focuses on taking a human rights based approach to health care. The program has three different areas that they study, HIV/AIDS, gender based violence, and reproductive health. For an example of a violation of human rights through HIV/AIDS, we can consider mandatory HIV/AIDS tests. This would be a clear violation of human rights and something that this program would not support. What would be done with the results?
Right now, I am working on a manual that outlines a human rights based approach to treatment plans. The manual outlines the basics of human rights and how that applies to the given areas previously mentioned. There was just a large conference in Boston with the people in my department and many others from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). PIHHR works very closely with UNFPA, due to the fact that they often have overlapping goals. At the conference, PIHHR provided the audience with a draft of the manual and everyone added their own comments for improvement. Now, I am helping to organize the comments of the manual. I am also looking for concrete examples to add to the manual to show previous studies related to the human rights based approach. I would say that I am very happy with my first week thus far, and am already learning a great deal!

Posted by Emily Ricketson at 11:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

All right, this is ridiculous. A lot has been happening, so I haven't been catching up, but that just makes it harder to do so. Things are calming down, though, so I will catch up...I will!

Monday June 4:
I bumped my head again on the way to work. Come on now, self, this is getting just a bit tiring! Saturday was our big Vision 5K event, which raised money to benefit 5 local blindness organizations. My job was to sit at the NBP table (that was in a line of tables representing a bunch of local organizations – mostly blindness-related). I just had to answer questions and tell people about us while our employees ran or walked in the race or cheered people on. The major problem was that I didn’t know what was laid out on the table, so when people asked me what was on the CD in this nice brochure, I showed how incompetent I was by admitting that I didn’t know. I blamed myself completely for this, though I probably shouldn’t have. I felt I should have been more assertive during the few seconds that I did see one of my supervisors by asking them to tell me what was there and how to answer questions. It was hard, though, because they were really busy. As it was, I expressed my distress to them afterward, and they said it was their fault and that I shouldn’t feel bad. Though I wasn’t as helpful as I could have been, I think I was cordial enough. The 5K was a success, so that’s what matters. Plus, it was a good lesson in being flexible and ad-libbing.
We had a team meeting today, which was really fun for me. It also made me realize just how much my supervisors have on their plates, so to speak. The meeting was for the development department, and was two hours long. They basically laid out a timetable of what needs to get done in the next couple of months – which is a lot. I got coffee at 1:30, because I was so very tired. Note to self: go to bed earlier, even if the Redsox game is on and is running late. The rest of my day was spent on more grant research.

Tue June 5: Do I really look so pathetic when I’m walking to work that it necessitates two different men yelling directions at me, and one person grabbing me by the arm without warning? To say that I’m frustrated would be an understatement. Gave my forehead another bruise. I did more of the same research, avoiding foundations that are localized to places other than Boston, that only exist to give awards and not to give grants, that donate books, or that only support teaching and educational programs. I found something called GoodSearch.com, which is like Google, but allows you to search and raise money for non-profits at the same time. I was told to do more research on it to see how it works. I also tried to finagle a last-minute prize for the team of kids that raised money for the Harry Potter book at the 5K, which meant finding restaurants that might be willing to donate a meal, or tickets to a museum or event that would be fun for blind adolescents (not all that easy).

Wed June 6: I got away from the city last night to visit a friend from Conn. It meant that I took a new train, which a nice kid on the E train helped me find. Bostonians are really helpful. This morning’s commute was smooth (thank God). I started by reading some articles written by the man whose family the second reader profile for our Annual Report will be about. He sure does a lot for his two blind sons – in a way, I think he does too much. He’s such an overachiever it actually made me feel inadequate. I need to remember that all blind people are different, though, and many of them are successful without having had the same opportunities. I got permission to sign us up for GoodSearch.com, so you should all go their and search in support of National Braille Press! I think it’s actually just as good as Google (gasp). I also looked over a draft of an application NBP is constructing for a Touch of Genius prize, which they will award to an innovator in tactile literacy. They wanted me to make sure it will be accessible to blind applicants.

Thu June 7: I met a very nice girl from LSU who lives one floor above me last night, so it’ll be nice to have someone new to hang out with. The driver of the E train actually got out to tell me I was going the wrong way this morning. How embarrassing is that? I swear I’m not as horrible at getting around as you must think I am by now…I actually know what I’m doing 99% of the time. More grant research. More writing of reader profiles. I also had a good talk about what it means to be a successful blind person with one of the other blind people who works here, and how it’s not contingent on being a member of one of the two national blindness organizations – it really helped me feel better.

Fri June 8, TGIF: A bike hit my cane while I was crossing a street this morning and took the tip with it. Luckily a man saw it by the curb and helped me snap it back on. Unbelievable, I know. It just keeps getting better and better. A woman told me to cross last night when a fire truck was coming down the street. Obviously I did not go, as I am not deaf. I stayed up late talking to some other interns from Iowa, Pennsylvania, and Idaho. Two of them are working on Mit Romni’s (don’t know if that’s the correct spelling) campaign, and the rest of us were more liberal, so it was a fascinating conversation. I got lunch at Temptations, which has fabulous paninis. My work was more of the same.

Posted by Eliza Cooper at 07:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

After my embarrassing ticket fiasco on Tuesday evening, I was worried that the week was shot. But there have been some exciting developments on the internship front, including a quasi "promotion" and a chance to talk to the head of the advertising department.

David Hamilton is the Advertising Director for Interview Magazine, and I usually only get a chance to quickly say hi before he hurries off to a meeting with clients or with Sandra Brant, the publisher of Interview and the 2 other magazines that are located in the office: Art in America and The Magazine Antiques. But last Friday, I had a chance to have a real conversation with David.

The interns are given an office that overlooks the entire advertising department...we could feel like we are special and privileged, but the office is actually quite isloated from the department because everyone else has cubicles where they can stand and talk to each other. Anyway, I was sitting in our office on Friday looking at a magazine, and David comes in. I got really nervous all of a sudden because I was worried that I might have been doing something wrong this whole time, and he was coming to correct me. I think it was because I didn't know why he would talk to me otherwise. He stand down across from me and asked me how I felt the internship was going and what I was learning. I relaxed for a brief second, happy that I wasn't being a "bad" intern, but then I got really nervous again because I had to actually explain things that I have learned. Why am I so stressed out all the time? I don't know...

So I explained that I was loving the internship and that I was learning a lot (all the right things to say, but also true). I told him how I really liked learning about ad placement and what sort of thinking and rationale goes behind the advertising layout of a magazine. Marie was showing us how Interview is really careful with ad placement, and they tend to color coordinate advertisements with editorial pieces. So, if there is a photo shoot for the magazine that uses a lot of bright pink, the headline text for that piece will also be in bright pink and then an ad that ulitizes bright pink will be placed before or after that piece. It creates a very aesthetically pleasing package. I find this so fascinating because for The College Voice, I love doing layout and design. Although we don't have a lot of choices concerning aesthetics and color-coordination (since it is black and white), to see how not just how each place is specifically organized but how the magazine as a whole is completely thought-through and organized is so satisfying. It's like putting the pieces of a puzzle together...it appeals to my logical, mathematical and the creative sides of my brain.

I told David that I was really interested in magazines as a whole, and this internship was exciting because I got to learn about the business/advertising side of publications, whereas at school, I mainly do editorial and design. He told me about his college experiences (he went to Dartmouth), and how he wanted to have that small, liberal arts experience. He told me how he got into his job and some of what it entails. It's insane. He has to be constantly updated and informed on all the newest news in advertising including partnerships, ad campaigns, what the competitive magazines are doing, etc etc. He always has to have that information immediately at hand, which means somehow, it is all stored (neatly or messily) inside his brain. Now, I do not have the mind for that. Yes, I am able to remember a lot of random things and I have a knack for useless trivia, but I could never constantly stuff my brain with crucial information. I don't think I would ever sleep!

Marie is going to help me set up an "official" interview with David, so I will be able to post a question and answer session which will probably make a lot more sense than what I have written above.

So talking to David was the first big highlight of the week, and the second bit of exciting news is that I get to cover for the Advertising Associate...which means, that I get to sit in a cubicle and actually be responsible for 2 of our senior advertising employees: Renata, who is in charge of our Jewelry and Fashion accounts; and Dan who is in charge of our beverage, tobacco, and entertainment (films, CDs, etc) accounts. The woman is doing this job over the summer, Wei-Sing, has to leave for 3 weeks, and Marie asked if Brittany and I could cover for her. Wei-Sing trained me yesterday and there is a lot of stuff that goes into being an Advertising Associate. Not only do I have to field phone calls and emails, I have to be in charge of constantly updating the ad sheets (which is a list of the advertisments that ran in the most recent issue that includes page number and positioning in the magazine), and running searches on where our clients are placed in competitive magazines. I also have to do expense reports for both Renata and Dan, make reservations for them if they are entertaining guests, compile folders and informational packets for them when they go to meetings, and send out magazines to potential clients.

This, needless to say, is an incredible opportunity. There is a lot of responsibility on my plate right now, and I cannot wait to step it up. It has been really slow lately for the interns because there is a lot of administrative, nit-picky things that only the actual advertising employees can do. So we have been doing some mailings, a couple of internet research projects on blogs and ad placement, and I have been doing some messenger stuff (which means I get to ride on the subway and deliver packages). But with filling in for the Advertising Associate, I actually will have a steady stream of work.

Posted by Claire Dowd at 10:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Never trust a scalper. A ticket scalper that is.

The White Stripes, one of my all time favorite bands in the whole wide world, just put out their sixth album today called "Icky Thump", and to celebrate this new album, the band was playing a small, secret show at Irving Plaza which is this nice, intimate venue (especially for a band as popular as The White Stripes). Tickets were sold out, but I decided to go down to Irving Plaza to see if I could score one off of someone.

Bad, bad idea. Although I really should blame this on my own stupidity, the scalper completely ripped me off. The tickets were on sale for $30 and I gave this guy $85 (of money that is not flowing into, but rather out of, my bank account since my CELS money went toward renting an apartment) for a ticket. I should have been smart about (but I am not used to shady business deals) and made him give me a ticket before giving him money. Instead, I did the opposite, walked away happily and then realized 10 minutes later that he gave me a fake ticket. Everyone else in line, who were responsible, honest individuals who waited to buy a ticket from the Irving Plaza box office, had printed sheets for tickets. I had a ticket stub that looked like it was printed with your average ink jet printer on thick oaktag with a layout designed on Microsoft Paint. I should have known! I was so stupid! I just lost $85 willingly on a fake ticket! So I walked away, ripped up my ticket, and took the subway back to my apartment where I ate chips and watched a goofy romantic comedy with my roommates.

It was depressing and embarrassing, but instead of hiding my awful blunder, I feel it is important to share it with people who are naive, like myself. Don't buy tickets from scalpers! They are mean and only want money and they don't care how much you love a band! They will rip you off. Be careful!

Also, if you like rock 'n' roll, buy Icky Thump.

Posted by Claire Dowd at 10:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I love entertainment. Music, film, television, magazines...I live to be distracted! Last Tuesday, my boss, Marie, asked me if I wanted free tickets to see the play "Frost/Nixon." I later found out (through google) that the play is about a famous series of interviews that took place in the late 1970s between Richard Nixon and David Frost, a British talk show host. The reason these interviews are so famous is because it is the first time Richard Nixon ever publicly recognized his involvment in Watergate and publicly apologized for what he had done.

I had never been to a traditional dramatic Broadway play before, but I think I could easily become a theater buff. I am not crazy about musicals (and I've seen quite a few of them: The Lion King, Beauty & the Beast, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Hairspray...) for a few reasons, mainly because I think they tend to be overwhelmingly corny and obnoxious. I don't care for the suspension of reality that musicals require...and I tend to cringe at the sound of the typical "Broadway voice".

But now, dramatic theater is ENTIRELY different. And really quite remarkable...this I have all determined from one play. "Frost/Nixon" was that good. It was like watching a 1970's detective-style film with well developed, sympathetic characters. I don't think anyone could say that Richard Nixon is someone who inspires sympathy, but in "Frost/Nixon", he is as pitiful and depressing as Willie Loman (from "Death of a Salesman"). Frank Langella, who just won a Tony Award for his portrayal of Nixon, is an incredible character actor and fully embodies Nixon's physical and personality traits. As the play progresses and as you can see Nixon's guilt and frustration increase, Langella's back stoops lower and lower under the weight. The other lead actor, Michael Sheen as David Frost, also adeptly possesses the playboy attitude of his character who really just wants to be remembered and respected. There is a private telephone conversation that takes place between Frost and Nixon where Nixon says something to the effect of "Only one person can win. The other has to be cast into the wilderness." The play focuses on how these two characters are trying to create public personas that allow them to be loved and respected, notably at the expense of the other. The play is also written by Peter Morgan, the screenwriter of "The Queen" and "The Last King of Scotland"...guaranteed quality entertainment.

If you want to check out the website for the play, look at the schedule and ticket prices, and read up on the actors, go to http://www.frostnixononbroadway.com/home.php

It was really exciting to go to the theater and see an incredible production. I felt as if I was doing something cultured and dignified with my evening...I wish I could go to the "theater" every night! And there is nothing better than getting tickets for free! Being in New York City for the summer is an amazing opporunity. Although this has been said many times before, I will say it again. This city really has anything and everything you can think of. There is so much to do and see and so much culture to absorb. During July, my sister is going to be in the city taking some classes and we are planning on going to all the museums...so expect detailed updates on my Summer 2007 Museum Tour!

Posted by Claire Dowd at 01:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've been thinking a little recently about why people don't take public transportation more often.

We all know that automotive transport is one of the main sources of greenhouse gas emissions. And many of us purport to care strongly about global warming etc. So why do so many people stick to commuting by themselves?

There are plenty of perfectly reasonable answers, and I'll look at a few of them (plus fun anecdotes!) below the fold.

1. Freedom of Mobility
In my opinion, this is the best reason. The communities that most of us live in are constructed in a fashion that is designed for individual automobiles, and not for public transport. Thus the public transportation stops are usually too far away and in very poor shape. In many instances, you have to drive just to get to the bus or train station. I'm lucky to live in a region with a very good bus system, and to have several stops within walking distance of my house. Many people are not. This is too bad, in my opinion

Maybe I should just quickly outline what is meant by public transportation: local buses and trains, primarily, but occasionally such things as taxis or ferries as well.

2. Money
This an excuse I use a lot, being a tightwad like you've never seen, but really it's not a good reason at all. If you think about it, driving a car costs SO much money, from the initial purchase or rent payment, to gas, to insurance, to maintenance and repairs. Overall, using a car for transportation probably costs several thousand dollars each year at the very least. My area's buses cost $1 every ride. So, let's say you take the bus to and from work every day, and then take two trips by bus on each day of the weekend. That's about $920, much less than it costs to use a car.

3. Association with lower social class
This might make some people uncomfortable, but there's nothing unusual about it. I'd venture that the majority of people, from the lowest to the highest standing, all try to avoid appearing less well off than they are. In fact, many middle-class Americans try to appear better off than they are, and that frequently gets them into debt trouble. But there's certainly an association in our society between the use of public transport and being poor. Certainly a lot of low-income people use buses to get around, because like I said before, it's a cheap way to travel. But this is one that has me puzzled. Why is it that in cities around the globe, everyone uses buses and subways to get around: businessmen, socialites, drunks, dropouts, and people of all sorts who are tied to the engines of capitalism, while in other places, there's a notion that you only take public transportation if you can't afford a car? Is hiding behind a status symbol that important to us, even though when you're using it, no one can see you?

That said, I've got some good stories from my bus commuting. I've been riding my bike to work (on the bike path, which my town is quite blessed to have, I'm aware) and taking the bus home every day. Oh, first, one thing about Northampton. There used to be a state mental hospital there, but it closed a few decades ago, and many of the mentally handicapped folk are still bouncing around the town here and there. One of these delightful individuals frequents the bus stop where I wait for my bus. She's a middle-aged lady with a bit of a beard, and sits there at the bus stop gesturing here and there, playing with things she has, such as coffee cups, water bottles filled with cigarette butts, or small empty ziplock bags. She sits there for a while making lots of stuffier folk uncomfortable, then gets up after a while and just walks away. Harmless as far as I can tell, but why wouldn't she be? She's just doing her thing, like anyone else. Her thing just happens to be a little different from what you and I are used to.

On the other end of the spectrum, I've noticed that there are two people who are always on the same bus as me. One of them is a college-age person, and I'd been failing to build up the courage to talk to her until a chance meeting introduced us, and now we chat at the bus stop and on the bus all the time. Turns out she's interning at the local newspaper, rising junior at UMass, from New Delhi, majoring in Journalism and Legal Studies. See what delightful people you can meet by taking public transportation? Can you do that while driving alone in your car?

One thing that I frequently feel the lack of, and I've heard accounts that this is a society-wide issue, is social contact. I've heard that children aren't learning important social skills because they spend too long in front of their TV and computer screens. Why should we isolate ourselves by driving our shiny little personal boxes when we could be interacting with others, if it's something we need to do more of?

Ick. Sorry if this has turned into a rant. Acknowledged, frequently it's difficult to access public transportation. But the more it's used, the more available it will be!

Posted by Alexander Krogh-Grabbe at 07:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here is my next installment. Though this was not the most eventful time period, I was really starting to enjoy being in an office environment. Read on, and happy Father's Day, Dad!

Day 5, May 30: One thing I need to remember when walking around this city is to trust my instincts. When sighted people tell me I can cross the street, I need to be more strong-willed – if I was planning to wait until the next traffic cycle, I need to feel free to do so. Boy, this jay-walking fad is crazy. It’s something you don’t really see in Los Angeles. Once I got to work, I was delighted to find that I had received my CELS check in the mail. That will be a great help in paying my rent.
I started on Lina’s reader profile for the annual report today, which involved writing up the notes I’d taken in her interview yesterday. It was actually quite enjoyable, because I had to make sure I was writing from a middle schooler’s perspective. I also got a free copy of a Braille manual on using Microsoft Word with Jaws from customer service. Jaws, if I haven’t already said so, is the software on my laptop that reads the text on the screen aloud to me. Because I can’t see to use a mouse, I use keyboard commands for everything. I got the book (for free, because it’s job-related) so that I can learn some new Word-related commands. I honestly didn’t have enough to do today, but that happens sometimes when you’re an intern.

Day 6, May 31: The E Train stopped on the opposite side of the platform today, thanks a lot! Nevertheless, I got here in record time!
I started the day by e-mailing one of the funds that we might be interested in getting grants from, if we qualify. Why do I suspect that I won’t ever hear from them? I was given a long list of top grant-giving companies in the Boston area that we want to check out. Apparently one of my supervisors saw this list in a business magazine or newspaper, and wanted to investigate. For the rest of the day I tackled the list, which included energy providers, healthcare companies, law firms, and banks – to name a few. I wrote down the main programs and projects that we are doing: math and science textbook production, production of books for our Children’s Braille Book Club, and distribution of book bags to every family in the country with blind preschoolers. We also put out a weekly publication of newspaper columns from that week. As I research, I try to find companies that have a focus similar to one of those programs.

Day 7, Happy June!: I almost bumped my head twice on my way to work, though I avoided the second obstacle (stupid tree). Note to self: if you move your cane in a wide arc as you walk, as you were taught to do, that wouldn’t happen. Also, listen harder for the E train so you don’t almost miss it like today, and trust yourself.
Not much new to report, except that I got a second list of prospective companies to apply to, which I access through a database specifically for literacy grants called “National Lincs.” If I find one that seems to be a good fit as I go, I go to Guidestar and print the Form 990 for the company, so I can give it to my supervisor. I got through about ten companies today, not bad.

Posted by Eliza Cooper at 09:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

So if anyone reading this is younger than me, let me repeat some advice I've heard: networking and contacts are everything when you're trying to get a job. Okay, not everything, but really, really important.

So I leapt at the opportunity to do some networking amongst people in various environmental industries in Western Mass. CET organizes a monthly get-together called Green Drinks at the Northampton Brewery, where professionals from all sorts of environmental fields get together and chat and network. Great fun, greatly useful. Especially for a young buck like me, just starting out. More after the jump.

So I went with John Majercak (MY-er-chek), the office head-honcho, who organizes these gatherings, to the place. Some people started arriving, and there was some preliminary chit-chat. I was really nervous, because I'd never been to one of these things before, nor am I totally comfortable in an alcoholic atmosphere. But John assured me that most people at these events don't order alcoholic beverages anyways, so I was a little more comfortable on that front, but still extremely nervous.

There was one woman who was a banker who was pushing sustainable practices in her company, and another who worked in the organic industry. I talked with them only briefly at the beginning.

There were two people I talked to the most. One was of an age with me; she just graduated from UMass in English and Sustainable Agriculture, doesn't really know what she wants to do with herself, and is currently doing something at UMass about veggies or whatnot. She was very nice, gave me a ride back to my car in the CET parking lot, but she's about as clueless as I am.

The main person of interest, though, was a woman who works at this solar company down in Springfield. The company's called Kosmo Solar and her name is Pam. She's young too, late 20s, but dresses like a dorky-yet-cool college student. She went to Hampshire, and volunteered and networked her way to this awesome administrative job at this solar company. She said there are basically two types of jobs in the solar industry: on the roof installing, and not on the roof. She's in the latter, and that's where I'd like to be too, if I were in that industry. I wager it's more complex than that, but it's a good conceptual starting point.

Pam advised me to volunteer at events a lot, meet lots of people, and network a lot. Basically, I got the impression that a lot of passion and standardly high capability also helped get her the job she has.

Afterwards, I got to thinking. Do I really want to go into the solar industry? I certainly want to do something environmental with myself, occupationally speaking, but solar? It's one possibility. But I'm also really interested in green building, which is what I'm primarily doing at my internship. And what education would I need for these things? Pam said that you don't really need a specific degree to do what she does (she has an engineering degree from Hampshire). I've heard people say that engineering degrees are very useful for this sort of thing, but they're also very prescriptive and pretty intense, I hear. Then there's architecture. I'd love to do that, but the word is architecture degrees are also pretty grueling. And several people have said to me that every architect wants to build a green home. So, if I became an architect and wanted to build green buildings, would I not be able to? It's so confusing.

Anyways, basically, I don't know what I want to do with my life, but networking like this is useful regardless. See how much it got me thinking?

Also, after Green Drinks I was going to go to a workshop sponsored by CET about solar energy. I didn't make it for various reasons, but I got my hands on the printout of the powerpoint slides, and learned a lot. Basically, it seems that a 1 KW installation = 1200 KWh output, assuming optimum orientation and NO shading. Also, solar panels cost about $10,000 per KW installed. Optimum orientation is due south at a tilt of about 40 degrees. If you want to know more, let me know.

Okay, that's it for this week! I'll post more as things happen! Huzzah for being caught up!

Posted by Alexander Krogh-Grabbe at 09:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here's a free tip about making your house more energy efficient, and thus saving yourself TONS of money on your heating and electric bills every month. Your house needs to be as airtight as possible, so if there are any gaps in the insulation or cracks in the walls, any places where air gets through, they ought to be sealed up. Thing is, to find them, one generally has to do tests that require professionals like the people at CET. But it's an investment that pays for itself in a matter of months.

So that's the tip: fill in the gaps. In your house's envelope (that's a jargon-y term that means basically the line between what you heat and what's outside) and in your ductwork.

But now, allow me to fill in a few gaps of my own by telling you what all I've been up to in the past two weeks:

I've had a few multi-day projects:

1. Collecting all the links in the LEED-H book and making a spreadsheet of them. I then checked them all, and found replacements for the dead ones. I then went through this EPA Green Building Resources packet and did the same thing with them. I emailed my findings to the creators of each. The eventual goal of this is to create some sort of resource (physical or electronic--I'm not entirely sure) for our builders. I still have a lot of work to do on this: finding suitable things to print out, checking the categorization of the links, and checking the quality of the resources, as well as finding more.

2. Researching the whole thing about vegetarianism and climate change, and eventually constructing a flyer or handout addressing it. I've done a lot of research but haven't congealed my thoughts or the statistics yet.

3. Various things having to do with our client database. There was a piece of information we didn't know we were supposed to keep track of, and I updated all of those. Mostly I've been comparing various computer files and inputing the missing information. Some of this was fun, though, like checking the gas company against a map of Western Mass. Like I said before, I've started learning all the towns in Western Mass pretty well. The reason for all this is that there are two gas companies in Western Mass and two electric companies. One of the electric companies pays for energy audits, and both gas companies do, but only for their customers (people who heat with natural gas). So, I've had to check how all our clients heat their houses, and which gas and electric providers are in their town. The goal, then, was to determine whether the client paid for the service or whether one of their utilities did. I think I'm pretty much done with this.

4. Various creation of folders and mailings for clients of various different projects. I did LEED, EnergyStar, and ReStore folders, and a LEED mailing. And then there are all the copies for anyone who asks me to make some. I enjoy that though; it gets me up from the data-zonking.

5. Reading these various booklets. I read through the entire 180+ page LEED-H booklet, the EPA resource guide, and am currently working on the LEED for Neighborhood Development booklet. That's a new LEED program that's in a closed pilot. CET isn't doing any LEED-ND (as it's abbreviated) jobs, but it's still interesting to read up on. I also have two more things to read through. One is a guide to the Thermal Bypass Checklist, which is one of the major components of the EnergyStar inspection. This stuff is really educational and interesting, though reading for too long can put me to sleep a little.

So, that's about all I've been doing. I went out on my first two days with a rater. Both were rather unusual single-test outings, the first because Jonathan had forgotten to do it before (it was his first time doing that kind of inspection), and the second time because the house had failed the test the first time and they'd solved the problem. Since then I haven't gone out at all.

"But what about the drooling things?" asks the diligent reader. Well, we've had some visitors recently. On Wednesday of this past week, one of the CET raters brought his 9.5 month-old daughter in for a visit. Her name was Chloe and she was all wide-eyed and super-cute. She was in a very good mood and didn't cry at all. She walked a little, supported by her dad's fingers. Everyone in the office was a tad distracted that afternoon.

Then on Thursday and Friday, Beth, one of our Northampton office raters, brought in a dog that she's taking care of for a friend. The dog is a female rottweiler-huskie mix, is young but not a puppy, and has one brown and one blue eye. Her name's Suzzy and she's extremely friendly and just a pleasure to have in the office. I love dogs. She'll be back some next week, then is going back to her owner.

I think the last thing I have to talk about is my networking experience. I'll get to that in the next post. Then I'll be caught up! Yay!

Posted by Alexander Krogh-Grabbe at 08:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Frighteningly. Not that professional, but enough that it reminds me I'm approaching adulthood. Please don't suggest that I'm there already; I'm clinging onto childhood as to the scraps of a tattered, ragged security blanket.

So how am I professional? Well, all my interesting correspondences, networking, and research, of course. Read about them below the fold.

So a lot of the work I've been doing so far at CET has been pretty standard intern work. I coined a new phrase for it today: data-zonking. It's data entry or checking, but to the extent that you zonk out a bit from the monotony of it. It's interesting monotony in my case though: I'm working with the database of all CET's clients, which helps me learn about where all we've been working, and is actually helping me memorize all the random towns in Western Mass.

But that's just the filler, the uninteresting stuff around the edges of what I really want to write about in this entry.

So one of the things I've been doing a lot the past two days is research this claim that Peggy (my contact in the office and sort-of supervisor) asked me to investigate. That is, that going vegetarian is THE best thing a person can do for the environment, better than buying a Prius, better than anything. At first, I was doubtful. I'm not a vegetarian, though I sympathize strongly with most of the reasons for it. I was skeptical, though. So I cast about my Google net online, looking for references to it. I found a likely source of the hullabaloo: an article on the Huffington Post, a much-read blog, though one I'd only heard of and not read myself. This article was throwing numbers right and left, and alerting the reader (in its sassy style) to the purported fact that truly, meat production is really bad, and reducing our patronage of these horrid practices is quite a good thing to do.

Well, I was rather derisive in my criticism. It didn't cite enough of its sources, the style and tone of the article soured my stomach a little, but I was curious. I wanted to know what the research was that all this had come from.

Long story...well, still long, but slightly shorter, I came upon three credible sources of this information. One was a report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. Also I read a news article about a Cornell professor's report. Then there was the continuing work of two UChicago professors. All very authoritative. However, while I garnered squadrons of statistics, I was still confused on a few points. So what did I do? I took my audacity in hand and emailed the emeritus Cornell professor who authored the one study, asking for clarification. Luckily, he's still alive (he was already emeritus in 1997, I think) and sent me a response the next day. He just gave me the PDFs of two more of his studies, but they were slightly informative.

So, that project is currently put aside to make room for other things, but the eventual goal is to produce a handout or flyer about the whole topic.

So there was another instance of my daunting professional communication via email. One of the main locations of my data-zonking has been on this spreadsheet I'm creating. It catalogs a lot of links relevant to the LEED for Homes project. There are a lot of them; I'm now up to about 200 rows on my Excel document, from just two sources. So, basically, I've been inputing them all, and then checking them to make sure the links still work. A number of the first batch (the ones provided in the booklet by the USGBC) didn't work. So, I threw together an email detailing what I'd been doing and all the links I'd found that didn't work and the replacement links I'd found for them, and sent it off to someone at the USGBC office in Washington DC. I think the person I sent it to was the woman in charge of the whole LEED-H program. I was just trying to be helpful...and it turned out I was! She sent me an email back in about an hour articulating the emotions "wow! cool! thanks!" (in more mature, professional words). Then, she sent me another email an hour or so after that, which contained a quote from the consultant she had forwarded my info to. He said it was wonderful and something to the extent of "how do I get an intern like that?" I sent them the email of Christine Terry, the CELS Program Coordinator. But just think of that! I had a brief email correspondence with a person in the Washington office of the organization that created this popular national building standard, in fact with the person who runs the specific part of that program I'm working with! How cool is that! Okay, well I think it's cool.

Oh, this entry is getting really long, and I haven't even talked about my networking experience yet. Wow, I'm not so good at brevity, am I. Sorry, to those of you who slogged through it all. There's just so much to tell! I'll get to the networking in a brief post (ha!) later, and then about all the other stuff in my office, the stuff between the mundane and the extraordinary. That middle-ground stuff is pretty cool too, involving two adorable creatures who drool a lot. Until then...

Posted by Alexander Krogh-Grabbe at 09:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So let me first just tell you a little story from this afternoon. I take the bus home from work, waiting at the bus stop for about a half hour. Another bus comes right before mine. Today, I saw a young woman in a white tanktop, white skirt, and short blond dreadlocks get on the bus. Thing is, she had bare feet and apparently the bus driver wouldn't let her on in that fashion. So, she took her jacket out of her bag and stood on that as she shuffled onto the bus. Apparently that was temporarily good enough. However, later, I saw her leave the bus, and, through my iPod, heard her shout at the bus driver, "I have INVISIBLE shoes!!" then disappear around the front of the bus. Oh Northampton. But that's only the most recent tasty experience I've had in the past two weeks.....

I think I mentioned in my last post how CET really represents this new, vibrant, growing environmentalism. Striding the line (nay, gulf) between crunchy, hippie, back-to-the-land, screw society environmentalists, and neo-techno-environmentalists who sometimes lose sight of the goals in favor of their glitzy eco-fashions and technological gadgets, CET is about solutions. Most of the work in the smaller Northampton office is about green home building and reducing the energy use of existing homes. Climate change is the problem, over-burning of fossil fuels is the cause, reduction of fossil fuel use is the solution, and every one of us reducing our energy use is the means.

So where was I? Oh, different kinds of environmentalism. In my Environmental Philosophy class this past semester, we focused more on esoteric aspects of environmental ethics and aesthetics. One of the things we talked about was Animal Rights ethics. I've come to realize that animal rights stuff is how a lot of people come to environmentalism. Y'know, "look at the cute polar bear/turtle/puppy/baby chicken! How could people be mean to it! Let's save it!" While I have a lot of respect for people who make strides in this line of thinking, I come from a different area of the movement. I'm concerned with Climate Change (aka Global Warming), and am setting about to fix it as best I can. There are many other important things that are included in "environmentalism", such as preserving biodiversity and reducing waste (to name just two), but that's not what I'm mainly about. CET as well, though we do waste management stuff too.

Anyway, why did I get onto this? To tell you about an amazing, profound, and mildly ironic experience I had last Wednesday or Thursday.

I was biking to work, as I do, on the Norwottuck Bike Trail (Rail Trail? I forget what it's official name is; it's along where a railroad track used to go, but now most people just call it the bike trail). I was still kinda sleepy, as I'm not at all a morning person. There were hardly any other people on the bike trail that morning, and I was consequently seeing all sorts of wildlife. Squirrels and birds galore, but also rabbits and chipmunks, all scurrying away as I rapidly approached. Then, as I was nearing Hampshire Mall (about a quarter of the way to work), I looked to my right and saw two white-tailed deer foraging, then prancing along in the field next to the trail. I was stricken, because I rarely see deer, and was just drinking in their magnificence. Then I realized they were loping toward the trail, in front of me, and I slammed on my brakes. They came to the side of the 6-foot wide paved surface flanked by trees, just 10 feet or so in front of me. They stood still for a second, then went trotting along in the direction I was going. I started pedaling again, and was completely ecstatic as I kept pace with them for a few seconds that seemed like minutes. Then, I changed gear, which makes a clicking sound, and they abruptly changed direction, darting off to the left, off the trail, and into the woods below. I sighed at the loss of such a moving experience, for it is more than uncommon to come so close to such majesty.

So, that's cool, you say, but the title says something about profundity, right? Indeed it does. After the deer left, I was struck that I experienced on this nature-imbued commute the source of passion that inspires the other branch of environmentalism I mentioned earlier. And wasn't it ironic that I encountered this awesome spring of dedication on my practical commute to my practical pastime toward a practical goal? And yet, it affected me as much as any animal-lover! I guess I have that aspect to my environmentalism as well, and it has merely been tabled due to the pressing urgency of my main pursuit.

Nature is stunningly heart-stirring, and I think we all of us long remember these occasions when we become removed from our artificial, sterilized world and look right into it. Into the eyes of the deer, into the roaring fury of a torrential storm, into the swirling silent tumult of a blizzard, at the alert cleverness of an animal, small or large, that passes by us.

So, stepping back from the sublimity of nature, I will soon belabor you with another entry. Not as astounding, but interesting and more to the point of my internship.

Posted by Alexander Krogh-Grabbe at 08:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So before I launched into my entire internship search history, I was on the subway heading to Interview for my first day. I had been to the office before, and I couldn't wait to be inside again.

I am an appreciator of details, but there is nothing subtle about the office. It is gorgeous. In the lobby, Warhol's Chairman Mao prints and dark wood panels enclose the receptionist. The advertising section of the office has huge windows overlooking Broadway, open cubicles made of lightly painted wood, and Warhol prints (originals!) scattered around the office walls. The office certainly exudes the pop culture savvy and class of its magazine. The most exciting part of the office is the library. There are walls of bookshelves all filled with books about art, culture, and the places to see in the world. I get overly enthusiastic about books and libraries because I have held a lifelong dream to have a huge library in my home and be incredibly well read. So to work at a place that highly regards intellectual endeavors is doubly rewarding.

On the first day, I meet my co-intern Brittany who is a student at the University of Wisconsin. She is majoring in some sort of communications, advertising, super specific job oriented major, and I was afraid that I would not be informed enough about the ways of advertising and fall behind. Not to worry, my English major has left me amply prepared for this job. On our first day, we alphabetized and organized 2 file drawers filled with magazines. Since advertising and publication, in general, is a competitive field, Interview subscribes to about 30 other magazines, including Harper's Bazaar, Vogue, Elle, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, etc...and several smaller New York-based publications. So, it was our job to make sure that each competitive magazine had its own file folder in a drawer and that all the magazines were organized by alphabet and by date. It was a physically exhausting job, especially since we started doing it wrong at first by removing all magazines before 2006 and piling them all around the office. We then had to put them all back, and my arms were considerably tired.

Everyone keeps asking me whether I get a chance to mingle and socialize with my co-workers (or more appropriately my bosses) during work. And the thing is, it is really hard because everyone is at his/her respective cubicle working on things he/she needs to do. So, it is kind of awkward to hover around their desks and be like, "Hey, what's up? What's your life story?" There are several younger people who work at the magazine, including my fellow Conn alumni, and I have learned more about them as the days go by. Some of the older people who work here tend to be high up in the advertising food chain, and I rarely speak to them or see them at all. But I smile and say hi as they bustle past, on their way to some important meeting with Christian Dior or the publisher, Sandra Brant.

The great thing about this internship (one of many, I should say) is the hours. I work 10-6, which means that I don't have to get up until 8:15 and I just hop on the subway and I am here in about 10 minutes. It is a wonderful commute, infinitely better than commuting from home (Fairfield, CT) which is about an hour and 40 minute train ride and THEN I have to take the subway from Grand Central. It is not fun, and I cannot imagine how people who live in Fairfield commute every day. I feel like I would have no soul by the end of the month, let alone after 20 something years. I really admire those dedicated individuals, especially the ones that remain pleasant when you accidentally bump into them on the crowded train.

It is really nice working with another intern because you get to have company and commiserate over feeling inadequate and unprofessional. Being my first internship, I had no idea what to expect. What kind of work I would be doing, what everyone in the office would be like, etc. The workload is pretty light, and it is a nice break from school where I can go home and not have to worry about doing anything productive. The problem with having two interns is that the workload is light and we get things done quickly. So for the first week, the amount of free time we had was surprising and almost overwhelming. When our instructions were to sit tight and read a magazine, it seems opposite to what I had expected. It is really nice to flip through old issues of Interview and read these amazing articles, like a conversation between Allen Ginsburg and Johnny Depp or an candid interview with Edward Norton. You can't really get this kind of coverage and understanding from regular publications. No one in the conventional media world cares a whole lot about Edward Norton or Liza Minnelli. But Interview has these amazing couplings of people, and two dynamic personalities make for great entertainment.

Anyway, enough tooting Interview's horn.

We started on a Wednesday, and by the next week, we started doing a few more things and learning more about how advertising works. I now know how to use a advertising database called MagAdvisor, and I can make reports about how many pages in all these competitive magazines featured an ad by a certain company. For example, how many pages featured an advertisement for Dolce and Gabbana for 10 different magazines in 2006. It's pretty neat stuff! I know how to make a media kit, which is a package magazines send to prospective ad clients that feature editorial and advertising information about the magazine including our editorial vision, upcoming issues, circulation and reader demographic, and the cost to run an advertisment. I also have gotten really good at entering information into spreadsheets and using the internet as a research tool. My most recent project is to look up how other magazines utilize ad space on their websites. I need to take note of how many ads run per webpage, what the layout is like, whether the ads change when you click to different linked sites, etc. And now, I have been making a bunch of phone calls, pretending I am from an exclusive company interested in advertising on x's magazine's website, covertly asking for price information about advertising online.

The reason I am doing all of this is because Interview recently launched their website, and we want to know how much our competition is charging for online advertising. Because we want to make our website THE BEST! If you are interested in looking at the site, it is really cool. The layout is way different from the typical website because instead of linked articles opening in a new window, the website is almost laid out like a magazine. So you click on a link for an article and the website runs horizontally across the screen to the article. I don't know if that makes sense, but it is super awesome.

Check it out: www.interviewmagazine.com

Posted by Claire Dowd at 02:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here are my thoughts from my third and fourth days, which were on Friday May 25, and Tuesday May 29. I am busy at night, what with working out in my dorm's gym and things, and I do need some sleep, so I'll be able to catch up more this weekend. For now, enjoy, and thanks!

Day 3: Bumped my head on a column during my commute and buttoned my blouse incorrectly; got to work a little late; no big deal. Set up my voicemail, read some past annual reports (in Braille), because I’ve been asked to write the reader profiles for this year’s. The reader is a first-person account of how Braille has significantly impacted someone’s life in a positive way. Each year NBP interviews a few different people, so that there are normally profiles representing an adult and a child’s perspective. The VP for Development (one of my main supervisors) asked me to help her interview a young blind girl, who will be the subject of one of the profiles. I did so, taking some furious notes, and afterward went back to Harry Potter blog posting and newspaper wrangling.
Later in the day, though, I was introduced to the concept of grant research by one of NBP’s two main grant writers. Using the beloved internet, my task was to go through a list of corporations and foundations, evaluating the kinds of grants they were offering as they related to our focus. If we seemed eligible for a grant, I would go to a database that provides Form 990s for every charitable foundation in the country, and print out the first and last few pages of the form for Carol’s perusal. All the 990s (which are tax forms, as far as I know) are available as .pdf files, which utilize Acrobat Reader. Because the contents of these files is not text but an image, my screen reading software cannot interpret it, so I can’t read it. Nevertheless, I can take notes on information from the foundation’s web site, and provide the form 990 when necessary.
When researching grants, I look for: what the typical size of the foundation’s grants are; who some of the past recipients have been; organizations that are similar to ours (that focus on education, blindness, literacy, or any combination thereof); who their trustees are (in case we know them); whether or not they accept unsolicited grant proposals; and lastly, what their exact program areas for funding are. I tried one with my supervisor, and was then off and running.

Day 4, Tue May 29: I had a rocky commute today (I’m blaming it on the long weekend). I had to get help finding the E train in the Park Street station, because I couldn’t find my trusty columns that are my landmarks. I then went the wrong way at the Symphony stop – but I got here anyway. Did I mention that for my first 3 days I was in the President’s office, because he was on vacation? It was not bad, and since I’ve met him before, I wanted to leave him a fun message of thanks for the sweet workspace, but I’m not that gutsy…yet. Anyway, I’ve been demoted to the former CFO’s office, which he has just left. He’s coming at night until a replacement is found, so we shouldn’t overlap. It’s a tough life, being an intern.
I did more grant research, some brainstorming on publicity for the Harry Potter and the Walking Wizards team for the Vision 5K, and got some confirmation that my posts had made it onto the “Floo Network” and “Leaky Cauldron” Harry Potter fan forums. Yay! This day was over fairly quickly.
Thanks go out to Rachel for going to the awesome Earthfest concert with me this weekend. It’s an annual free Boston concert that takes place outside by the Charles River. Guster was the headliner, and Grace Potter and the Nocturnals played, the latter having come to Conn! It made what could have been a lonely first weekend great.

Posted by Eliza Cooper at 11:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Strangely enough, I was not nervous. I boarded the subway self-assured because with Arcade Fire playing on my headphones, I figured I could do anything. I headed downtown to 575 Broadway (on the corner of Prince Street) to the offices of Interview Magazine.

The thing is, I am ALWAYS nervous. It's just who I am. I am nervous about meeting people, public speaking, walking around Harris. But this was the first time since elementary school that I was excited about my first day. I knew I would be in the fine company of another intern (named Brittany) and the 2 Connecticut College alums that work in Interview's advertising office (Marie LaFrance 2003 and Elliot Coakley 2005). If all else failed, I could definitely aask them what dorms they lived in on campus.

I suppose some background information would be helpful because an understanding of where I'm working will be necessary for when I actually start to describe what I'm doing during my internship (which is the whole point of this blog right?) A brief history of the magazine is as follows:
Interview Magazine was founded by Andy Warhol in 1969, based on the idea that artists should interview each other. This has been the driving force behind the magazine and has caused it to stand out as a high-end, high-culture entertainment magazine. Some celebrity contributors include Elton John, Johnny Depp, and Lindsay Lohan. Interview's esteem has garnered the motto "The Crystal Ball of Pop".

How perfect for me! The girl who is obsessed with pop culture gets to work for a premium pop culture publication. Seems like an impossible gig to get, right?

Well, thank goodness for CELS and alumni contacts because otherwise I would have been lifeguarding again this summer. Marie LaFrance contacted CELS looking for advertising interns, hoping to give back since she had an amazing CELS experience. I jumped at the opportunity, which is the only way to do it because if you don't act quickly and eagerly, the opportunities will just slip right past you. So I contacted Marie in November or December, and we made a plan to get in touch again in March. I interviewed at Interview (hah!) during my spring break, and I made sure that I made a great first impression by choosing the perfect outfit. Now, I'm not usually one to believe that clothes are terribly important...but in the work force, they are. Physical impressions are everything especially at a magazine that is fully invested in high fashion designers. I certainly felt better walking into an office covered with Andy Warhol prints in a sleek, classy outfit.

It was during the interview that I was very nervous, and I was afraid that I completely botched it. I didn't know how to answer the question, "Tell me more about yourself." I stammered, tried to delay, and then I realized that I really had nothing to say. Did I have an existential moment of doubt? Kind of. I didn't know what was worthwhile and what wasn't, so I just went on to say how much I love working on the school newspaper and how much I love magazines and publications. The interview ended quickly, about 20 minutes, and Marie said she would call me soon to let me know whether I got it or not.

I wasn't entirely sure whether I wanted to be an advertising intern, but I was so enamored with the magazine and the opportunities it would offer (even if it wasn't in editorial) that when Marie called me on Monday, I said yes immediately. And then I was excited. Really excited, and I wished it would be May 30th so I could go into the city for the summer and begin my glorious life as a savvy, advertising intern!

Posted by Claire Dowd at 02:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello reader!
First of all, thanks for stopping by and reading this first entry…or at least for reading this far. I hope you will stick around and enjoy my adventure with me. In this entry, I will summarize the first 2 days of my internship, which will last a total of 28 (excluding weekends). In real time, I just finished day 15, but I’ll catch you up soon enough. Read on!

Being a development intern, in my case, means that I do whatever tasks the development team need the most help with, or those that they never get to. I love it, because it means that I’ve already done quite a variety of things. For someone who is as clueless about what type of career they want as I am, what could be better?

National Braille Press is located near Symphony Hall and Northeastern University in Boston, MA. It publishes and produces Braille books in a fairly complicated process, which involves transcribers, proofreaders, people who people who record the text of books, people who operate the press, and others who bind the books. And then there are those who work behind the scenes – like me. For more information on how the process works and about the organization itself, visit the web site: www.braille.com. Since I have already been working for a while, I will catch you up by copying down my daily thoughts, which include how my commute went (it always seems to be an adventure), and the main tasks I did that day. I will go more in-depth on some things in future posts, but if you want to know more about something or are confused, leave a comment, and I’ll address it. Heck, leave a comment anyway!

Day 1: I made it to work, yes! I remembered the route, and despite my extreme nervousness, I got here in one piece! Maybe I’m better at using this cane than I thought. Today I researched Harry Potter blogs to post on to let fans know about a team of kids that will be walking in an upcoming 5K as a way of fundraising for the Braille version of the seventh Harry Potter book that we’re producing. Let me get this out of the way right now: don’t bother asking me anything about the seventh book, because I have no way of knowing. All I know is that National Braille Press is producing it for the same price and around the same time as the print one. Case closed. NBP and Scholastic are very protective of this process…and after all, I am just a lowly intern.

Day 2: Today I learned that the reason that tea and coffee come in the same kind of round containers in the break room is that the machine treats them all the same: it opens the container, and runs water through the contents and into your cup. Who knew! I am loving the fact that the vending machine and the coffee machine are brailled. I never thought that caffeinating myself would be such an easy process here.
I did more researching of HP blogs and got ready to post on them. Unfortunately, because so many of them require you to look at an image and copy down numbers from it (called and image verification code), I had to get help registering as a user of almost all of the blogs. One instance where being blind is a slight nuisance – but that’s what awesome NBP employees are for. I posted on a few blogs before the end of the day.
I also called some newspapers in the hometowns of those who will be participating in the 5K in support of NBP – adults and children. Had little success, because most people didn’t answer or hadn’t gotten our press releases about the event. I’ll just hope that some of them pick up our story anyway.

Posted by Eliza Cooper at 09:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I have done so much since I started at the beginning of last week. I've read a LOT about all sorts of environmental stuff, I've gone out on site visits with some of the raters, and I've put together quite a few materials for builders, as well as putting out a mailing today. However, one of the most fun things so far has been getting to know the other people in my office. Let me introduce you to my new friends:

Megan is the only other person who's in the office as much as I am (9-5, five days a week), and her desk is right next to mine, pretty much. She's one of the friendlier people I've ever met; I don't know whether she just doesn't have bad days or somehow manages to be casually cheery in spite of them. She's young, too, only 5 years older than me. Went to Oberlin, but couldn't stay for financial reasons and now is almost done with her Masters in Regional Planning from UMass. Funny, that's one of the things I've been contemplating doing after I graduate.

Megan's responsibilities are on the one hand basic office management (answering the phone, keeping schedules, and knowing pretty much everything about everything), but also officially coordinating the builders that we work with. She was out on Friday, and coming back yesterday said "I was just out for one day, but it seems like I've got a lot to catch up on", to which I truthfully replied that she does a lot everyday.

Also, turns out the house I visited on Monday was her house, which is new and in the process of LEED-certification (going for LEED-silver). Turns out it's also the first zero-net-energy home in Massachusetts. Go figure. Lucky Megan.

The other two people who are most in the office are Peggy and Tomasin. Peggy was my contact at CET, because she knows my parents a bit, and she works with marketing of our programs. Oh, so we have a few basic programs that we facilitate:
-LEED certification
-EnergyStar certification
-Green Audits (all-around green examination for existing homes)
-Energy Audits (for existing homes as well, but just about energy use)
-MassSave and the New England Wind Fund (two programs through which people can basically purchase renewable energy from their electric company)

Tomasin does similar things to Peggy. She's in the office a lot too, but both she and Peggy have unusual hours due to meeting with clients at odd times. I don't know. Though I've done copying and the like for both of them, Megan's pretty much my direct supervisor. I have a pretty specific focus on green building, so I haven't interacted with people doing other things that much.

The three raters are Beth, Jonathan, and Bill. I still haven't met Bill, but I've gone on site visits with both Beth and Jonathan, and they're both really nice.

Finally there are Mark and John, who both split their time between the two CET offices. John is an assistant director of CET, and is in charge of the ReStore in Springfield. He is self-acknowledgedly the only one in the office who wears a tie. Mark is in charge of some program, but basically he is just capable of doing everyone else's jobs, so instead he coordinates things. The two of them are sort of the bosses in the office.

Everyone in the office is really laid back, and I just had this thought: in the office we have very diverse types of environmentalists, and yet none exemplify the stagnancy in the movement that we so recently appear to have cast off. There's a vibrancy in the work CET does that defies comparison to the immobility of environmentalism's past. Just a flash of profundity. If you're interested, I'll elaborate later; this is already getting too long.

Posted by Alexander Krogh-Grabbe at 09:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I wrote this post immediately after the first day of my internship, June 4th, about a week ago.
--------------------------------
So today was the first day of my internship. I had a lot of trouble getting to sleep last night. This morning I got up and drove there, through the rain and the stop-and-go Route 9 traffic. I was thinking that this seemed frighteningly similar to a real job. I got there, and met Megan, who told me the basic info. Keep reading for more information about what this organization does and what I did on my first day.

Let me tell you about CET (The Center for Ecological Technology). It's a non-profit devoted to providing information and services about energy efficiency, renewable energy, and waste management to the Western Massachusetts area. There are two offices, the main one in Pittsfield, and a smaller one in Northampton, where I'm working. There are only eight people in the office besides myself, though three of them are out on site visits most of the time, and a further two split their time between the two offices.

So what is all that energy and waste stuff, you may ask. Well, CET runs a place called the ReStore in Springfield (down the road about half an hour), where builders can get secondhand (but high-quality) building materials, in a form of recycling. But the main work that goes on in the Northampton office is more related to a different part of green building: certification. Half of the Northampton staff work primarily with EnergyStar and LEED-for-Homes certification. You've probably heard of EnergyStar in relation to appliances, but there's also a version for whole houses. If you haven't heard of it, basically EnergyStar is an EPA-run standard to determine what the most energy-efficient products on the market are, homes or appliances.

What you may not have heard about is LEED. LEED is organized by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) and stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. It is a rigorous program of standards to determine which buildings are the most environmentally-friendly. It started out just being for commercial buildings, but now encompasses homes, schools, and neighborhood developments as well. It turns out EnergyStar is included in the evaluation process for LEED-H (as LEED for Homes is abbreviated to).

There are different levels of LEED certification. First there's just simple certification, then better buildings are silver, gold, or finally platinum. Where a building falls is based on how many points it accrues in the evaluation process. Points are assigned in accordance with very specific standards about everything from the water efficiency of the toilets to the impact of the construction on the surrounding ecosystem, to the proximity of the building to its neighbors. It's quite an intensive process, involving the builder, many experts, and a specially-trained rater. Those raters are where CET comes in; USGBC-certified raters from CET travel around Western Mass, assessing various building projects and their compliance with the standards.

So what did I do today? I spent the first few hours reading a big packet detailing the whole LEED-H certification process. I got about halfway through the 180 pages. Then I got invited to go with one of the raters up to a site about an hour away and do some tests. We drove up into the boonies and performed just a few tests about the power of the stove-hood fans. Then we came back, and I started some conventional intern work: putting together packets about EnergyStar for builders. Then it was 5 o'clock and time to go home.

I think I'm going to have a lot of fun and learn so much here. Of course I'll have a little boring stuff to do, but that's the price I pay for all the amazing and interesting stuff I'll be doing the rest of the time. Overall a wonderful first day.

Posted by Alexander Krogh-Grabbe at 08:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Currently finishing her spring semester abroad, Emily Ricketson, a rising senior, is majoring in Behavioral Neuroscience and minoring in Hispanic Studies. She is originally from Massachusetts, and will be doing her internship - starting in late June - with the Program on International Health and Human Rights at the Harvard School of Public Health in Cambridge, MA. Emily hopes to work in the international public health field in the future. Outside of academics, Emily enjoys running on Conn's cross-country and track teams.

Posted by Administrator at 03:25 PM | Permalink

Alex is a rising senior at Connecticut College majoring in philosophy. Pursuing a lifelong commitment to environmental issues, Alex is interning at the Center for Ecological Technology in Northampton, Massachusetts. The environmental nonprofit works with energy efficiency, renewable energy, and waste management providing services to all of Western Massachusetts. During the school year, Alex works at the Information Desk in Cro, sings in an a cappella group, has a radio show on the college radio station WCNI, and works at the student-run coffee shop, Coffee Grounds. In addition to his frenzied activities at Conn, Alex has kept two blogs prior to this, one full of general environmental nuggets and the other chronicling his experience abroad in Edinburgh, Scotland during the Spring 2007 semester.

Posted by Administrator at 09:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Eliza Cooper, a junior at Connecticut College, is doing an internship in the Development department at the National Braille Press in Boston. She's originally from California, and is a psychology-based Human Relations major (and an undeclared English minor). On campus, she's been involved in Chamber Choir, Percussion Ensemble, and the college radio station (WCNI), and will be the Housefellow of Smith House in her senior year. Although she's not exactly sure what field of work she wants to go into, she thinks she'd like editing at a publishing company or magazine or go into advertising or public relations.


Posted by Administrator at 03:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Claire is a rising senior at Connecticut College, majoring in English. Her "claim-to-fame" is that she will be the 2007-2008 co-editor-in-chief of The College Voice and has a weekly column featured in the Arts & Entertainment section. Some say she has an encyclopedic knowledge of all things popular culture and rock 'n' roll. She hopes to have a career in the publishing world, realizing her life-long dream of interviewing musicians, but she would be content with doing layout and design. Claire also has experience with blogging, having used the blog site livejournal for quite some time, and she is a fan of celebrity gossip blogs. She is living in New York City this summer and is an advertising intern at Interview Magazine.

Posted by Administrator at 03:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)