Connecticut College CELS Internship Blogs 2007

Since all of my CELS money went toward living in the city...I have no steady cash flow. As I said before, it is all flowing in one direction: away from my bank account. So, on the weekends, I go back home to Fairfield where I can sleep, eat, and live for free.

I am taking advantage of the luxury of living at home for as long as I can (until I graduate) because when I will be out there on my own paying my bills, rent, and utilities...life at home will be sorely missed. I am sure that made me sound quite sheltered and pampered (which to a certain extent I can admit), but it is the truth and I think a lot of people in my class are starting to have the same realizations.

So, while I am at home, I don't really do much...but I usually work at my step-dad's nursery (Oliver Nurseries...for those of you who love plants, this is THE destination...Martha Stewart is a fan!) cashiering and answering phones. It is a nice thing to do once a week to get some spending money for the city.

Not much new to say here. The Interview event is coming up on Wednesday...and then there will be A LOT to say! I promise.

Posted by Claire Dowd at 11:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So I'm still plugging along on those Green Audit handout folders. They're almost done.

However, the real exciting thing today was going on a final inspection. I got to work early (8) and headed down to Springfield (~30 minutes) with Jonathan, one of our energy auditors. We went to three houses, actually, all around a little intersection in Springfield. The first house was a Final Inspection for EnergyStar. That means, the house is pretty much done, and all we're doing is running tests to make sure everything's in order, as well as installing compact fluorescents in all the light fixtures. Jonathan did the tests, I did the lightbulbs. It was great, because I was very useful: doing the lightbulbs usually accounts for about half of the normal 2-hour Final, and thus the inspection only took about half as long. I installed about 25 bulbs, though Jonathan did a few more in the basement and they had already used CFLs (Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs) for the bathrooms. Jonathan did the Blower Door and bolometer tests, inputed some data into his laptop, and I measured the insulation depth in the attic. And that was this house done and on to the next two.

The rest of my exciting day after the jump.

Both of the next two houses were just Insulation Inspections, which means the house is fully framed and insulated, but no plasterboard or drywall on the walls, so you can still check the insulation. I measured stuff with a tape measurer, and walked around with Jonathan as he determined that neither house was that well insulated. The second house actually had some major problems; basically, they had uninsulated surfaces that separated inside from outside, and numerous points of air leakage. Air leakage means heat loss in the winter (and AC'd air lost in the summer), and thus much higher energy usage and higher energy bills. But we talked with the site manager and it looks like he'll get done the things that need fixing.

After the inspections, we decided to stop off at Jonathan's house for lunch on the way back to the office. Jonathan's housemate co-authored a book called "Edible Forest Gardening" (which my mom is obsessed with), and I got a chance to see their garden, which apparently is used for all the examples in the book. It looks like any other garden, but it's planned out so that the beds are all oriented toward the south (for maximum sun exposure), and all of the plants are chosen because they're edible or serve some other purpose, such as nitrogen-fixing in the soil. Also, many of the plants are native. And also, the "Forest" part is deceiving, because their house is fairly suburban. They just know what they're doing in the garden better than most people. It was cool.

Tomorrow I'm going to be tabling in Northampton. I just found that out today. Exciting!

Posted by Alexander Krogh-Grabbe at 06:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This was my best weekend of the summer by far...it doesn't take much to please me. Just give me some sunshine, free music, and the last installment in the Harry Potter series...and I'm golden.

I cannot recall if I mentioned this earlier but The Village Voice (a free local newspaper in New York that has made its living on being "edgy" and "underground") throws a free music festival every summer on Coney Island called The Siren Music Festival. This year, I went for one band only (although there were many reputable acts in the line-up), and this band is called Dr. Dog. They released their critically-lauded album "We All Belong" in early 2007, and my dear friend Alex (who attends Emerson and is one of the head honchos at their remarkable radio station) introduced me to them. They are wonderful. The Village Voice described them best, and I will post that description as soon as I get back home...because it is quite poetic. Anyway, on Friday, Alex came down from Boston to come to the Dr. Dog show with me. We went over to Brooklyn where we went to his cousin's bar called Bar Sputnik. It is this great lounge-y place with good drinks...they have a website. Google them. Give them some business! I know there are a lot of Conn students in Brooklyn.

We had a lovely night out on the town, and then we woke up early to travel to Coney Island...and we decided that an amazing horror movie could take place on Coney Island because there is this feeling of decay and neglect that surrounds the whole park. The rides are empty, and there are traces of its vaudevillian past that add a gothic air to the park. In short, it is creepy. Like everyone turns into vampires or zombies when the sun goes down. But, I won a free White Stripes poster at a booth and Dr. Dog put on a great show. And I got royally sunburned.

That afternoon I went back home, so I could pick up my copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows!!!! I read night and day and finished Sunday around 4 pm. It was a worthy final chapter in the Harry Potter series, and although there are some disappointments and certain things I wish J.K. Rowling had elaborated on, I did not sink into the deep depression that I feared. I have been a Harry Potter fan from the very beginning, with my first 3 books in the series signed by J.K. Rowling. So, the closing of the Harry Potter series is like the ending of my childhood...which now that I'm going to be a senior in college, is a good thing. I was ready for the books to be over, and to turn this all into a corny metaphor, I'm ready for my future to begin!

Finally, I finally achieved my summer-long goal and saw The White Stripes last night at Madison Square Garden!!!!!!!!!!!! I simply cannot articulate how special and powerful this little band is. Jack and Meg White have this cosmic connect to each other and their chemistry is just amplified when they take the stage. Everything seems electric and spontaneous and living and breathing. They really deserve all the acclaim they get because they are keeping up with tradition and stress the importance of true, live, authentic music...which everyone knows is getting harder and harder to come by. I am still exhilarated by the show, but I am very happy to be back at work again...putting my two feet back on the ground.

This summer has not only been significant in my development as an individual in the working world, but it has also been crucial to my happiness. I have gotten to accomplish and experience certain things that I could only do now...and as I am turning into a more accomplished, happier, prouder person, my relationships with others are strengthening. I have made some good friends at work, and my friendships from home have greatly benefited due to my surge in self-esteem and confidence. My mother told me before this summer started that this was going to be an incredibly important and rewarding time in my life...and she is right. At first, I didn't think that I was changing all that much, but now that my summer is coming to a close...I am seeing all that I have done both externally and internally. I know that there is something I want to do with my life, and I am ready to embrace my senior year (although, admittedly, I am still quite scared to graduate)!

Corny self-actualizing rant complete.

Posted by Claire Dowd at 04:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The past week or so I've experienced some pride in my work and the realization that I'm pretty good at some of the stuff I'm doing. I've also settled into a melancholy that has made me think more about what I want do with myself professionally after I graduate.

Also, I've started appreciating my officemates a lot. They're all so cool! A fun lunchtime story about landing a hot air balloon in a sketchy place, after the jump.

Recently I've been compiling a bunch of handouts that we're hoping to give out to homeowners who we do Green Audits for. A Green Audit is like an Energy Audit, but also includes air quality, water conservation, and yard care evaluations. Anyways, I've been working on spiffing up and gathering a number of flyers which my boss selected (Peggy. I've decided she's my main boss), toward the purpose of creating a folder that the auditors can give to people when they're there doing the audit. I've had to sleuth out a lot of PDFs online, as well as reconstruct some handouts that didn't photocopy well. I've gotten nothing but positive feedback about any of the half dozen flyers I've created now. So that's nice. Also, today I emailed someone at the Massachusetts Water Resource Authority, which created two of the handouts we're using, to ask if it was okay that I had reconstructed these two handouts with slight alterations in style, yet kept their logo. I got an enthusiastic email back saying that I had done a FANTASTIC job and that it was a very good idea to recreate them thusly. That made me feel good.

Yet, though I've been getting positive feedback, and this project is moving toward completion, the last two weeks have brought me much discontent with my internship. It's nothing specifically against CET; I really enjoy my officemates and I think what CET does is very important. There are few things that I'm not so thrilled about.

1. Working full time. I don't like getting up so early and getting done so late. I feel like I hardly have any time to do anything I want. Maybe this is an inevitability that I will have to resign myself to as a rising adult, but I don't like it.


2. Office work. Maybe it depends on the office. Maybe it depends on what you're doing in the office. Well, actually, certainly the latter. I just don't like working with all this paper all the time. One of my favorite songs as a line, sadly denouncing a world "where paper is all that you're really taught to create", and I feel like that's what I'm doing in my job. Using up more tree product. It doesn't matter that it's "recycled" paper; it doesn't matter that it's for a solution-y cause. It's not fun, and I don't like doing it.


3. Not feeling like I know what's going on at CET well enough to talk to customers about it. Everyone else in the office is so GOOD at their job! They all know everything, or if they don't, postpone or pass off answering a question so smoothly that you wouldn't even notice. I just feel like I'm really awkward at it. But this is surely something that will get easier with experience. Good thing I'm going to be here the two years I'd need to build up that level of confidence *sarcastically*

So this hot air balloon story. One of my office mates (Tomasin) went up in a hot air balloon last night or so. Her partner runs the Green River Festival in Greenfield, so he was able to get her a spot in the flight they did for the press to take pictures of. Apparently, while you can't direct where you're going a whole lot, you can a little bit, because the winds at different altitudes are blowing in slightly different directions. So, the pilot would spit out of the basket and watch which way the spit fell, or release a helium balloon up to see which way it went. This guy was a really experienced pilot, apparently. Even so, he missed a few places where he'd hoped to be able to land, and they were running low on fuel as they were approaching Wendell State Forest (where there's NOwhere to land, apparently). So, the pilot told them that there were two yards big enough to land in, and in case they crashed into a tree to brake, they should all get low in the basket. But they landed fine, not crushing any flowers with the deflating balloon, not getting banged up by the tree too bad. This pilot brings a bottle of champaign with him in the basket to give to people whose yards he lands in, so they weren't upset. It sounded like a blast.

I'm going to post sometime soon about all the environmental blogs that I read on a regular basis. Oh, heck, why don't I just tell you now. There are three main ones: Treehugger, Gristmill, and Green Options.
Treehugger is the big pappie of all environmental blogs, having hundreds (maybe thousands) of readers, and in the range of 30-50 new posts per day. Treehugger's posts cover the whole spectrum, though there's a chic focus on environmental design and fashion, as well as more sober political things.
Gristmill is the blog of Grist Magazine, an online enviro mag whose motto is "Gloom and doom with a sense of humor". Gristmill has a lot of good policy analysis and notification of news stories and reports, as well as covering things like Live Earth and the greening of Bonnaroo. Gristmill prides itself on its silly, funny headlines and writing style in general.
Green Options is an extremely new blog, just a few months old, but it was started by an experienced environmental blogger, and already contains many well-written, interesting pieces. Green Options writers are mostly young and hip (though there's one blogger who's notedly old and hip, writing about environmental issues from a senior citizen's perspective), cool, experienced, and chic, but still able to tell the difference between what's a helpful solution, and what's just shallow posturing.

Okay, enough from me. Go check out those blogs; they're wonderful.

Posted by Alexander Krogh-Grabbe at 07:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So after a long vacation (10 days) from work, I returned last week and was immediately met with an onslaught of projects and duties. And it felt amazing.

The days flew by, and I had accomplished several important things. Instead of providing all the boring details that would involve me explaining MagAdvisor and Excel spreadsheets, I'm going to list off a couple of highlights of the week.

- I did a Photoshop project that involved editing and presenting an article about Interview's website featured in AdAge magazine (which is an industry magazine that is a big deal in the advertising world). It was a very flattering article, complimenting Interview on the creative design and quality of material on our website. So, I did some scanning, some touch-ups, arranging etc, and the final product is being sent to some of our clients, specifically Guess, and it was presented to Sandra Brant (the publisher). Apparently, she thought it looked great!!!

- The most recent issue came out last Wednesday with one of my favorite bands ever The White Stripes on the cover! That was exhilarating unto itself and their interview is excellent. There is also an interview with Arcade Fire, another one of my all time favorite bands.

- Almost more exciting than The White Stripes being on the cover is that my name is featured in the masthead!!!!!! (under interns). I made a bunch of photocopies for my family and friends.
When the new issue comes out, one my jobs is to go through all the advertisments in the magazine and record their placement (page number and what articles they are near) in an Excel spreadsheet. This gave me a great opportunity to look at the aesthetic element of ad placement and how certain ads are featured in correspondence with article content. The ads we use are all very glamorous and feature high profile people (celebrities and models).

- Last but not least, the other interns and I have been asked to work an Interview event that is co-sponsored by Hugo Boss. It is a rooftop event that involves a film screening of this new film about Joe Strummer, one of the leaders of the 70's punk band The Clash. This is all amazing news to me because I love The Clash, and this is my golden opportunity to mingle with glamour and fame!!! I will post more details as soon as I find them out.

Outside of my internship, I haven't really been spending a whole lot of time in New York City. My money supply is dwindling rapidly, so I have been going home a lot on the weekends. But this coming weekend, my friend is coming into the city and we are going to Brooklyn on Saturday for The Siren Music Festival. It is this free music festival sponsored by the Village Voice at Coney Island. We are mainly going to see this one band, Dr. Dog, that is incorporates everything great about 60s rock (especially harmonies) and has this great retro feel to them. And then next Tuesday, I am seeing THE WHITE STRIPES at Madison Square Garden. The show is going to be massive, and it will be my 2nd time seeing them. Words cannot describe how much I am looking forward to that show.

Posted by Claire Dowd at 11:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

After reading hundreds and hundreds of pages about taking a human rights approach to health care, I am moving on to a new project! I will be helping to make the website a little more user friendly!

Last week I completed my task of reviewing many articles about the human rights based approach (HRBA). It was great for me because I was able to learn a great deal, especially what all of the acronyms mean. Did you know that in Sierra Leone and Afghanistan 1 in 6 women die due to complications with childbirth? In what is considered to be the developed world, women have a 1 in 2800 chance of dying from complications in childbirth. What are some of the reasons for this? Perhaps women do not have access to care, access to information, or access to safe abortion procedures. By denying access to any of these three areas, the country is denying basic human rights. My job was to find such injustices and find programs that were trying to work through these areas by following as HRBA. I was able to find many examples all over the world, and now get to move on to a new project.

I will now be working on the website in order to make it more user friendly and emphasize exactly what PIHHR does. if you take a look at our website, (http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/pihhr/) you will be able to see that it is indeed a tad cluttered. Therefore, we want to emphasize the work that is being completed through our program and our partner programs. Any suggestions from people are welcome! I will continue to do work on the manual by fitting the case studies into appropriate portions of the manual while continuing to look for examples. This project is listed as " 'Human Rights-Based Approaches to Programming': Practical Implementation including a Training Manual, Training Materials and Training of Trainers" on the website if you want to read more about it!

Posted by Emily Ricketson at 10:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I do not have time to do a full-fledged posting right now as I am sitting at work (on a Friday mind you when almost everyone flees New York City) and I am surrounded with projects galore.

And it is WONDERFUL! I had a long hiatus from interning due to 4th of July holiday stuff and a schedule change, but I came back on Wednesday after about 10 days off, and I was immediately in the swing of things. This is the busiest I have been all summer, and I am loving it. I will definitely go into more detail later about what I have been doing and about the awesome Interview event I get to work at in the beginning of August.

But for now, I just wanted to let everyone know that yes, I am still alive and kicking, and yes, I am still successfully completing my internship. More to come soon!!

Posted by Claire Dowd at 09:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This past week was split up by Independence Day in the middle, and was varied and unusual on either side. It was exciting, though; lots of new things here and there. And the kindling of a project that may take up a lot of the rest of the summer! Have I described something that way before? I may have; there are a lot of grand projects proposed for me to work on that end up dwindling into something more manageable. But anyways, summaries and tangential environmental ponderings below the fold.

Monday: I hadn't gotten enough sleep over the weekend, and was consequently tired and drowsy during work. Not a fun situation at all. I accomplished little.

Tuesday: I had gotten a little more sleep, so was a little more chipper. Sometime around this day I completed the flyer I had been working on about rain barrels. Everyone says it looks good, and CET may start distributing it. In summary, rain barrels are great things to get because:
A. They decrease stormwater runoff, and thus decrease erosion in your yard and nearby
B. If you use the water for garden and lawn watering, it's both wonderful for your plants, wonderful for your wallet, and wonderful for decreasing the waste in your tapwater consumption.

Wednesday: I had Wednesday off, as most people did, but I actually did something with one of my bosses. She bought a new Prius from some people up in Concord, NH (2.5 hours away), and will soon be selling her old Prius to her mother. So, I drove up with her for the purpose of driving one of the cars back down. It was the first time I'd driven a Prius (or even an automatic), so it was exciting. Cruise control is fun too.

Thursday: I happened to take my family's car to work (and felt guilty about it). Turns out, it was good I did, because I was thereby able to transport the massive ReStore mailing to the Pittsfield Post Office. Let me explain. Remember the massive thousand-piece mailing I had just completed? Well, they were stamped with our organization's non-profit bulk mail stamp in lieu of normal postage stamps. Thing is, our bulk mail permit is from the Pittsfield PO, because that's where CET's main office is. So, someone had to drive everything out there, and that responsibility fell to me. And since I had the car on Thursday, I was able to do it. It took about an hour to get there. In addition to delivering the mailing to the post office, I got to see CET's main office for the first time.

Friday: I was only at work for three hours (leaving early to go to Boston!), but I got a lot done. I met with Peggy (one of my "bosses", in charge of my hours, does marketing stuff) and Jonathan (one of the raters, does actual field work) about these folders we're going to put together and hand out for our Green Audits. Green Audits are a new program that CET is offering, which go beyond an Energy Audit to include things like landscaping and water use. I think Jonathan said that the three areas of a Green Audit are Energy, Health, and Habitat, where Health is about Indoor Air Quality, and Habitat is about water use and outside stuff. Anyways, it's fallen to me (the intern) to put into order all the various handouts that we have that might be of interest, so that if a homeowner wants more information on a topic, the auditor can just give them these flyers. So this will be one of my jobs. Cataloging, organizing, updating, compiling. Fun times.

One thing that I've been working on that wasn't assigned by anyone other than myself is this: I've been going around online, looking for lists like "Top 10 things you can do for the planet". I've been writing down what they say, and then now that I've got a lot, I've been figuring out what the most common recommendations are. Now, I'm trying to figure out what the specific greenhouse gas emission reductions are associated with each one. I know this is stuff that's already been done, but doing it yourself ingrains it more in your memory, and also, the comprehensive recommendations that list the specific reductions are hard to find, and they frequently don't cite their sources.

So here are a few that are pretty much across the board:

• Drive Less (carpool, bike, public transport, walk, shop in a single trip)


• Switch your Incandescent light bulbs to Compact Fluorescents (they have about a 2 year or shorter payback time, just from electricity savings, not counting lifespan stuff).


• Buy more energy-efficient appliances and generally use them more efficiently (look for EnergyStar appliances when you're buying new ones. turn stuff off when you're not using it. Defrost old freezers and fridges regularly).


• Turn your thermostat down two degrees in the summer and up two degrees in the winter. It saves tons of money and CO2 emissions.


• Use less hot water by installing high-efficiency showerheads and by washing your clothes with cold water. Also just use less water in general by turning off the faucet when you're not using the water coming from it, taking shorter showers, and only using the dishwasher or washing machine when it's full.


• Make sure your house, new or old, has the best insulation that it can. In a poorly insulated house, it takes loads more energy to heat and cool, because air is constantly exchanging with colder (or hotter, in the summer) air.


• Eat local, organic, and less meat. I've come to understand that vegetarianism can be a sliding scale, and we could all do to move in the direction of complete veggie-ism.

Well, that's a lot, and that's only the beginning. I'll let you know if I ever finish. Ha.

Oh, Live Earth. I hope you all heard about the global concert that just happened this Saturday. Big deal, Al Gore-initiated and whatnot. Tons of famous bands. You probably heard of it. Anyways, the word is, it was really good because it raised awareness and got a lot of people thinking and had lots of great tips and interviews in between concerts. However, there's been much criticism about hypocrisy. How much greenhouse gas was emitted to put on these events? In some cases (and this applies to the silliness about "How big is Al Gore's carbon footprint?" stuff), some increased emissions are necessary and acceptable to spread the word and wake people up. But it does make sense to question the consistency of having such an enormous event to raise awareness about climate change. Certainly the greenhouse gas emissions due the the concerts were gargantuan. I don't know. I think my overall opinion is a positive one, but I am a little skeptical. Although Spinal Tap reuniting for the event is pretty cool, in my opinion.

That's all for now. More soon.

Posted by Alexander Krogh-Grabbe at 10:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A horrible commute, a fresh start, and a bunch of customer calls...read on, and thanks!

I had a wonderfully busy weekend seeing friends from college and high school (apparently I'm not the only summer California transplant) and relatives. While covering customer service today, I heard from people in Pennsylvania, New York, Wisconsin, South Dakota, Indiana and Arizona. I figured out a more efficient way to take down orders so I can keep them straight and remember to ask all necessary questions. I attended a team meeting, and though I played less of a part in this one, I enjoyed observing it nevertheless. The banana bread someone brought to it didn't hurt either.
Monday afternoon's commute was horrible, because not only did I cross a street so badly that I ended up on the corner opposite to the one I was aiming for, but who thought it necessary to steer me around something grabbed me and my cane without warning. To top it off, someone walking toward me exclaimed to their friend in a voice plenty loud enough for me to hear: "Look, she's blind." Thanks, I'm already aware of that. The buildup of frustration caused me to shed a few tears when I got back to my room, which is something I rarely do. It was actually a great relief of stress, and allowed me to kind of start afresh the next day.
On Tuesday, I covered the phones for almost the whole day. This was because Jason had to go up and put orders together for shipping. He printed out 61 pages of labels (six labels per page) that he would distribute, which takes about all day. Before he left, he asked me to read him a braille letter that had been sent by a customer. Usually one of the blind proofreaders does this, but since I was there... It was so cool to see that the Press actually does get testimonials. I've seen people quoted in the grant-writing templates, but didn't really believe it. But it's true, our publications do prompt actual positive feedback. This woman said our women's magazine entitled "Our Special" is great to have for visually impaired women, and that she likes reading it for herself. I took a bunch of calls, and couldn't finish entering them into my orders spreadsheet before the end of the day.

Posted by Eliza Cooper at 09:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As I sit here on July 5, feeling suddenly overwhelmed that I only have two weeks left, I find myself already feeling nostalgic for weeks gone by - like the one I describe here. I began tackling a new project, and trying my hand at "catalog customer service." Please read on, and thanks!

The week of June 18-22 was an interesting week of transition. I basically switched supervisors, because I am now working with Diane in organizing our nighttime release party for the new Harry Potter book. Diane has assigned people to party planning committees, and I literally laughed out loud while reading one of her e-mails, as I saw that I was listed on every committee. On Monday, I was feeling extremely nauseous, and, realizing that I have experienced some degree of nausea every day for a week now, I called my mom for advice, then set up an appointment with a relative's doctor for Tuesday. It was either bizarre food poisoning or a mild infection, I'd say.
Since my appointment was in the middle of the day, and it would take a while to get there, I ended up taking the day off and calling more bookstores for their Harry Potter release party ideas from home. My blood tests came back fine, and I began feeling better after Wednesday, so who knows what this flukey thing was. As I continued researching party ideas, I also began taking customer service calls and learning the system.
I copied the way Jason answered phones and took orders, as I figure I can design my own signature greeting later if I like. Jason is the only customer service guy currently on staff since Alison left. That is why I am here, because hers is the only empty desk I can use. But it makes sense, because I'll be covering customer service for a whole week soon. My first calls were from El Paso, Texas, and Highland Park, New Jersey. The first was pretty businesslike, but the second woman started telling me about her day, which was stressful because she had to take her guinea pig to the vet. I am now very excited to do customer service, because it will be fascinating to observe how different blind people do things. This sure was an eventful week!

Posted by Eliza Cooper at 10:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

After finishing up organizational tasks surrounding the conference that was held a few weeks ago, I am starting to get a chance to put my research skills to work!

Beginning Monday, I began to look for actual case studies that back what PIHHR is trying to say in their manual. The draft of the manual is written, however, it is lacking case studies to support the goals of a human rights based approach to their three areas of gender based violence, reproductive health, and HIV/AIDS. The examples need to show how UNFPA or other organizations, (preferably linked to the UN somehow) have conducted projects that are centered around a human rights based approach. The manual also needs examples that show a clear violation of human rights. The main example of a violation of human rights already in the manual is female genital mutilation, (FGM). FGM is still a very large problem in many countries, and clearly very important to PIHHR because of its link to gender based violence. Now, I am looking at many different UNFPA projects as well as other projects claiming to be rights based and evaluating where they can fit into the manual or if they can fit into the manual. It is quite exciting because now I feel as if I am actually contributing! I will now be spending a large amount of time searching for case studies and highlighting what I feel will work in certain areas. Right now, the manual is theoretically going to be piloted in three different areas of the world in November.

Posted by Emily Ricketson at 10:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Though the week of June 11 was mostly filled with further grant research, a major highlight was NBP's Annual Meeting, which is a big event for board members and trustees. Read on for more details!

On Monday June 11, I was asked to quickly try to find a restaurant that would donate a meal for the team of kids who had walked in our Vision5K of a couple of weeks ago. It seems that they raised more money than we first thought, meaning that we need to find them a prize that we can present to them at the Annual Meeting tomorrow. The major problem was that most restaurants I called had already distributed their donations for the year, no matter how deserving we sounded. Other than that, I e-mailed Lina's reader profile to her for her review, and continued grant research.
On Tuesday, besides continued National Lincs grant research, I was asked to start putting together a proposal for Symantec Corporation. This task is not as hard as I had first thought, because we already have a bunch of templates with information about our company that we manipulate to fit each proposal. One of my supervisors will go over my work later, and I'll be interested to hear how I did. The best part of today, though, was the Annual Meeting, which took place at night. It's main purpose seems to be informational, and the people in attendance were mostly board members, trustees and donors. It was very cool to meet people who were so supportive of the Press, and who had been for ages, in many cases. I met a couple from Old Saybrook, CT, who are great friends of the Press' retiring president, Bill Raeder. They were excited that I live so close by, and so I may see them next year, which would be fun. Indeed, many of the speeches highlighted Bill's retirement, what he has done for the company, and how he will be missed. In his own speech, he talked about how well the Press has been doing, and how things look very positive, which was very exciting to hear. Most people's favorite, though, was the speech by Helen, a woman who has worked in the collating department at NBP for about 40 years. It was overall a very enjoyable night, with some very good snacks.

For the rest of the week, I worked more on grants, and read proposals that we have submitted in the past, which was actually fascinating, because I got to see how they differed - sometimes very subtlely. I also started researching new statistics on braille literacy, so we can have new information to put in proposals. Though it appears that there aren't any new ones, perhaps because there hasn't been another census since we got the old ones, I did find a few articles on the psychological and developmental importance of braille literacy, which should help. The week ended slowly, because I had no supervisors on Friday, and though I had work to do, it made me realize how little interruptions make the day go by a lot faster. The waffle breakfast that we had as a Friday morning event, though, was splendid. That was all for a busy week. And, as I have a bad headache, I shall stop and write more tomorrow. Thanks for reading!

Posted by Eliza Cooper at 08:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As the weeks go by (quickly) at my internship, I am learning to do more things around the office. I have started my fill-in position as an Advertising Associate, and I'm also filling in for the receptionist of Brant Publications during her lunch break.

I have some experience answering phones, since I worked at my step-father's landscaping business during my high school summers. "Good morning, Oliver Nurseries" has been permanently etched into my consciousness. So, when one of my bosses, Kristina, asked if I was interested in getting trained to answer phones during the receptionist's lunch break, I didn't hesitate. The other intern, Brittany, explained that she was too nervous to answer phones because she doesn't like talking to people that she knows on the phone. I am the opposite. I don't like having conversations with people I know on the phone. If you keep it formal and business-like, it is very easy to operate the phones.

I think people underestimate the responsibilities of receptionists or secretaries because they actually are responsible for many of the small things that keeps a business going smoothly. If there wasn't someone to coordinate appointments, transfer calls, take messages, and keep everything organized, then none of the higher-ups in the business would be able to get in touch with anyone. Annie is the receptionist for Brant Publications, and she kindly showed me how to be a polite and efficient receptionist. Without divulging too much information about the personalities about certain members of the Brant Publications staff, there are a lot of rules on how to answer phones and transfer calls. Things like not letting the call EVER go to voicemail, how to juggle multiple callers at once, who should get calls transferred to their assistants, how to take messages for certain people, etc. It is a very complex system requiring you to understand certain personalities and their demands.

So every Wednesday, I sit at the front desk, which is in the main lobby of the office, and I man the phones. I actually enjoy it because it seems like I am getting in touch with the outside world and at the same time, I get to learn who certain people are in the office that I wouldn't get to know otherwise. As an advertising intern, there isn't much contact with people outside of the Advertising department. So answering phones and being in a different part of the office for a little while is a great change of pace.

As far as what I am doing as the Advertising Associate, it is not much different from what I get to do as an intern because all the major responsibilities that the job entails have been suspended for the next couple of weeks. The day to day is quite similar except I get to sit at someone's desk. There are occasional phone calls and emails, and I get to go and compile things on my own without having it being assigned to me. There is more independence because I get to navigate the office and accomplish things on my own accord, and I am also responsible to for compiling an entire project for Renata (who has all the watch and jewelry accounts for Interview). Basically what I am doing with that is running searches on this advertising database called MagAdvisor. I am searching for certain companies, for example Chanel Watch & Jewelry, and where they have advertised for 2007. So in what magazines have they advertised, how many pages they've advertised on, and how much the ad cost to run in a magazine. Running searches over and over tends to get robotic, but I actually enjoy it because I get to learn more about how the prices and numbers matter to a magazine's advertising department.

So far so good on the internship front. The most valuable thing about this internship for me is it is just further solidifying my desire to work at a publication when I graduate from Conn. Although I may not exactly want to enter the advertising field (it is a little too business-like for me), getting exposed to the other aspects of the publication world is totally worthwhile.

Posted by Claire Dowd at 05:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So apologies for not blogging in a few days or more, but I was waiting to say this:

I'm done with the ReStore mailing!!!

I was literally working on this thousand-piece mailing for the majority of most of the days since my last post. Parts were grueling, parts were with company, and thus less grueling. A little more about the mailing and my minimal other exploits below the fold.

So this mailing was for the purpose of sending out the new Annual Report from the ReStore. First I had to put together the list of people to send it to, then I had to send off the included documents to get printed (across town). Then I had to format and print out all the labels. Then I had to put the labels on all the envelopes. Then stuff the envelopes, then seal the envelopes, then stamp them all with our non-profit bulk mail stamp. I had some help here and there from two volunteers who were very good company. But on Friday I finished stamping them all, and now on Monday John (the guy in charge of the ReStore and one of the Associate Directors of CET) will give them a look and then take them to Pittsfield to be mailed.

I am SO glad to be done with that.

Two other things of interest since my last entry. On Wednesday of last week I went up to a place in the hilltowns with a lot of CET staff for a day of presentations and meetings. Well, there was one presentation and two meetings. The presentation was by this guy from the Forest Stewardship Council. In the audience at that time were various CET people, but also a number of local builders and lumber suppliers. The talk was basically just his spiel about what the FSC is and how their evaluation system of wood products works. Interesting and informative.

After the talk, the builders left, and CET people talked about two of our four programs, LEED for Homes (for new homes), and Energy Audits (for existing homes). There are just some kinks that need to be fixed in the organization's workflow, and also these meetings addressed questions people had. Again, interesting and informative for me.

Then, a week after that, this past Wednesday, I went on a Green Audit with one of our auditors. We went to this house in Buckland (up in the Franklin county Berkshires). Basically we just looked around, did some tests, and took down information, with the purpose of analyzing what the homeowners could do to better green their home. They had already had an Energy Audit a year ago, and had implemented the recommendation from that, so their house was already very good, but there seemed to be some things that they could do still. Most of the recommendation process happens later on, because Beth (the auditor I went with) was mainly taking down specifications, in order to plug them into a computer program and figure out what the best courses of action would be. However, she did give many recommendations at the site to the homeowner as to what she thought would probably be the most helpful.

I've been doing a few other interesting things here and there, but I'll wait til later to write about them.

Posted by Alexander Krogh-Grabbe at 01:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)