Dear friend,
How are you?! It's been forever and a day since I last wrote. I know, I'm sorry. So shameful, but I have great updates! So since we last spoke I have been searching constantly, emailing, and networking for a job post-program (Sept. on). I almost fell out of my chair when I did a random Google search for "agricultural and environmental research fellowships" and up popped the Ecologic Institute.
Ecologic is a think tank on environment and sustainable development with its head office in Berlin, Germany. It also has offices in Brussels, Vienna, Washington DC, and San Mateo, CA. They started a Transatlantic Fellowship program to have North American young professionals come over and spend a year in Berlin to encourage cross-cultural understanding and action on incorporating environmental and sustainable development considerations into broader policy. The areas they work in are agricultural, water, marine, Arctic, and global health policy. Finally, after having found this in January, applying and hearing back sometime in February, and interviewing through March and April, I was offered a fellowship position (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) starting January to work on agricultural policy coming down from the European Union and German government and analyze its environmental effects and draft recommendations to the corresponding entity. In addition to collaborating on the projects in place, I am to research and produce my own project on an agricultural policy issue during the year.
I cannot even believe I received an offer to do this. I interviewed via videoconference twice (which if you've never done that before it can suffer a lag-time so that your responses could actually end up interrupting your interviewer every time she tries to continue talking - not that I'm speaking from experience or anything), and the atmosphere of the office sounds very pleasant and laid-back yet productive. I'll be mentored by a woman originally from Slovenia who is incredibly smart and nice who specialized in Eastern European small farmer and less favored area policies (I think). I've never been to Berlin, which sounds weird to say about the city I'm moving to, but it sounds amazing from every person I talk to!!!!!!!! It is considered "the New York of Europe" but is way cheaper, thank goodness. I know almost no German, but Ecologic encourages fellows to take a language class as part of the experience and (best part) we only work four days a week so that on the fifth day we can "dive into the German culture". ARE YOU KIDDING ME??!!!!! You are offering me the chance to learn another language and basically enabling my tourism habit - um, where do I sign? I joke, but seriously I cannot believe how blessed I am to have gotten this opportunity! Thanks for listening and sorry I babbled about it for so long. Just wanted to keep you updated on what I'll be doing all of 2013.
So in the meantime I am looking for something during Sept-Dec. I have tentatively found a research thing in Cambridge, but it's not finalized so I will write about that in a couple of weeks when things are clearer. Have a great story from the Queen being in town for Holyrood Week, so I will try to write that before the weekend is up!
Hope everything is great with you, and I'll write again soon (not lying this time)!
Cheers,
Beth
