After a relatively long hiatus, which I blame entirely on exams, I thought now would be a good time to update everyone on my life and my placement before school and life get overwhelming! I spent all of April studying for school exams or the GRE. For those of you who don't know, the GRE is the Graduate Record Exam, which is required by most American graduate schools, and the University of Toronto, which is one of my top choices for grad school. I hate tests in general, but I find standardized tests particularly senseless (which I wrote more about in high school and can be found here on page 20). Anyway, I wrote the test and did very well both in my score and pretending not to be nervous, and I can now confidently say that the system thinks I'm grad school material. YAY! This, and the e-mail I received today about scheduling my graduation photo, show just how close graduation is for me, which is terrifying. As for my placement, Nepal is officially confirmed! I don't have a departure or return date yet, but I do have an employer, a job and a place to stay which is a pretty good start. I've been placed with Fair Trade Group Nepal which is an umbrella organization to support smaller groups that produce fair trade goods. My technical job title is still being refined, but essentially I will be going to visit the sites of the 18 groups that FTG Nepal works with, to analyze their working conditions, offer recommendations on how these can be improved, and create a report highlighting some of the most severe labour issues. My understanding so far is that there will be a lot of travel to different parts of Nepal, as these groups are located in different areas of the country. The actual office where I'll spend the rest of my time is in Patan, but I'll be living in Kathmandu, as one city transitions imperceptibly into the other. I've been told the commute isn't fun and that I should consider finding a place on my own closer to the office once I get there because the novelty of riding three wheeled trucks wears off quickly. There's still so much unknown about my trip, but as it comes closer I'm sure I'll have lots more updates! For right now, my worries focus on getting lots of needles...my favourite. Last week the returning INDEV students from the year above me made presentations about their work and experiences abroad. They were generally well done and informative, but I can't decide if hearing their stories make me excited or scared. Looks to me like the inevitable emotional roller coaster has begun. My last term on campus has just started as well. Here we go.
1 Comment
|