From the Desk of Carin

My own desk!

Finally it’s Friday, and I’ve made it through the first whole week of my stage! My regular supervisor, a young woman (she’s only 26!) working in the International Relations department of the CAS returned from vacation on Thursday, so for the past two days we’ve gotten lunch at the cafeteria for the Minister of Education. Meals are highly subsidized there, so although the food is genuinely quite good, it’s also very reasonably priced. The cafeteria is on the 6^th floor, and there’s a beautiful view of La Tour Eiffel, l’Arc de Triomphe, La Defense, and the Grand Palais. I must say I feel very lucky!

The work itself has also gone really smoothly. I feel that I’ve accomplished a lot this week and have really made a good impression (from what I can tell, at least). In addition to summarizing that 30-page chapter of a book and creating a portfolio on an organization in order to prep both my boss and his supervisor for their meeting next week, I also did some translations. My supervisor hurried into my office this morning with an English-translation of a handout for the English-speaking participants a colloquium next week, asking me to correct the translation, STAT! I felt a little weird re-writing a whole paragraph to improve its clarity and concision and rephrasing things right and left, since it felt weird as an intern correcting my superiors, but she was happy with the result. It’s a great feeling knowing that something I worked on will be given out to experts in their field!

My new workplace

My first week of the metro in rush hour traffic -- apparently arrows are needed?

 This past weekend while I was Skyping with my friend Cosima, clouds rolled in and it started to rain. The lighting was so beautiful that I had to run over to the window and take a picture. The second picture was taken only about 15 minutes later! It may be Paris, a city known for drizzly, grey skies, but it can be really pretty sometimes too.

By the way, that small tower in the distance on the far right is the Tour Montparnasse