Saturday, August 26, 2006
Now, Some Pictures from Graduation
Graduation day. It was a lot of fun. The morning started with the administration putting out chests of Champaign for us to drink, then we went to the school-wide ceremony, where Lance Armstrong gave the commencement speech. Then on to the Flecther School graduation, more speeches, and then it was done. So in the picture it is me, Molly on the right, and Molly's first-year roommate in the middle.
Mom, dad, and Pat after a day of sight-seeing, waiting for a beer in downtown Boston before heading to the North End for an Italian dinner.
Molly, with Pat being cool in the background, on the Duck Boat tour of Boston.
My New Job
Today Molly and I went to the Air and Space Museum, which was as cool as I remember, though we only made it through about two- thirds of the museum before I started losing interest. It is nice that it is only a short subway trip away.
Now for the big news that most all of you probably already know, and that is that I am working again. I was hired by Save the Children a month ago, and have been hard at work since August 7. My job title is “Program Development Officer,” and a lot of people have asked me what I actually do. This is difficult to explain concisely to people if they have no experience with US government funding mechanisms for non-profit organizations in development and humanitarian aid work.
Basically, I am part of the management and development team that supports the field offices around the world in pursuing large grants (the minimum I will ever be involved with is $1 million, and the one I just finished with this week was for $3 million). This means providing technical support in making sure things are done right, on time, working with partner organizations to put together joint proposals and stuff like that. As far as development work goes, it is far from the sexiest job. But it is the foundation of this whole field, and the skills I will perfect will be very useful in the future. So there you have it. I am sure that does not clear anything up, but that is the best I am going to do at the moment.
Thursday, June 01, 2006
School is Over!!!!
Oif. So I have been told that it has been about 3 years since I updated my blog. Well, so much for being diligent about it. So school is over. I have graduated and am now a master. It is a rather nice feeling to be done at last, and to not have to worry about writing more papers and deadlines for class and stuff. Now I just have to worry about getting a job. So what has been going on for these last couple of months?
Well, for starters there was the Diplomats Ball, which is pretty much like prom for graduate students. It was a lot of fun and is a good opportunity to see everybody dressed up. Fletcher is a pretty casual place, so it is fairly rare to see some people looking good.
Then there was the trip that Molly and I took up to Maine to stay at a bed and breakfast up there. It was really wet while we were there. In the area we were in there was something like 13.5 inches of rain in the three days beforehand. During the same time there was about 8.5 inches here at my house in the Boston area. But the trip was nice and relaxing after the chaos of finals and the stress of getting everything done.
After that was graduation weekend. Mom, dad and Pat came out for it, as well as Molly’s mom, grandmother, and one of Molly’s friends from Montreal. It was a very nice weekend, though it was busy. We kept up the tradition of misbehaving at the Tufts-wide graduation ceremony. The legend there is that a few years ago the first Fletcher class was really loud during the ceremony, so the Tufts administration and board of trustees complained to the Fletcher administration and board of trustees about their behavior. The Fletcher people told them they would take care of the issue the next year and the issue was dropped. The next year the Fletcher administration started giving out lots and lots of Champaign at breakfast, Fletcher flags, and subtly telling us that they thought it was a great idea to show our enthusiasm at the ceremony. And Tufts has now pretty much decided to accept it.
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Update 11 April
Cheers all
Sunday, April 02, 2006
Update On My Health and the Joys of Sulfa
So the last couple of weeks have been less than pleasant on this end of the world. As I am not sure how many people are familiar with the recent happenings, I will try and give a short description of what has been my life.
The last week has been trying to recover. I have been out of school for the entire time and am now faced with the prospect of finishing everything as I am supposed to graduate in a month or so (I had planned to spend Spring Break working on my thesis and getting a jump on the end of school here so that I can enjoy the last month, but that did not happen). Things seem to be going well on a whole. I have just been resting and today I looked at the disaster that is my thesis, which I think is about to be shipped to my advisor for comment and in a best- case scenario taken away from me so that I can concentrate on all the other stuff hanging over my head.
Thursday, March 16, 2006
Mid-Term and Spring Break
I have gotten one of them back and did surprisingly well. Considering that in the two classes before the test I came stumbling out of the classroom clutching my head in an attempt to keep my brain from oozing out of my ears repeating “I’m doomed” to myself over and over. In the class before the test, Molly has a class in the same room after and we had a laugh with a classmate who took the class last year and simply said “econometrics, huh?” with a knowing smile. Well, the end of the story is that the test came back the other day, via my mailbox. I knew it was there, so opened the door with a little trepidation, and caught a glimpse of the score and thought “that cannot be right.” So I started going through it question by question: 10/10, 5/5. 15/15, 10/10 etcetera until I got to the end, and sure enough, I had aced the test. God only knows how that happened. But I will take it. It is a nice confidence boost, though, after my less than stellar performance in my last international law class last semester.
So what now? Molly and I are going to New Jersey on Saturday for a wedding, which should be nice. I am feeling a great need to get out of the greater Boston area. Then it is time to come back and rip out the thesis. It has reached the required length, so that is good. I need to fill the gaping analytical/ logical holes within it, and then start begging my advisor to accept it and let me start enjoying school again. And deal with that whole needing a job thing.
So that is about it. It is hard to believe that I am half done with my last semester here. It is a little sad, though I am excited that graduation is on the horizon.
At least I have next week off.
Sunday, March 05, 2006
Peace Corps Turns 45
Speaking with the new group was very nice and there was a good part of me that was jealous of the fact that they are going to be in Uganda for the next two years. There were four of us from my group that attended (Dawn, Paul and January were the others), and it was nice to be able to speak about the country and what to expect to all of the eager and expectant future volunteers.
Sunday, February 26, 2006
Government of Uganda and the Media
Here is the article: Government Jams Radio, Website, from the Daily Monitor
But the government would never, ever dream of shutting down the media in Uganda just because they were reporting something inconvenient, now would they?
Nothing like this here?
Or how about this?
And then there was this from 2002…
Saturday, February 25, 2006
Museveni Wins Ugandan Election
Uganda’s Museveni Wins Election from the BBC
And of course by third term, I mean his 20th year, since if you go by the third term argument, he really was not in power from 1986 until the mid-1990s. But such is life, I suppose. It is really quite unfortunate, however. So here is my take on the whole situation.
This is not good for Uganda. While in a lot of ways Museveni has been pretty good for the country (especially if you are from the southwest, and most certainly if you are NOT for the north), there are other things at stake here. Democracy, no matter how much our elected officials currently would like us to think otherwise, is not the process of having elections. While that is certainly part of it, the other part, and potentially more significant, is the peaceful transfer of power. Without a culture for the peaceful transfer of power, nothing else really matters, as no matter how well things go while some individual is in power, if the end result is massive violence, all the gains will be lost overnight.
So what is going to happen from this? Well, obviously Museveni is going nowhere in the near future. So Uganda is right back where it has always been, a country that is trying to recover from the violent conflicts of the 1970s and 80s. And a country that has never had a peaceful transfer of power. So the opposition at this point has to assume that the only way to actual contest the leadership is through violence, which pretty much means going to the bush and fighting the government. There is also the potential that for the change to take place there will just be a military coup, though the likelihood of predicting that very much eludes me. The final potential is Museveni having a heart attack or something and dying, which would also lead to mass chaos and violence, as there are no structures in place to replace the current government, which is entirely based on him.
So for the future, what happened today could be the beginnings of disaster. Hopefully I am totally wrong, but I don’t think so. It is hard to predict when everything will fall apart, but I am close to absolutely certain that it will, to my own great sadness. Museveni had the chance to go down in African history as a great statesman, but instead chose to keep his grip on power. So he now seems to be well on his path to joining the ranks of other African leaders that the world once thought showed promise and wisdom, Moi from Kenya and Mugabe in Zimbabwe.
And what great company that is to join the ranks of.
Monday, February 20, 2006
Uganda Elections on 23 February 2006
Tear gas fired at Besigye rally from the BBC
UPDF Trucks Ram Into Besigye Crowd from The Monitor via AllAfrica.com
Besigye protests as his guards are changed from The Monitor
So a quick comment on the election… I can conceive of no way that Besigye will win, or maybe I should say that I can conceive of no way Museveni will allow himself to lose. But we shall see. No matter what, I have a feeling that the next year or so in Uganda will be filled with interesting happenings.
At Long Last, I Return
So Molly and I went down to Phoenix to see Pat and Jenn, as well as mom and dad. It was very nice to see everybody, and to be someplace nice and warm. Everybody is doing very well and we had a lot of fun.
We then came back to beautiful Boston and started up the final semester. It has been a long first month. I am in the midst of trying to crank out my thesis, and I will be very happy when that goes away. The most difficult part of the whole thing was the realization that I was on the wrong track for about 2 months, and had wasted a lot of time and energy. But there is nothing to be done for it. I went to see Peter Uvin, my advisor, about changing my topic when the frustration got to the final boiling point and I just wanted to smash things. He more or less told me “No.” But we talked about it and I realized where I had gone wrong, and am diligently working away at it. The hope now is that the final product is not something that I cringe when I turn it in. And the sooner it is turned in the better. Having this hanging over me is not making school a whole lot of fun (though I am sure I will look back at this semester and laugh some day).
I spent this last weekend in Washington, DC for job stuff. It went well, all in all. The goal of the trip was to meet people and make some contacts for the future, and that seemed good. Now the real process of finding a job is upon me. At times it seems almost hopeless. But it is a lot like the thesis. The thesis will get written, for better or for worse, and a job will be found, hopefully for the better and hopefully one that will allow me to pay for this fancy education. But we shall see.
I certainly will try and update this thing a little bit more regularly in the future. But one never can tell….
So cheers all. And if any of you know any international non-governmental organizations that are looking for somebody like me, be sure to send them my way.
So here is Pat on Christmas. Is that not a sweet shirt, or what?
Here we all are for the family picture.
And the dancing queen at Fiesta Latina at school.