Networking is a pain in the ass. Maybe I exaggerate because my generation can't seem to focus on a task for more than fifteen minutes at a time, but sending emails is tiring and monotonous, especially if you are repeating yourself but personalizing at the same time <- (story of my life). It took me a week to finally publish that last post (okay that was more because I was busy, not all because I couldn't focus). Anyway, the game I've been playing since May goes like this: "send email - wait - wait - get excited about response - forget to reply - reply later and look like a slacker".
Well its not that bad all the time. Some Europeans are good about checking their emails, and often if I'm not in the middle of serving breakfast at the JHI, I can respond in great time (granted, if the email is exciting enough I'll still respond in the middle of breakfast ;).
One of my gap year goals is to solidify my desire to become an environmental engineer when I go to WPI next year.
*side note: yeah I've decided on Worcester Polytechnic Institute for sure... that's for another post, I promise.
I wanted to find some way to connect overseas to an environmental organization that I could volunteer for, because I thought the chances of me figuring out how I could shadow a real EnvEng at, for example, a consulting company, were very slim. That could still happen though, I never know! 350 is one started by Bill McKibben from Middlebury and has offices all over the world. I received the opportunity to work with people in the office in Amsterdam, and also might be working with another company called SustainableEnergy out of Aarhus, Denmark. You can infer from the title and the rant about emails how this came about.
I'll let the rest of my trip unfold in more specific blog posts, but here are general connections I have made/travel possibilities:
~ visiting sister Gretchen and her boyfriend Ian in Nice, France
~ visiting family in the Isle of Man
~ visiting French exchange student Amalia in Toulouse
~ working on an olive farm in Italy
~ watching a World Cup nordic ski race in Lillehammer, Norway
~ visiting Alice Hedman, a friend, in Sweden
~ touring Finland, in hopes of a family contact or Amalia's grandparents
~ going somewhere with Gretchen and Ian! (Croatia, Switzerland, Ireland, Czechoslovakia...)
Okay enough business! I have a few emails to go send now :)
