Mind bottling, isn’t it?
When things are crazy and it’s like your mind is trapped in a bottle. Although that may be another Will Ferrell quote, it is definitely how I felt trying to get up to speed when I first joined Grameen in early June.
I thought I’d post a quick update since I haven’t posted in quite a while. In a couple days I’ll put up a longer one covering a microfinance related topic that I’d like to discuss.
For now, I thought I’d describe what I’m doing here this summer. I’ve posted several times about the ideas upon which microfinance is based upon but nothing about what my particular intern-y job entails.
My official title is “Intern in the Office of the President.” It has a distinguished ring to it. Upon introducing myself to other interns I receive the same looks that I get when I tell indie kids that I’m from Portland, the “ooooh-you-must-know-more-about-music/microfinance-than-I-do” look. My apologies to all the Portlanders who have been riding this stereotype through their East coast college experience but, I still listen to Nickleback and Weird Al and, upon arriving at Grameen, probably knew only as much or even less about microfinance than the other interns.
As opposed to interns who work in specific departments (capital management, social performance management, development…), I am somewhat of a jack of all trades. Working as an assistant to the assistant to the president I’ve focused on some of the president’s pet projects, comprising primarily outreach efforts, as well as coming up with a project of my own.
My three main projects this summer:
-Research and draft blog posts for Grameen’s partner in the Middle East/North Africa, Grameen-Jameel
-Comment on different websites, articles, and blogs, plugging various white papers that the Grameen Foundation has sponsored in the past year
-My personal project: compile a list of contact information for university microfinance clubs, reach out to them to start developing relationships, and plan a conference call that clubs can participate in this fall
In addition to these projects, much of my time here has been spent on various administrative tasks and educational events (offsite talks, sitting in on meetings, reading and researching). I consider myself lucky to have had the opportunity to dabble in many of the Grameen Foundation’s divisions. My miscellaneous projects have given me opportunities to work with and meet a large number of the Gramenies (no, I did not make that word up) stationed here in DC.
That’s it for now. Feel free to comment or leave questions about microfinance if you’re feeling particularly mind bottled.
July 29th, 2010 at 11:56 pm
Speaking as a fellow PNWer from the best city of music ever, SEATTLE, I have actually never been thought to know more about music than east coasters. Why do you get so much more cred from being from Portland always???
P.S. You spelled Nickelback wrong and I hope you don’t listen to them because that’s unforgivable.
July 30th, 2010 at 6:57 pm
I apologize for misspelling Nickleback. Two people have actually pointed that out to me in the past couple hours. I guess I’m not enough of a die hard fan.
Seattle is too big of a city to be cool. Portland is right on the cusp, just big enough to have a lot going on but not yet a metropolis. While speaking to another Portlander in Philadelphia, however, I found out that it’s only cool to be from the east side of Portland. Upon telling him that I live in the west hills and went to Oregon Episcopal School his response was, “I’m sorry.”
August 1st, 2010 at 5:11 pm
I think the mind in the bottle metaphor initially was spoken of by Wittgenstein though I may be wrong here. He wrote of this in describing the ways people get trapped by/in their specific language games I believe. Will Ferrell may do some interesting reading….