March 11, 2008

Blah, what a rainy/snowy week its been so far, and there's only more rain in the forecast. I'm ready for spring. now.

The past two days have been really long. We have been meeting at the UN, so that means we have to meet earlier than usual to get through security and get cleared for the meetings. On Monday we met with UNCTAD (UN Conference on Trade and Development) and UNDP (UN Development Programme). They were both pretty interesting breifings, and hopefully the guys who presented can help me with my thesis later on.

Today we went back to the UN and had briefings from the WIPO (World Intellectual Property Org) which was pretty interesting. The woman who spoke to us gave a really interesting presentation on what constitutes intell prop and diff international laws about it and what the org does. After, a member of the WTO came to talk to us and was really boring. She was from the press corps in the WTO and so all of her answers were long winded and avoided our questions.

Tomorrow we have a day for "study and research". I think I'm going to try and get some work done on my second cultural paper that is due next week. I'm researching the issue (or non-issue) of homeless people in Geneva, since they seem to be non-existent. Hopefully I'll be able to talk to some people at some shelters in Geneva or at the social service office to get some more details. Its weird to actually have a bit of work to do. We have this paper due next Thurs, our final proposal for our thesis due next Tues, and then our French final next week as well. I think i may actually be a bit stressed (haha).

Then next weekend me, Steph, Chris, Kellen, Kat, and Greta are going to Genoa, Italy for a long weekend we have off for Easter. After that, we have a take-home final in our ISS class, and then we are done with official class on march 27th (I think). Then, from march 27th til the end of the program, we have to research and write our thesis. Should be interesting!

I'm wiped, time to go chill and catch up on some much needed sleep (I'm also a bit sick, boo for colds!)