Oops!

Ok, so I know it's been a few days since I've posted. It's not because nothing has happened. A lot has happened. Thursday and Friday were two very full days. Hang in there with me as I go through them. I will do my best not to be to lengthy, and only highlight the important parts.

Thursday
1) I found out I got a student worker job. I'm the Administrative Assistant to Abigail Linser (who is quickly becoming my favorite person because of how sweet she is). It will mostly be office type work, a combination of what I do at APU in the Admissions Processing office and what I did as the High School Intern at Hope Chapel (or at least the administrative side of that job). I'm looking forward to it.

2) We also got a little bit of a head first dive into what the Global Development track will be like. We weren't supposed to start that until September 13th, but our client was leaving to go to Europe for 3 weeks, and thus wouldn't have been here when we started the track . So heard from our client on Thursday night. We are looking at the area of Renewable Energy in developing countries. The company we are working for generally is contracted by foreign countries to bring businesses from America to them. It's generally focused on the creation of jobs within those countries. In this process they do A LOT of research. They find out everything about the country, are they ready to have this kind of industry developed in their country, do they have policies and mandates in place, etc. Then they call companies and talk to people who actually know things (ie no the customer services reps that answer the phones) and ask them questions about the field they are in and what the market looks like globally. Then they do what they can to get the country ready to be pitched to these different companies. The whole process usually takes several years. If you don't understand, that's ok, I'm not really sure how it all works either. Basically, they work with foreign countries, American businesses, and sometimes NGO's (depending on if it is applicable) to create jobs in foreign countries. They are a for profit business, which means as they make profit by working with countries that are already developed (like France, who they are working with now) they are able to work with developing countries who wouldn't be able to pay them as much.

Our job for them is to look into renewable energy and African countries. The first phase is Northern African countries, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, and Egypt. The second phase will be a few Sub-Saharan countries that are still to be determined. The crazy part is that our work, the research we do, will actually be used by this company in their relationships with these countries. Holy freaking crap, talk about pressure. This is real life, not just a class assignment. It freaks me out just a little bit, not gonna lie. But I totally see the value in it. I'm really excited and really scared.

This is the project part of the course. Gerry (our instructor) didn't tell us a whole lot about what the actual course would be like, but it will be similarly based. The idea of working with government, business, and NGO's to create jobs and develop countries in ways that actually work. Did you know that the world has given $2 trillion in aid to southern africa, and none of the problems have actually been successfully addressed. That tells me that we've been helping in the wrong way. Instead of throwing money at them, lets give them jobs. That's what this course is all about. I'm freaking stoked.

The cool part about this though, is that my internship with the US Chamber of Commerce, BCLC is EXACTLY what we are doing in this course. Their conference that I have to help plan as a part of my internship that is at the end of September. Gerry, who is friends with my boss's supervisor, asked me to try to get tickets to one day of the conference for all of the people in Global Development. Talk about applicable. I knew God had a plan all along for my internship, I just didn't know what it was.

3) I got my camera!! It's pretty and blue and wonderful!

Friday
1) Well, we had class all day. We had four different sessions in which we talked about different church traditions (not necessarily denominations, but traditions). Pietism, Reformed, Ancient, and Evangelical. Most of the students were confused as to why we were talking about this. The class is supposed to center around vocation and calling and we didn't see the connection. I think it was supposed to include how each of these different traditions view vocation. But that didn't really come across that well.

It was interesting to learn about them. I really enjoyed some of the talks. Having grown up in Maui in a Non-Denominational church, I didn't really know anything about traditions. I'd never heard the word "evangelical" until I went to college. I didn't know that denominations even existed until I was 13. I don't think I'd ever used/seen a hymnal until I was 18. These things are all VERY foreign to me, so it was interesting to learn about what they all mean and how they all developed. They did through around some words that they never defined, and so I don't think I got the whole message, but I got enough.

The hard part about the ongoing conversation throughout the day was that it became very divided and critical. I think it's the nature of most political science students to be very critical and to focus on what's wrong with something. But, by the last lecture of the day, people were getting a little bit vicious with their questions. It mostly just frustrated me that there was little emphasis on how all of the traditions are right and that we all make up the same body of Christ, that we are all united. I think that perspective could have eased the division and tension of the conversation.

2) Everyone was very flustered, so Virginia, Jon, and I decided to just get out of the building and go for a walk. We ended up at the Capitol building. It was closed, so we couldn't go inside, but we just sat outside and looked it. It's such a beautiful building, so imposing and grand. Then we wandered across the street and looked at the Supreme Court building. Again, immense and very supreme. There are 16 massive columns that are so beautiful. Jon said it's supposed to represent the grandeur of the law. I really enjoyed just getting to look at these buildings. I can't wait until I can actually walk through them. Pictures (Blogger won't actually upload photos to my blog, and I don't why, so go look at the pictures on Facebook).

3) Later that night we watched Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith (Episode 3). I love star wars! I also really like bad movies. It's so wonderful.