Bet you didn't know...

I bet you didn't know that Indiana has almost no redeeming qualities. Well, now you do. 

Go Hoosiers!

Spring Cleaning!

Well, the weather is absolutely perfect in Bloomington and it's spring break so Dane and I have nothing to do. Actually, that's not really true. I have lots of long term projects, but none of them have to get done today so we've spent the day on very important things such as:

1. Watching the house finches, chickadees, morning doves, and cardinals eat out of the bird feeder. It's especially great because the feeder sticks to the apartment window with suction cups and the eating birds are literally 3 feet from our office chairs. We have decided that the lady house finch is kind of a bully to her doting male companion.

2. I'm reading this fabulous book called "Little Heathens: Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression." A family friend sent it to me for some spring break reading. I absolutely love this book. I'm usually not much of a pleasure reader, but the author's voice is so clear and her stories so compelling that I cannot put the little treasure down. It's so inspiring to learn how, not so long ago, people knew how to live without modern conveniences like refrigerators, central heating, and free time. I certainly don't want to go back to living that way, but it reminded me that the skills we have lost in a few generations are profound. 

3. Reading the book's chapter on food made me hungary so I made potato pancakes for lunch. So easy and delicious with apple butter and jam!

4. Dane and I took down the plastic window film that has been our only protection against the harsh Indiana winter (note the sarcasm). For a girl who grew up in Minnesota, I thought winter here would be a breeze, but it turns out that they haven't heard of insulation in Indiana so it was sort of miserable. Now that it's up to 60 or 70 most days, I feel like a real person again.

5. Dane and I both did some spring cleaning today. I don't know what in the world possessed me, but suddenly I was tossing out old clothes, dusting, wiping down the kitchen, mopping the floors, cleaning the bathroom, even vacuuming off the deck. I know vacuuming the deck sounds a little odd, but believe me, it's the only way to get the thing clean.

6. We have our very first pet. They are called Triops. Think Sea Monkey's 2.0. They come all dried out in this little package. You add water, wait a few days and "tada," you have yourself a pet. They are very tiny at this point, about the size of a pin head, but they should get a few inches long. 

Well, that's all the exciting news from here. I think I should start doing something productive. I think my midterm is calling out to me!

Go Hoosiers!

Success!

Internship, done and done. After all the drama and hulabalu, the perfect internship was right in my own back yard. This summer I will be interning at the Friends of the Boundary Water Canoe Area Wilderness (or friends of the b-dub for short) based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. They are awesome and I can do a ton of policy work for them on fancy-pants issues like sulfide-mining, regional haze, forest service rules, etc. I can even ride my bike to work because there is a bike path that goes almost doorstep to doorstep. I'm happy because I have an internship. They are happy because I am perfect (and modest). My Dad is even happy because I will eat all the food in the house. It's perfect. 

I must get to bed before I turn into a pumpkin. 

Go Hoosiers!

Bummer

I was having a pretty good day. My three midterms in the last 24 hours went off without a hitch. In fact, I even enjoyed taking my environmental law test and, for a few hours, was seriously considering law school. Then I thought about all the lawyers already in this world and thought better of it.

I went home and celebrated by making a yummy eggplant curry and eating a jello pudding pop. 

I've been waiting all day to hear back from the Oregon Fellows program. It's this groovy internship opportunity based in Oregon (obviously) that places students with local governments and non-profits in the Portland area. Sounds pretty great right?

Well, I thought so too. Unfortunately, I got rejected this evening. I don't want to take it too personally. As I told Dane just yesterday after Firefox rejected him, "we're just so awesome that we aren't used to getting rejected." We don't have a lot of practice. Maybe if we got turned down more often we could get over it more easily.

My question is this: Who is more qualified than me? I know this sounds really ego-centric, but I'm honestly asking. I graduated from a top notch school manga cum with honors in my major. I teach kids how to canoe in the summer. I can write. I can read. I can even do cartwheels. I'm in a graduate program. I just want a internship. You don't even have to pay me! Seriously. Who the hell is getting these god damn internships if I'm not? They better be the next freaking Gandhi. I even got rejected from the internship I wrote about in my last post.

Thanks for letting me vent.

Go Hoosiers.

Spunk

You know that the economy is bad when you have a hard time finding quality unpaid internships. I'm been scouring treehugger.com, Indiana Career Services, High Country News, Orion Magazine, Idealist.org, and even put out a call over Facebook (which, incredibly, was my most successful search technique) with very little to show for it. The good news is that now I've know applied to about 5 openings and I have about 4 more to go.

I was having a difficult time for two reasons: 

(1) There are approximately two million environmental organizations and most of them are absolute basket cases. I'm sure their are very well intentioned and hard working people in each of them, but when they have a bad website and their name is something like "Friends of the Rainbows, Flowers and Trees for Harmonious Living in the North-Central Quadrangle of Oregon" it doesn't inspire confidence. There are also organizations that have seemingly legitimate granola-crunchy names like "The Pacific Legal Foundation," but are actually anti-environmental organizations (or, as they would want me to say, they promote a balanced approach to environmental protection). 

(2) Every intern stuffs envelopes, files papers and gets coffee- especially the unpaid variety. I'm astonishingly over-qualified for all of these tasks and I was starting to wonder just how much of a scam this whole interning thing was until I came up with a brilliant idea. 

Since I'm not getting paid for many of these internships anyway, why not contact a truly interesting organization and work with them to design something just for me? And that's exactly what I did yesterday. 

The mission of Western Resource Advocates is to protect the West's land, air, and water. They use lawyers, scientists, and economists to 1) advance clean energy to reduce pollution and global climate change 2) promote urban water conservation and river restoration; and 3) defend special public lands from energy development and unauthorized off-road vehicle travel. We collaborate with other conservation groups, hunters and fisherman, ranchers, American Indians, and others to ensure a sustainable future for the West. 

And a single tear ran down my face as I read it. 

They didn't have any internships posted, but what did I have to lose?

I sent them the following email:

Good people of Western Resource Advocates, I am very interested in interning at you organization and, while I know that you do not have any such position advertised, I hope I can convince you that I am an excellent candidate for the non-existent opening. 

Let me introduce myself. My name is Kate Logan. I am a masters of public affairs candidate at the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University. I graduated from Whitman College (a small, private liberal arts school in Walla Walla, Washington) in 2008 with a degree in Geology. I am professionally passionate about water allocation, western public lands, and extractive industries. Since starting graduate school, I have taken as many courses as possible specifically tailored to determining the cause and scope of environmental problems and finding the resources to solve them. I know that my core knowledge of economic markets, environmental law, statistics and earth sciences are important tools in tackling these issues. I have extensive experience writing for technical and non-technical audiences, including essays on topics such as BLM land management and water rights, and an undergraduate thesis in geology. As a graduate research assistant, I have further developed my ability to work independently on a wide range of topics.

I became aware of your organization after seeing an advertisement in High Country News several months for a Water Policy Analyst position. At the time, I softly cursed my career timing and wished I had 5 more years of professional experience so I could apply for this dream job. I consoled myself with the notion that in no time at all your organization would release a posting for summer interns. Unfortunately for me, no such opportunity has presented itself and, since I have nothing to lose, I decided it was time to take unilateral internship action. 

I do not expect to be paid for any work or reimbursed for travel expenses in this imaginary internship. As a life-long student, I am accustomed to paying for the privilege to work. I would, however, want to work on a project that is of use and substance to your organization. I do not want to act exclusively as the coffee girl or the copy machine mavin, although I know that some office work is part of every organization and I am willing to do my share. My resume is attached and I would be happy to discuss my qualifications further.

Thank you for your time. 

Sincerely,

Kate Logan

Less than 6 hours later I got an email back! Nothing is promised, but they like my "spunk" and might be able to work something out.

Now, back to homework!

Go Hoosiers!  

I'm holding my breath

I cannot concentrate. I've been trying to do work all day, but every 5 minutes I hit the refresh button on my New York Times home page to see if anything has changed with the election. Many of my classmates at SPEA feel the same way. One girl worried that something really important would happen while she was in class from 5 to 6 today and she would miss it. Because I voted absentee in Minnesota, I didn't have the pleasure of waiting in line today. I wish I had. It would have given me something to do. I would have gotten a "I voted" sticker and I could have gotten free Starbucks coffee for doing my patriotic duty (they had a promotional deal). 

I don't really understand why I'm so interested. I'm truly inspired by Barack, but I also don't think McCain is a bad guy. I do worry that he would die in office if elected and we would get Caribou Barbie (my aunts coined term for Ms. Palin) as President. 

I have been thinking a lot about my Mom today. Last election cycle she volunteered relentlessly for the Kerry campaign office in St. Paul. She organized, answered phones, and put her anger towards President Bush to good use. I think she would have loved this election. Seriously, if she could get that excited about John Kerry (I'm sorry Mr. Kerry, but I saw you speak at Macalester and you were not that inspiring) than I can only imagine how happy she would be about Senator Obama. 

She would understand, much more than I, what nominating a minority means in the United States. When I was about 12 and learning about the civil rights movement for the first time I asked her about her experience during that time. This is what she told me: For a while during college or graduate school (I can't remember which) she lived in Memphis, TN. While there, she made friends with a young African American man and, thinking nothing of it, invited him over to her apartment. When he arrived the doorman let him in but minutes later made some lame excuse to knock on her door and make sure that everything was "alright." Being the northerner that she was, it took her a moment to figure out why the doorman was actually at her apartment door. She was very embarrassed and apologized to her visitor profusely. She confided that this, among other reasons, was one of the reasons she didn't stay in Memphis very long. For one thing, she had to move back to Minnesota so she could meet my Dad and have me!

Obviously this is one of the less dramatic racially charged stories from that era, but I still think that it is still shows just how far we've come. 

Anyway, in a few hours we'll know how it turns out and either way I know my Mom will be smiling somewhere because Mr. Bush is on his way out. 

Go Hoosier (but only if Obama wins the state. Keep your fingers crossed)! 

Tests, tests, tests

Sorry, y'all,

I know, its been almost a month since I've written anything. It's amazing how after reading and writing all day I have little motivation to do it anymore. Here's quick summary of the last month:

1. I have law reading coming out of my ears, but I recently (last night) mastered the art of skimming.

2. I read a book about animal rights activists and deer hunters for my public management class.

3. I'm researching contested Nevada water rights for a class.

4. My GA professor asked me to research diesel fuel for a research paper. Ask me to explain how a diesel engine works sometime!

5. I'm good at taking economics tests and bad at writing economics papers.

6. Dane and I have a lovely new couch that I got for super cheap at the used furniture store. I put a red slip cover over it to cover up the awesome muted aquas, corals, and blues of early 90's/late 80's. We hope it doesn't have flees...

7. Dane and I are getting along super well. We don't see each other much during the week, so we spend lots of time on the weekends going for hikes and enjoying each others company.

8. I have 3 tests this week and 2 on Monday (tomorrow). I better get back to work.

Go Hoosiers!