Happy lunar new year!

This morning, my department hosted a brunch to celebrate the lunar new year.  There was so much food, everything from dumplings to cupcakes, noddles, fruit salad and even wine (at 10:30am, at work!)  It was a good chance to get to know some of the other people in the department, and a chance for us interns to eat lots.  At one point, people even broke out dancing to Gangnam style. 

They had also posted all of the fortunes for the next year, the year of the horse.  I was born the year of the tiger, and it turns out the consultant I'm working with and my supervisor are also tigers.  Team tiger. Ha.

Here are my predicted fortunes for the year:

The Year of the Wood Horse, January 31, 2014 through February 18, 2015, holds the potential of a major, positive turning point for Tigers. Go with the flow of events and your luck will be strong.  Tiger's natural element is Wood. Wood energy encourages slow growth and collaborative efforts. Team projects will be fun and rewarding. Expansive Horse and powerful Tiger are great friends. Horse years demand action and the courage to move in new directions. You'll discover innovative methods to solve problems or serve others. Don't allow mistakes or setbacks to undermine your confidence. This year it's full speed ahead! 

Not too bad, I guess.  The one posted at work said "watch out for sharp objects," which I think is fitting for a klutz like me.

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This evening, I went to another lunar new year celebration with the WHO interns group.  It was nice to eat (more) good food and get to know some people better.  There really are some incredible people in this group.  I am going to have so many places to visit when I'm done!

Trip planning.

This evening, I am working on planning some weekend trips over the next few months and I'm also starting to look into where Pat and I should go when he arrives in April.

I am going to Paris next weekend to visit Laurie, I'm hoping to get to London in March to see Hannah and maybe to Milan at the end of February.  My office-mates are heading to Milan tomorrow, so I'll get a report back on Monday.

Currently, I'm looking into Spain or Italy for Pat and I to travel around once he arrives.  His flights are into and out of Geneva, and mine is out of Zurich, so I think it makes sense to stay in Western Europe.  Spain would be good, since Pat could practice his Spanish and bring his trusty phase book.

Intern Board

It snowed today for the first time since I've been here.  I saw someone at the bus stop who seemed to be very excited about the snow.  It looked like she was seeing snow for the first time, it was quite cute.

At lunch, I had my first meeting with the WHO Intern Board.  They seem like a good group.  I have joined on as one of the activity coordinators. I wanted to join to help plan some intern activities that are free or lower cost.  Some ideas I have are:

 1) Geneva Servettes hockey game

2) Rock climbing

3) Olympics museum, Lausanne


4) Bike trip (when it gets more spring-like)

5) Ultimate game

6) Cross country skiing

7) Toboggoning (if we can find snow nearby!)


Any other suggestions, my seven-ish readers?  (Hi Mom, Dad, Grannie, Pat, Kim, Laura and Laurie!)

Blue skies!

Today was the first real blue sky day since I've been in Geneva.  I decided to take the scenic route to work, along the lake and through the botanical gardens.  Unfortunately, the gardens weren't open yet, and the gate was locked, so I had to do a fair bit of backtracking, but the views were worth it!

Not a bad view on the walk to work in the morning.

I did exciting work things today like library training.  I also got to sit in on a dicussion between WHO staff and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.  It was interesting to hear the questions asked by staff.  Even though the scale is huge, (the Gates Foundation granted the WHO $580 million this year), most of the questions were very narrowly focused, along the lines of , "why do you give money to that program, but not my program area..."  There were only a couple of really good questions, and it made me think of how difficult it really is to ask a meaninful question.  The Gates Foundation representative was an excellent speaker and had good responses to even the terrible questions.  I think he would make a good politician!

Lac Leman in the morning.

Regular Monday

Happy Monday, everyone!  I am surprise at how many people have mentioned that they are following this blog, thanks for reading!

Today was a pretty regular day.  I'm starting to get into the thousand plus abstracts I need to review, which is not really exciting to write about.  After work, I tried out the interns spinning class.  It was a full house and a great workout, I think I will keep going to those classes. 

I volunteered to help out the interns association activities coordinator.  She has been doing a great job organising events for the interns, but most are out of town and/ or expensive. I thought I could possibly help to organise some events that are free or low cost and that are in Geneva.  I'm thinking maybe some pick-up sports, pot luck dinners, those sorts of things.

The foyer TV room (with a broken TV)

I'll leave you with a couple of pictures from my building.  I really did luck out with this place, lots of people have trouble getting housing or have had bad experiences with their landlords.  I'm hoping I can find someone to take over my room for the second half of April, so I only have to pay half of a month's rent.

The tube elevator (the reason I take the stairs).

Sunday runday

I spent today exploring Geneva on foot.  I was supposed to go skating with the interns, but I couldn't find them at the meeting place.  It was probably cancelled, and I was foiled by not having a cell phone.  Pat would understand.

So, instead of skaing I walked over to the open air market in Plainpalais.  It was sort of a mix between a flea market and farmer's market.  It is the only thing open on Sundays, so it is quite busy.  The food seemed more expensive than the grocery store, but I guess maybe it is fresher or more direct from the farms.

In the afternoon, I went for a long run along the lake.  It was warm enough that I could run in shorts!  Running is a good way to see a city, and the lake makes it hard to get lost.

The Jet d'Eau on a clear(er) day.

Tonight, just some normal Sunday activities like cooking for the week, school work, laundry and writing some letters.  Pat and I are starting to plan his visit in April.  Suggestions are welcome for where we should go and what we should do while he is in Europe for 2 weeks.

Bern

Saturday, I took a trip to Switzerland's capital, Bern with an Austrian student from my foyer.  We left very early on a train and arrived in Bern at about 8:30 am.  When we arrived, nothing was open yet, so we wandered around exploring the old city.  It was quite a bit colder in Bern than Geneva, and there was even a bit of snow on the ground.

Early morning sun over Bern.

Later in the morning, we went on a tour of the Swiss parliment.  The Swiss system is quite unique, so it was interesting to learn about.  Plus, the tour was free, which is a bonus!  After the tour, my Austrian travel mate met some other Austrians and decided to go off with them.  She was on a one day rail pass, so she wanted to take advantage of being able to travel all over the country on that pass.

Once she left, I followed my trusty Lonley Planet book's instructions to Gurten Hill, the highest point in the city.  There was a gondola, but I hiked up instead. The views from the top were pretty incredible, and helped me get my bearings in the city.

View from Gurten Hill.

After my hike, I kept exploring the old town.  I went to the Barenpark to see the bears (Bern's namesakes), but they were all hibernating for the winter.  You can watch them hibernate online on webcam, but the park itself was a bit of a bust.

In Bern's old town.

I caught the 6:30 train back to Geneva, and then met up with some friends from work for an Australia day party at a British Pub.  It was nice to socialize with them outside of work, and to I didn't even have to eat any vegemite.

First Friday

Happy Friday everyone! My weekend started 6 hours earlier. : )

I'm quite happy with how my first week has gone.  It's nice to have that the excitement and energy that comes with starting a new job or a new project.  I can see this project being a bit of a slog at times, so I'll do my best to maintain it.

I am conducting a structured review of literature on regional health inequalities.   Basically, I'm looking at a snapshot of all literature published in the last 2 years on health inequalities and then classifying based on what type of inequality is being studied.  The inequality could be by income, region, sex, occupation, age, ethnicity or some other measure.  I am then going to focus on those studies that have an inequality measured based on region, geography or urban/ rural divide instead of based on individual or household factors.  In these studies, I will look in-depth at how regional inequality has been measured, which health outcome is being studied and how the information has been presented.  The purpose of focusing on inequality by region is that region it is much easier to deliver an intervention at a regional level than to find all the individuals in a region living with low income, or of a particular ethnicity.

I wasn't very concise, but I hope that makes a bit of sense.  I'll also be helping out with some interactive data visualizations.  You can see some examples here.

Tomorrow morning, I am off on an early train to check out the capital city, Bern.  Then, in the evening, an Australia Day party with my Australian intern friends.  It should be a good weekend of exploring and relaxing a bit.

Thursday

This morning I made it to the pool for a pre-work swim.  It was great to be back in the water!  The Varembé pool is incredibly clean and was nice and cool (unlike our soupy Davidson Centre Pool).  This Swiss are so orderly, even in the pool, so I had no lane swim rage at all.  I was able to get 50 minutes of swimming in and still make it to work for 9:00.

I joined the interns association for a tour of the UN buildings in the afternoon.  Unfortunately, we weren't able to go on the official tour, but we were able to wander around the buildings on our own.   I felt a bit like we weren't supposed to be there, but it was pretty cool to see the inside of the building.  I'm going to go back another day for the official tour.

Me in the assemblée generale.

The Geneva II talks between the Syrian government and the opposition groups are taking place this week, so there are lots of news agencies stationed outside the UN building.  Ironically, I have been quite out of the loop regarding any news, without my daily couple of hours of CBC radio.  I'm going to have to read up on the details.

Tons of news agencies reporting on the Geneva II talks outside the UN (even though the talks are in Montreux).

One thing I am really liking about interning here is all the interesting people I'm meeting.  The intern population seems to be  in excess of ambitious, over-achieving, idealistic young people, all with different backgrounds and perspectives on the world.  I'm looking forward to moving beyond the "Where are you from? What department are you working in?  How do you like Geneva?" small talk to really getting to know  some of my fellow interns.

A sunny Wendesday

Today was the first time I've been able to see the mountains since I arrived in Geneva.  The sun came out late in the morning and made for a beautiful day. I hear SW Ontario is dealing with temperatures in the -20 to -30s, so I'll spare you the details of today's temperature.  Unfortunately, I'm out of tourist mode, so I didn't have my camera with me to take any photos.  This photo is from flickr, and it is basically the scene, except without the full moon.

The jet d'eau in the evening from across lac léman.

My room is on the 5th floor, facing the water.  If I sand on a chair and look out my window, I can see the Jet d'Eau. 

I went on the official intern tour today, and was introduced to the nap room and patio on the 8th floor.  It is an amazing view from up there.  I've heard that some interns end up living in the nap room, if they have a couple of days left in their internship after their lease is up. 

I am jumping right into my project at work.  I'm not quite at the level where I could explain clearly and consisely exactly what I'll be doing, but I should be able to by the end of the week. 

After work, I went to a free pilates class taught by a fellow intern.  It was hard work!  Tomorrow will be swimming in the morning and GIA drinks in the evening.  I am quickly getting back to my busy self.

Internship day 2

I have a feeling that my blog entries won't be as interesting now that I'm at work every day, but I'll try to keep updating anyways.

Today I finished all of my introductory readings and got more familliar with the offices.  One of my fellow interns took me for a bit of a tour of the building.  There are two little gyms in the basement (WAY in the basement) that we are able to use for free as interns.  We also went to pick out our official "Intern Glass" (our only payment as interns), which looks suspiciously an Ikea cup with WHO printed on it. They were out of English cups, and French ones too, so I got Spanish. 

I had lunch with some of the executive from the WHO interns association.  Both the president and vice president are also Canadian.  The vice president is from the UW MPH program, and I was the preceptor for her biostats course.  I also met a woman from Cayman Islands who knows both Joel and Kaitlyn from the U of T swim team. I'm thinking about getting involved with the association, but I'll wait and see how busy things get first. 

This is the week of the Executive Board meetings at WHO, so there are representatives here from all 194 member states.  The offices are very busy and traffic is pretty crazy in the mornings.  I'm hoping to be able to sit in on some of the meetings later in the week, just for curiosity's sake.  So far, the galleries have been full all week. 

I also discovered the library today, which is a great spot to do some reading on comfy chairs, away from the bustle of our little intern office.

Another intern told me about a nearby pool where a monthly membership is only 20 Francs.  It is 33.33m long (!?), but it on my way to work.  It was closed tonight, but I am going to go back tomorrow and check it out, it will be nice to get back in the water!

Piscine de Varembé

First day of work

Today was my first day as an intern at the WHO!  The day went very well, I didn't have a problem getting my badge, network access or Carte de Legitimation.  I went for lunch with my supervisors, and they seem really great.  I will be working directly with Nicole, the Canadian consultant who I met at running club, and will also be supported by Ahmed, a epidemiologist/ physician originally from Iran.  The cafeteria at WHO may be the cheapest place to eat in all of Switzerland, with special 8 Franc lunches for interns and a bowl of soup for 2 Francs.

Intern cave, there are 5 of us in there.

My office is shared with 4 other interns from different departments.  One is from Mississauga and lives in the same building as me.  There's also an American, an Australian and a Swiss. Everyone is very friendly and sociable, which is great, although I think I will have to find a quiet spot to do some reading.  Today was mostly about getting oriented and doing some background reading, as well as getting my learning contract finalised.  I'm really looking forward to the project I'll be working on, I will share more about it later in the week.

Some light reading, and my badge (I forgot to smile).

After work, one of the interns from my Foyer organised a little get together at a nearby restaurant.  I had already eaten dinner, so I just had some ice cream.  There are so many opportunities to meet people from all over.  Our group of 6 included 2 Canadians, a Britt, a Spaniard, a Kazakh and a Belgian.

 

Out for dessert with some other interns.