It's been a pretty crazy couple of weeks for me. I was recently made a Yelp Elite member for the ratings website yelp.com. This has allowed me to have access to exclusive events and things through the website. This has been awesome so far. The community is amazing and everyone is so nice. I'll get to that more a little later so things don't get too out of order on here.
Firstly, I've been applying like crazy to different places for internships. That list I posted a few posts ago is totally outdated now as I decided to apply to many, many more of them and as deadlines came and went some were met and some weren't. I'm hoping and praying all the time that I might get selected for one of the places I've applied to but it's easily lost behind all the other things that have been happening.
Last week I had a presentation in my Politics of European Governance class where I spoke about an article dealing with the Internal Energy policy of the EU. I hope it wasn't as boring for the class as it was for me to read. The next day I turned in my first 'paper' of the semester. It was about a 10 page research design for a paper due at the end of the semester. It felt incredible to get something off the table. I proposed a research project looking at agricultural and other raw goods' tariff rates in the United States and their effect on illicit drug cultivation in Latin America. I should hear back about my design in a week or so, but we'll see.
That night I had my first Elite event for Yelp. We got a private tapas dinner at The Pyg restaurant in an old Georgian house, now made into a shopping centre called Powerscourt. The food was good, and there were free cocktails as well and an exclusive after-hours tour of the house. Everyone went out for drinks afterward but my friend Imran, whom I'd brought along as my allotted guest, and I had to call it a night early so we could get up and ready ourselves for the flight to Istanbul, Turkey the next day. (Like I said, it's been a busy week).
I'm back now, having landed yesterday morning and nothing has slowed at all. I've been frantically writing more cover letters for internship applications, and attempting to pull together some topics for upcoming research papers as well as another presentation for my International Political Economy class in the next few weeks. Also, I have two more Yelp events this week (one tonight in which I and a few friends will get free Philly cheesesteaks, and an exclusive lesson from the head chef on how to make them; and another Thursday at a Moroccan restaurant in Dublin with free wine, and hookah. Can't wait!). Sandwiched in the middle of these, there's more class and work to be done before hopefully relaxing with some friends this coming weekend. One of these days I'll clear some time to sleep...but how can I with so much to do and so many great things happening?
Sometimes it's so easy to get so lost, and I really do get lost incredibly often. I get behind on news (my internet is backlogged with articles from Foreign Policy, The Economist, Financial Times and others that I hope to read someday), and on TV and sleep and everything else. I worry, I get sad and frustrated...but there are other times when it really all comes together. It makes all the work and frustration worth it.
I sat at a cafe in Üsküdar on the Asian side of Istanbul Sunday afternoon with some çay and I looked at a man sitting on a bench outside of the çaykur we were at, sighed and for the first time ever, I think, muttered out loud, "Life is good."
I'll get more on Istanbul up shortly!
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