Office life...

It’s hard to believe that I’ve been in Manila for 7 weeks now and that my time here is almost coming to an end.  I am leaving in about a week and a half, and I am not ready to go!  My wife and I have had such an amazing time spending our first couple months of marriage experiencing life in a new country and traveling.  We are so extremely grateful for this opportunity and actually spoke the other day about potentially returning after graduation if things work out.  My wife studied international development at the Kennedy School, and we would like to work in a developing country after I graduate.  So again, this experience has been invaluable for us.

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, there are constantly conferences held at our office on a range of interesting topics.  From workshops on how to encourage smoke-free cities to expert panels on violence against women and children (which will unfortunately be held the week after I leave), there is always something going on here at the WHO Western Pacific Regional Office.  There is actually an interesting conference going on right now that I would like to attend; however, unfortunately, I am glued to my desk for the next week and a half, working on a final presentation that I will present to my colleagues here in the Western Pacific Regional Office and the rest of my team in Geneva (I did manage to sneak away for a few minutes to meet Conan O’Brien’s dad however, a Harvard professor attending the meeting).  The picture to the right is where I spend the large majority of my day.  The last time I spent this much time at a desk, I gained over 20 pounds!  So perhaps, it is a good that my internship is coming to an end soon :)

I do plan on venturing away from my desk next week to meet up with some folks at the Philippines Dept. of Health and am excited to hear about their work on the Reproductive Health Law, so stay tuned!  But for now, I am going to continue working on my presentation, and I look forward to sharing more about my work once I return to Boston.  Off to create more slides!