A long day, but a good day

A couple of exciting things in the past week. First, I got my first grey hair. It was weird--I truly believe that it appeared overnight, but all of the online sources on grey hair say that it's impossible for that to happen. Anyway, I'm saving it. It's all downhill from here.

Oh, and I got the internship that I really wanted in DC with the EPDC! I really slacked off on applying to internships because I didn't find any job descriptions that really sounded interesting (or else or else they were interesting, but I didn't think I was qualified). But I finally got around to talking to Leslie about internships and asked her to review my resume. We talked about what kind of internship would be ideal for me, and then a couple of days later, she emailed me with an internship description that she had just received. Summarized:

Project Summary: The Education Policy and Data Center (EPDC) was launched in 2004 by the Academy for Educational Development, with funding from the U.S. Agency. The EPDC will develop a global, multi-source, sub-national database for education with the capability to view data with maps and graphs; the EPDC will develop tools for better interpretation of education data and analysis of important issues.

Position Summary: The Research Associate will assist with the production of the Millenium Development Goal Booklet, “EFA: When?”. This booklet is being prepared for a high-level international meeting on the so-called Millenium Goals at the United Nations Sept 14-16, 2005. It will provide education projections for 84 low-income countries. The position will be for 3 months, starting May 1, 2005, with a possible 1-2 month extension. The RA will assist in making projections using EPDC projection software; will develop a data-extraction tool to make it easy to access projections data; will help develop a reporting tool for the education projections that will include tables, attractive graphs and text (this task will involve linking multiple software programs); will develop the website interface for the projections report.

Qualifications:

• Expertise in the use of various software packages that include data manipulation (e.g. Access, SQL, or SPSS), document creation and reporting software, and Dreamweaver.
  
• Documented ability to gain working knowledge of new software packages quickly.
  
• Reasonable aesthetic sense – the graphs and report should look good!
  
• Ability to work independently.
  
• Desire to live in Washington DC for the summer.

So, key words that jumped out at me: education, developing countries, database, web interface, aesthetic sense. Hey, not only am I qualified to do this job, I want to do it! I'm extremely excited. I'm going to be re-reading all of my Edward Tufte books for inspiration. And maybe I'll get to see some Olin people this summer. Nobody really visits Oklahoma on purpose, but DC is more plausible. Hopefully will be seeing Joles, and maybe Reba (hey, Asheville, NC is only 8 hours away...), and maybe Lauren, if she's going to be in Virginia this summer. Haven't seen Lauren in 15 years. That would be cool.

Maybe this weekend I'll get around to writing letters?