I need ideas!

I have $963 left in my Educational Benefits for 2006, and the deadline to submit requests for approval is November 3rd. So! What can I spend money on that is interesting and somehow related to my job? The related-to-job thing is apparently a loose requirement--K says I can "definitely" get approved for foreign language courses and magazine or journal subscriptions ("as long as they're sort of serious, newsy magazines"). I can also use the money to go to conferences and in that case it can be used for travel expenses, too. The restrictions that I'm working with right now are that the courses/conferences/whatever have to take place before January 1st, and I can only spend a maximum of $500 on books/subscriptions.

Any suggestions?

(as a reminder, my job involves database/ website/ graph/ chart/ statistics/ EducationInDevelopingCountries type stuff, and I already own all of Tufte's books)

Comments

Kimble said…
probably (o.k., definitely) out of your price range, but there's a conference on education for sustainable development in Bangkok in December run by UNESCO/APEID which sounds really awesome.

For more reasonable things, a language or continuing ed class might be neat. The Middle East Institute has offerings of both language and culture/history classes about the middle east. The ICLS seems to offer every language you could possibly want (Tagalong! Zulu!). Searching for continuing education classes in DC also yields a whole bunch of options. Georgetown specifically offers some cool ones that may or may not qualify for your educational fund, like the Politics of the Religious Right, but they would still be amusing.

Hope you find something.
7:03 PM
Sarah said…
Funny you should mention that conference... my co-worker is using her ed benefits to go to it. The conference itself is not that expensive, as conferences go, but it's the airfare that would kill me. Since I've only been at AED since June I don't have the full amount at my disposal. It does sound awesome though.

I've been looking at classes and I'll keep looking, but so far the ones that I've found that I would be interested in are all happening after January 1st. I appreciate the ideas.
7:49 PM
Anonymous said…
Could you use it to travel to check out an ngo you are interested in or a community project you've always been intrigued by? I'd try to get an interview with Alice Waters and check out her school lunch/gardening program. Someone needs to figure out how to make that a wide-spread practice.
Joy
10:13 AM
Sarah said…
Joy--that sounds like a good idea and I might try to plan something for next year. I think it's probably too late for me to come up with a coherent plan before November 1st.
1:36 AM
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