I'm sorry ...

IMG_0573forblog
Originally uploaded by BK 14

... for being such a bad blogger and keeping-in-toucher.

Thanks to all who sent "Are you alive? Replying with yes or no will suffice" e-mails.

My excuses are that the last few weeks have been a little topsy-turvy busy and it took me a while to compress the photos from my trip and upload them to my Flickr.

So I offer this photo from the Africa Remix exhibit at the Johannesburg Art Gallery as part of my apology, hoping that it'll make you laugh a little. (If you can't read it, the text is "WE ARE ALL POST EXOTICS" and then there's a mirror. I had to stand kind of far away to get it all in.)

...

So, there's lots to update you all on:

1) I quit my job at Community Media For Development
2) My roommate, Erin, has decided to go home
3) I found a new job at the HIV/AIDS and the Media Project at Wits University
4) I'm staying in Jozi, keeping my funding, still getting credit and still living at the same place
5) My mini vacation to the KwaZulu-Natal province was great, but I'll blog about it in a separate post

1) As some of you know, I wasn't very happy at CMFD. I don't want to write too much here because of the public nature of this thing, so if you're really interested you can Skype or e-mail me. But don't get your hopes up; there aren't any juicy, controversial stories. In short, I didn't feel that I was getting the learning experience that I thought I would, so I decided to look for other options. My dissatisfaction with CMFD stemmed from both the work I was being tasked to do and my bosses.

2) Erin, my roommate since July 18, who was working with CMFD on behalf of Journalists for Human Rights, also decided to quit. She decided to go home after she got a full-time reporter job at her hometown paper, the Cape Breton Post. She also wasn't happy at CMFD, so I'm sure that played a part in her decision to head home early; but she was also worried about missing out on an opportunity for full-time employment, which doesn't come very often in the Maritimes, and especially on Cape Breton. So my bachelor pad is back in operation, and I'll once again be able to stretch my falsetto to absurd lengths while dancing in my underwear.

3) Before I handed in my resignation letter to CMFD, and even before I made any contact with Queen's or my funders, I made sure I found another job. I sent e-mails to five organizations operating in Jo'burg that seemed interesting to me and fell under the media-development banner. One of the organizations that got back to me was the HIV/AIDS and the Media Project, which is run out of School of Journalism at the University of the Witwatersrand ("Wits" to everyone here) in Jo'burg. After a few more e-mails and a couple of phone calls, they offered me a position. My job is basically to be a general assistant to the project, helping out with logistical stuff and minor tasks; but I'm also supposed to blog on their website - www.journaids.org - about HIV/AIDS coverage in the print media. This new internship is by no means perfect; it isn't part of a formal internship program, the project is pretty disorganized and most of my work will be of the administrative/logistical nature. But I'm a lot happier because even though I may not be doing the most thrilling work, I feel like I will be exposed to a lot more learning experiences - even simply from being at Wits. The new job is also a lot more flexible in terms of hours and time off and stuff, which will give me a better opportunity to do some more traveling. I'll take a separate post to write more about the project and what I'll be doing with it.

4) So, yeah, it's all cool; I'm not getting deported or having my funding taken away or anything like that. I've actually been amazed at how supportive everyone has been, both at Queen's and at the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (my funders). Most of the administrative paperwork stuff has been dealt with, but I still have to have an official re-approval. For future reference, I'm pretty sure at least one of the reasons why everyone has been so supportive of my decision was because I had another job lined up and ready to go. My guess is that's why the transition was relatively smooth (I quit CMFD on Aug. 30 and started at Wits on Sept. 3). Even still, mad props go out to Queen's Global Development Studies, Queen's International Office and the folks at the Students For Development branch of the AUCC.

5) See above.

Alright, now I'll get to what everyone is waiting to see: pictures of animals!

BK