4 Weeks Down

The blog has been seriously neglected these past couple days, but only because Em and I are being moderate in our internet use after reaching near capacity earlier in the month… we have a theory that New Zealand takes up way more bandwidth because it is far away from everywhere, but we’re not technologists so don’t listen to us.

I’ll do a little bit of a work update now because the travel updates are soon to come.

The Royal Society provides grants to New Zealand researchers to go abroad and do research in the field/attend conferences/make connections/see stuff that they can’t see in New Zealand that is beneficial to their work. Anyway, my job is to go through the scientist-written summaries of their travels and identify highlights. This sounds easier than it is… mainly because scientists very rarely know how to write reports to make them sound even remotely exciting. So there is a lot of scientific jargon and language that I just don’t understand AT ALL and basically I have to translate it and condense it for the Minister of Business, Innovation, and Employment so that he is convinced that money should be going to the Society so that they can fund these sort of worldwide travels for New Zealand researchers.

Another perk of working with the Society is that I get to spend Wednesdays at an independent but still-related offshoot called the Science Media Centre, which basically is a really useful link between the media and scientific research in New Zealand. Canada has one too… and I could go into the difficulties the Canadian one is having with the current government, but I won’t… I’m sure you can imagine… So I get to do all sorts of stuff there, but one of my main jobs is to read all sorts of scientific innovation and research in New Zealand and to update a database with the key “movers” (there are a lot of them) in the community. This makes it easier for the SMC to access experts when they are publishing something to go to the media which, in turn, is seen by the all-might policy makers of New Zealand.

That’s my work update for now. I feel as if the first 6 weeks of it will be “observation” and the last 6 weeks will be “commentary.” Or maybe all 12 weeks will be me with a dazed look on my face... who’s to know?

Upcoming blog posts (seriously, I have half a dozen started): Wellington Wine Wednesdays (going to turn into “What I Drank This Month”), Homevillage Glory, Orange, Auckland, and Food.