Wednesday, February 27, 2008

[Jaron's Blog] Important Events

     As a college student I have been privileged to be a busy person.  Hooray!  But there are some important events coming up very soon in the next few weeks, this week included.
     The first one is tomorrow, on Thursday.  Even though it is not mentioned on the DupyCal, there is a Jazz Band performance at the WSU Art Museum at the noon hour.  All are invited and welcome to listen.  Sorry for the short notice, but the band itself only found out this week.  It feels pretty last minute to us.
     Secondly, the Bunco Party that I am hosting in Honors Hall is at 7:00 p.m. on Friday.  I would recommend coming, because there will be stuff for everybody, in the form of hard candy.
     The next thing is something interesting.  The Washington Secretary of State is coming to the Pullman area next week, and it will be interesting to hear him speak.  He will be appearing at a church, and then at Neill Public Library.  I don't not currently know the times or dates for those two events.
     Additionally, ASWSU elections are commencing soon, and I encourage all WSU students to do some minor research on the candidates, concerning they have a pretty sizable budget.
     The week of March 10th will be WSU's Spring Break, and after that week I will have some papers and tests to do.
     That is basically the whole gist of the post, things that I'm finding interesting that will be coming up, and just a short briefing on the whole situation in terms of times and events.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

[Jaron's Blog] Former Ambassador Wendy Chamberlin

I had an interesting opportunity this week to listen to the former U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan, Wendy Chamberlin.  She has served 29 years in the U.S. Foreign Service, the diplomatic corps wing of the Department of State.  Her stories were interesting and informative.  She has spent time in several foreign nations and worked in the UN dealing with refugee problems at one time.  She is currently the President of the Middle East Institute, a think tank based in Washington D.C.

Many people posed some interesting questions to her, which she answered with a lot of good information.  It's really a good opportunity to learn not only about the situation of foreign affairs in general, but also about the inner workings of government agencies like the State Department.  About half of what she talked about was concerning the multiple bureaucratic levels of organization that she has dealt with over the years, not just in the United States, but also in the governments of other nations.

Another interesting topic was the attitudes toward the United States and Americans in foreign countries.  For the most part, her stories indicated that foreign nations and peoples are rarely, if ever, lukewarm toward the United States.  Either there is a lot of good sentiment or bad sentiment, but usually not anything in between.  At least, this is what I heard from the tidbits she had shared.

Overall, it was an exciting opportunity to go hear her speak and to ask her questions.  I had some questions that I did ask and did get answered, and so I am pretty satisfied with that opportunity.  The speaker series that the Global Studies department probably has some more good people that they are going to call up to WSU, so it will probably be a good idea to look out and attend those as well.