My So-Called Internship

I am sitting at a coffee shop in Boulder, CO, having thoroughly enjoyed the path I took to get here, literally and proverbially. Passing through the second highest paved road of the contiguous states was as terrifying as it was beautiful. And like most opportunities, they do not just land in your lap; you have to make them happen, often through trial-by-fire.

The internship has been getting increasingly fast-paced as well as rousing. The past couple of weeks I have helped new interns get set up (which I was told counts as “management experience”), I led and followed-up on a brain-storming session to rethink and revitalize one of our projects, I presented my findings (so far) on transit-oriented development to Amory Lovins (which says something about the level of access I am getting), and have been doing some serious research on the aforementioned subject. In fact, I just read 30 years of the American Planning Association’s Journal, and the worst part is, I found it interesting, so clearly you know I have some planning tendencies, or maybe just issues.

Further, one of the more inspiring, and straight-up fun, activities has been volunteering to write for the Rocky Mountain Institute for various environmental outlets. This week, a piece I wrote on car sharing got published in treehugger. Check it out.

Finally, after talking to a RMI principal in their Boulder office, I asked if I could go down for the week to collaborate on my transit-oriented development project. “No problem, good idea,” was the response I got.

You never know if you don’t go for it, right?