Use the Spanner to Loosen the Corset

Last week in Berlin one of several events I was compelled to attend was a Q&A session between mostly American high school exchange students and members of the Bundestag. Most of the question posed to the Bundestag representatives were either ill-formed, embarrassingly inappropriate, or failed to end in a question mark. But my interest was [...]

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Berlin! Berlin! Wir Fahren Nach Berlin!

After what has been perhaps the busiest day of my internship, I am calling it quits for the week and heading to Berlin for the final conference of my program. The break will be welcome, as not only today but also most of the past two weeks have wholly consumed many in my office as [...]

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Gaming The System

As the third phase of our program draws nigh, many of my fellow PPPlers are still scrambling to secure internships. As the details of the work arrangements are being finalized, an interesting thing is occurring–namely, that some are actually requesting lower salaries than their employer initially offered them. Though this seems at first blush to [...]

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Slight Frustration

My co-participant, Travis Thompson, recently blogged about an unexpected interest he received recently from BMW about possibly offering him an internship. Problem is, the internship would be in Munich and Travis has already been placed in the state of Hessen, a several-hour train ride away. Currently Travis is e-mailing the American coordinator to see if [...]

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Welcome to The Ruling Zeitgeist

In just over a month I will be departing the United States to spend a year in Germany as a participant in the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange for Young Professionals (which, due to its intolerably long name, will henceforth forever be referred to simply as “CBYX” on this blog). As the name suggests, the program is [...]

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