Since I suddenly decided I wanted to participate in the world outside of my narrow path from home to work and back, everyone has been asking me what in the world this thing is that I'm doing. It is called Institute for a Democratic Future. Its acronym is IDF. Yes, that is the same acronym as the Israel Defense Forces. (Did you know they have a blog?) It's also the same as the International Diabetes Federation. (They kind of have a blog. More like they feature a few blogs.) And the International Dairy Federation and the Intel Developer Forum and the Immune Deficiency Foundation.
Anyway, the IDF of which I am a part (which doesn't really have a blog) is an organization dedicated to "educating, motivating and inspiring future democratic and civic leaders in Washington state", according to the group's alumni page on LinkedIn. Honestly, that's the best description of it I've seen so far; much better than the description on the organization's own website. Just to clarify, this is not an internship, or a class, or volunteering. It is a fellowship. How that differs from those things... well it seems like a fellowship has way more street cred. Haha... no seriously though, it is way cooler. Fellowships are for fancy people. So now I'm a fancy person.
Basically what we do is get together a couple weekends a month and learn crazy amounts of local (although usually applicable more broadly) political processes, ideas, and a little insider info from experts in the field. Last weekend we met the city attorney and the mayor, then heard from a panel of marijuana experts. But that's for another post!
There are also travel weekends, where we spend the weekend in another part of the state learning about issues that are important to those areas. This coming weekend we will be doing the "suburban crescent": all of the cities around Seattle. Saturday we start in Everett and work our way to Bellevue, Sunday we start in Renton and make our way down to Puyallup. We also have a presentation to do for our projects some time on Saturday, so that should be exciting. Jeez, I'm realizing just how many other posts I need to write. Note to self: write post about project.
This program has been really eye-opening for me as it shows me just how much I don't know. I am learning so much in these really compressed sessions and I am still so amazed and proud and grateful that I made it in to begin with! That, I guess, is also for another post - if I get into that now, this post will not be an easily readable length and it will not be about the real subject at hand.
Also, I love my cohort of fellows. You can read their bios here. They are a wonderful, curious, smart group of people with diverse backgrounds, interests and areas of expertise. I have yet to form a distaste for any of them (you all know that is HIGHLY unusual, so this speaks volumes for them) and a few of them have quickly become some of my favorite people. Of course, if you're reading this, you're probably in that small circle and don't worry, your positions will not be usurped. Hopefully some of the connections I make through this program will help me to land a career job... where I make lots of money helping people. HAHAHA! Well a girl can dream, right?
Anyway, stay tuned for posts about:
1. How a customer at Bus Stop convinced me through two years of nagging to change my life
2. How miserable it was being sick during the first IDF weekend and still forcing myself to go
3. How we are the first IDF cohort to have HOMEWORK WTF BOO
4. Olympia Weekend!
5. Last IDF weekend
6. Next IDF weekend!
Whoa. I have a lot of writing to do.
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