Meeting Day

I just spent about 12 hours sitting down in a day full of meetings. After breakfast this morning we were welcomed by the CLS organizers, and then heard from two people from the Office of Academic Exchange Programs. The second speaker talked a lot about the Fulbright programs; this was very helpful for me, since I don't know which type of Fulbright to apply for. Now I know a bit more about what they're looking for in an applicant, the specifics of the South Asian and Bangladesh program, and how to write the application. I feel much better about all of it now (despite the inevitably decreased chance of funding next year).
Next there was an information session on the perks of being a CLS Alumni, followed by an overview of Bangladesh by Shelley Feldman, the president of the American Institute of Bangladesh Studies. This was a great networking connection for me. Dr. Feldman will be in Dhaka for an AIBS conference, and she's hoping to arrange for the CLS participants to attend as well. I think the conference is about climate change and water quality (which I'm not particularly interested in researching), but it will be a good way to make connections with a large number of Bangladesh scholars. There's also a group of us planning to visit Dhaka University while we're there.
In the afternoon we heard some suggestions from program alumni who are also coming this year. It was good to hear about their experiences in past years. One excellent suggestion was to plan only one thing for free days. There's no way we will be able to see everything while we're there, especially because it is such an intensive language program. It will be much better to see less things and relax when we need to.
After we heard from a panel about possible careers and received a briefing reviewing the rules we have to follow, we visited the Bangladeshi embassy. The ambassador himself greeted us and welcomed us to Bangladesh (even saying that he wished our orientation had happened a few days earlier so he could have had us over for dinner at his house!) They even fed us with the most delicious samosas I've ever tasted. They then took group pictures of us with the ambassador; I'll add them to this post if I can get ahold of them.
To round out the day, we had a group meal with the two organizers at a restaurant called Carmine's, which was one block away from the Mall. The food was delicious Italian; I was happy that we got some good American food before we left. Tomorrow I will be going to the Mall with Farida before heading to the airport and out of the country around 11 PM.