I decided when I started blogging that, since I am a public figure (at least in some countries), there was no point in embracing anonymity at the risk of being exposed; so my real name has been clear here from the start. But I also decided that I would only rarely write unlocked (or even locked) entries here about my job, or work-related stuff.
As a nod to transparency, I am now making it public that I am leaving my current job at the end of this year, and joining a new organisation as head of their Brussels office. I have been in my current position for four and a half years, in the course of which I have expanded my area of operations from the Western Balkans to include also Moldova, Cyprus and the three South Caucasus states.
But I have been on the lookout for a role which would involve more of the advocacy activities which I most enjoy about my present job, and less of the grind of production of research reports, which I don’t enjoy doing so much. It also occurs to me more and more that those of us who are working in international politics, and not doing anything about Africa, have to ask ourselves why. I myself became a Balkanist largely by accident.
Thus the move. My new geographical focus will be simultanously more global, but also more concentrated in the countries where I am working; the new organisation currently has a client in Europe and two in Africa, so I am getting up to speed with the literature relating to my new responsibilities. Also on the lookout for office space in Brussels, preferably a bit closer to the European quarter than my current Avenue Louise location.
Come the new year, the number of work-related posts here will certainly decrease still further from the current low level – but that doesn’t mean that there will be none at all!
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I love Buddenbrooks (Death in Venice I can take or leave, but it’s worth reading once), but for goodness sake avoid the Lowe-Porter translations. They’re awful – neither particularly readable nor particularly accurate (and some of the mistakes would shame a half-way competent A-level student).
McCullough’s “History of Christianity” is very good, though quite dense.
Q is pretty good. And I’d highly recommend “The Seven Per Cent Solution” for a moment where you’re feeling tired and jaded and need something fun to pick you up.