I walked to and from work on Tuesday without checking my phone for directions. I survived a conversation entirely in French. The doorman at the office greeted me with the same warmth he has every morning, and I greeted him back like we've had this rapport for quite some time. None of these instances are particularly remarkable on their own, but the cumulation is a feeling of finally living here, not just existing. 

At the office, that same sense of settling-in translated into momentum. The work I began in Week 1 matured into something tangible and public-facing, doors opened to new projects I had not yet been introduced to, and I found myself sitting in a Summit surrounded by policymakers from around the world, representing EBC. Week 2, in the best way possible, was a lot to digest.

What went well

The HEREDITARY advocacy workshop goes live and opens new doors.

The work I am most proud of this week did not actually begin this week, but the moment I sat down at my desk on my very first day and started designing the HEREDITARY Advocacy Workshop from scratch. By the end of this week, the workshop registration finally went live. The draft agenda I had built was finalized and published: on the official HEREDITARY website, across EBC's platforms, and on my own professional channels. Registration was open, and it was surreal to see my structure, my thinking about how the session should flow and what participants needed to take away, translated into something real and public-facing. 

The social media content that accompanied the launch was developed in close collaboration with EBC's Communications team, and I cared deeply about making it feel native to HEREDITARY's existing brand identity rather than foreign. It had to look like it belonged, because the workshop itself was designed to belong and to sit authentically within the consortium's broader advocacy mission rather than exist as a standalone event. Seeing it all go out into the world in only my second week was one of those quietly fulfilling moments that I did not quite know how to hold. So I just kept working! The EBC team responded warmly to the quality of the output, and as a result I was brought into new initiatives: the BrainHealth partnership and promotional materials for an upcoming congress forum in Barcelona next month, among other early-stage initiatives. My portfolio at EBC is growing, and it is growing organically as an extension of my efforts, which is an important distinction for me as a learning intern.

A Highlight

In important rooms. 

Midway through the week, I attended the Reimagining Europe's Health Systems: Prevention, Innovation, and Cross-Border Cooperation in an Age of Permanent Pressure Summit in Brussels as a representative of the European Brain Council. I had to sit with that sentence for a moment after I shared my experience of the event on LinkedIn, because it felt utterly surreal to write.

The room held government officials, civil society leaders, journalists, and policy advocates from across Europe and well beyond it. The conversations were of the kind I have spent years wondering what it would be like to be part of, and suddenly I was part of them, or at least present at their edges. What struck me most was not the scale of it, though the scale was impressive. It was the gap that closed between understanding policy in principle and experiencing what it looks like in practice: the careful word choices, the relationship dynamics, and the way influence actually moves through a space like that. I left with a sharper understanding of the ecosystem I am entering, and a deeper appreciation for the work I had been doing all along; the Summit illuminated exactly the gaps the HEREDITARY advocacy workshop was designed to fill.

What could have been done differently

Learning to hold multiple things at once.

The honest challenge of this week was one of attention; or more precisely, of distributing it. My heart lives in the HEREDITARY work. I built it from essentially nothing, I believe in its purpose, and when I sit down at my desk in the morning, that is where my instincts pull me first. But being brought into new projects means accepting that those projects deserve the same quality of presence, and that urgency does not always align with personal investment. The BrainHealth materials and Barcelona congress; these have their own deadlines, their own stakeholders, and their own standards. They cannot be attended to residually, in the hours that HEREDITARY does not fill. 

What I am learning is that passion is a compass but not a schedule. I am working on building a daily structure that gives each initiative its own deliberate space rather than letting one absorb the day by default, and I think that adjustment, though infinitesimal, will make a real difference in the weeks ahead as my workload continues to expand and unfold into different avenues.

What I learned about myself and others

Connection in the small, prosaic things.

I am getting to know my colleagues more fully now, not just as professionals but as people, in the way that only happens when the initial formality softens and conversations spark in work-independent contexts. That warmth has been one of the most stabilizing parts of this experience, and I do not take these connections for granted. Outside the team, though, I have been learning something quieter about connection: that it does not require depth to matter. The doorman at my office, who greets me every morning with a genuine smile, has become one of the small anchors of my day. I have found similar threads at my regular café, in my neighbourhood, with the familiar faces that are slowly becoming familiar rather than just repetitive. Brussels is still a city to be learned, but the parts of it that matter most to my daily life are no longer foreign, and that is a win in my books! The isolation has not disappeared, but it feels less like absence and more like space to welcome in new connections and experiences organically. 

What I learned about leadership

Recognition as the beginning of a higher standard.

Being entrusted with more because of the quality of prior work carries a weight I am still learning to carry well. It is affirming, genuinely; but it is also a signal that the bar has been set, and that colleagues are now expecting you to clear it consistently. I noticed this week that the most innovative voices in the Summit room were not the loudest ones. They were the people who listened carefully, asked precise questions, and spoke from a place of grounded expertise rather than performed confidence. The kind of professional presence I am working toward is exactly this; not louder, but deeper. This week gave me a clearer picture of what that could look like for me in practice, and a stronger motivation to keep building toward it.

Looking ahead

What I want to focus on next.

Professionally, the priority is building a working rhythm that holds all of my projects with equal care; one that lets me move between HEREDITARY, BrainHealth, and other commitments without losing momentum or quality in any of them. The work is expanding because I have been showing up for the responsibility, and I want to honour that by making sure it stays that way.

Personally, I want to keep tending to the small things that are quietly making Brussels feel more liveable, especially the morning greetings, my go-to orders, and the route I now walk without thinking (well, maybe a subtle glance at my Apple Watch map). If week 3 is anything like week 2, then there's no way I can prepare for it, but I'm ready nonetheless.