Clean Slate

It's one of the biggest misconceptions before you join the MC: thinking that since you're now working full time you'll have more time to do stuff.

I sure fell into that trap. Today Mess and I were talking and remembered that when we were in Calgary we thought that we'd have more of a social life in Toronto. I mean, it makes sense right? You're working full time, and only working full time, don't have homework or any other activities outside of classes to worry about, making a salary, living in the heart of downtown Toronto...sure, it makes sense! So needless to say, I had tons of plans for Toronto. The top things on the list were to brush up on my French (I figured this had to be easy since I have two team mates who speak fluent French), cook and live healthy, go to yoga (there's a studio on the first floor of our office), go to all the festivals, take up dance classes again - and enjoy the cute little shops all around town, become a world citizen and start reading again, the list went on and on!

I've lived in Toronto now for 3.5 months. Have I done any of that? Nope. In fact, to this day, I havn't really been to any of the festivals, except some random one on the harbour front, been to one yoga class, read one chapter of The Alchemist, and havn't even cracked open a French book. And the more time that passes, the less you feel like actually doing it - because you think, hmm, my goal was to read two books a month...its been three months and I've read none...so now I have to read 6 books...and then you end up not doing anything cause it seems like so much work.

Why you ask? AIESEC of course. You'd think that working full time and being paid for it would be enough time to get all your stuff done-but there is always more that needs to be done! June flew by because of transition, July flew by because you thought you had the whole summer ahead of you so you might as well just go into the office for one day on the weekend, August flew by because of NPM and IC, and now its mid September. I could work 24/7 and still have work to do. So that's when the excuses roll -well I didn't read this book cause I'm so busy at work, I didn'tgo to yoga cause I'm so busy at work, blah blah blah.

So recently I've come to the realization that life is always busy. You have to suck it up, and make time for all the personal goals and things you want to do. With that realization, this weekend I wiped my slate clean, and took the first step. I got a library card! Finally the picture at the top is starting to mean something! It's my first Toronto Public Library Card - and it was free! With it, I borrowed my first books - a cookbook, a book about Toronto, and a self-teaching French book. I've even opened them up and started to read them. WOOT for first baby steps! I'm still working as much as I did last week, but now at least I'm making time for other stuffs as well. It's a slow progression to a "normal" life, but progression none the less!

This map has to get bigger...

There's this brilliant website that maps out the countries you've visited and plops them onto a map. So today I did the exercise, and while it looks not so bad because luckily most of the countries I've visited have a fairly large land mass, I realize that 6 is a pitifully smally number. This has to get bigger...!

If you want to try it out yourself, the link is: (http://douweosinga.com/projects/visitedcountries)

International Congress 2006 in Poland

It’s been about two weeks since I’ve gotten back from IC in Warsaw and I figured I should probably post something about it before I forget everything that happened! Shirley, Carolyn and I left a few days before the conference started to travel around in Poland and then attended the WENA pre-conference for a couple days before IC officially began. All in all, I spent three weeks in Poland! Because I’m feeling lazy, here are some of the main highlights (in bullet format!):

• We had a direct flight from Toronto to Warsaw, which was AWESOME! European airlines are so much better than North American ones – they give you free alcohol if you want it, have food and drinks at the back in between when they go around on carts – give you blankets and pillows (which Air Canada doesn’t do anymore by the way! Sheesh, cheapos), AND they COMBINE the weight of your bags, so your total weight has to be less than the limit, not each separate bag! So awesome!

• We did not have good luck commuting in Poland! We went through it all, from broken luggage, missing trains, not being able to figure out which car on the train we were on, being duped by taxi drivers, dumped in sketch train stations etc… all in a country where very few people speak English! Definitely an always an adventure linked to our commuting, which now may seem funny but trust me, we weren’t laughing then!

• The Alumni Awards ceremony was beautiful! They gave out awards to alumni for their contribution back to AIESEC – as well as to one individual who is not an alumnus but has given a significant amount to the organization! It was one of the most inspiring moments – being able to see how much our alumni have been able to accomplish themselves and continue to believe in and support the organization.

• The powerpoints and videos are beautiful! They have some major cool flash and mac action going, its unbelievable how aesthetically nice the presentations are. I guess the higher you go in AIESEC the better your powerpoint skills become!

• Canada's represented cheer wise! We donated the "we've got spirit" cheer to WENA, and its become the cheer of choice - very catchy and everyone loves it! At the opening ceremonies and plenary, people would run to us and be like "Canada, come on, come on" to start the cheers!

• In one history session - Dey took us through the global change process by talking to every single PAI from 1997 until Brodie! It was a cool concept, but a little hard to follow because it was like listening in on a phone conversation for 2 hours.

• Global village was in central Warsaw and was huge, with all 95 countries represented with a booth and cultural dances/presentations on stage. There was a lot of media coverage for it as well – and they even had ads on the trains, billboards and bus stands. A rep from the Canadian embassy showed up and invited us to the embassy – an offer we took up later in the week, and got to meet the ambassador as well.

• Opening ceremonies - very long but they had dances from every region, so that was tres cool. In general, the events that they held externally were very impressive – with both the quality of the venues and the speakers they had. At point the former President of Poland spoke as well.

• Krakow is beautiful! Karo was right - its way nicer than Warsaw (and yeah yeah, this is because most of Warsaw was destroyed in the war, but still!).

• Auchwitz is about an hour away from Krakow and we joined the Krakow study tour people on the bus down there. It was unreal - standing on the train tracks that were in Schindler's list, around the wire mesh, the tent etc...Ever watched Life is Beautiful? The whole time I was there, I was imgaining the little boy running around hiding in the trash cans. Its ironic because parts of the place is very beautiful, huge green trees, in the middle of nowhere so very peaceful – you can’t believe it had been a death camp just 40 years ago. Unreal.

There are more stories, but I can’t write them all right now. I should have probably blogged every day, like Kyle did, but I’m not that smart :P

Overall, IC was a positive experience. However, I wouldn’t say it was my favorite conference ever. I think I went into IC with the wrong expectations. Those of you who saw me after I went to XPRO in Prague can testify that for me, XPRO was an amazing experience! The conference itself was very challenge, the facilitators were the best I’ve ever seen and truly inspiring, the size was small and intimate with about 150 people, so you get to know individuals much better, and well, it was in Prague! I went into IC expecting it to be exactly like this, walking out of IC feeling the same way I felt walking out of XPRO, but in hindsight, this is was unrealistic. The shear size of IC and the stage at which the organization is currently, in terms of implementing global strategy and so forth, and the overall objective of my attendance makes it a completely different ball game. Not a bad ball game; just a different ball game. One in which the value that I’ve derived from the experience may not have been apparent immediately after, but in reflection days, weeks, and hopefully months later, have become more and more evident.

It’ll be interesting in a year or two to be able to go to IC in Turkey or Brazil to see how the experience changes the second time around, having learned from the first time…