lobbying vs. challenging - the difference is in the PURPOSE
life is about priorities
my priority is to do meaningful things where i can get challenged and learn something new about the world, other people or myself.
therefore, i enjoy conversations...
this is what i ended up discussing with
Darko from 1 till 3 a.m. Ok, till 3:30. Ok, ok 4 a.m.
It was totally worth it.
Does purpose justify the means?
It's valuable to learn about different tools but we have the freedom/responsibility to choose if we are actually going to use them. According to our own moral standards and values.
Thank you for a wonderful "learning night" ;)
being at an LCM
after ages, I've been to a real, original
LCM!
I don't even remember when was the last time I've been to a regular LCM, not taking into consideration elections or some other special events of an LC life. Months? Years?
It's such a cool feeling to see my
home local committee living!
...watching all the ppts
...clapping like crazy
...having fun singing "nah nah naaaah nah" and shouting "PAI! PAI" at those who were on the stage
...seeing newie teams presenting their results and brand their teams with crazy role calls
...getting new trainees introduced
...listening to all the announcements about Welcome & Christmas parties as well as all the LC updates
...congratulating the freshly elected MCP of Slovakia as she is the current LCP (she got flowers!)
...and even being called to the stage with the other "oldies" to perform a role call (!)
LCMs got fancy these days... ppts, music and at this particular one a stroboscope (
the funky thing that switches lights on&off so that you get a feeling that the world consists of black&white snap shots...) and even a steam machine! Such a show ;)
I enjoyed gaining an insight into a simple LC life...
It's good to stay connected to where things are
really happening!
did it for DO-IT ;)
done:- uni papers written
- ticket Vienna-Zuerich booked for Thursday night
- ticket Zurich-Vienna booked for Sunday night
- DO-IT application filled in
- special programme arranged with Fabo, Peter, Sabi and Sarah
still to be done:- inform the rest of the friends (including those whom I meet during my "pitstop" in Vienna)
- drop an e-mail to Ruth&Kolja
- print out the tickets
yey, I am going to Switzerland!
it feels like going home!
Home is where people you love are, wise people say.
Very, very true, I couldn't agree more.
At the end of the day, I am not going there to admire my beloved
Feriendorf Fiesch, but to see people who mean something to me...
It's just a coincidence that they happened to be collected all at one place. I loooove conferences exactly for this reason - you get to meet people you want ;)
and those, who are not at
DO-IT, I get to meet on the way.
Thank God for such a small Europe with such a good
transport system!
There is this little hope on the bottom of my heart, that if I am going to
Sami's country, he will somehow be there. It's going to be strange to be in Switzerland without him...
Will I see him at every corner, in all the places where we were together?
For sure, because
he's coming with me - in my heart, in my mind.
Yep, sweet... but true!
I just made another observation: this will be my first DO-IT where I will be nothing else just a private person! It took me five times to be able to do this, hehe.
It promises a lot of fun and some private agenda...
Memories from a year ago...
an almost ideal Sunday
- a bit of studying & research on the current situation in Lebanon and human rights situation in Colombia
- quick phone call with my parents who were just in the middle of preparing our best home made sauerkraut
(i just HAVE to think about our family tradition - the most delicious cabbage soup on the Christmas Day, yummie!)
- pizza lunch downtown with my little brother, looong conversations and my first this year's visit to the Christmas Market
(I am mentally NOT even close to Christmas...)
- after almost 6 years being in Bratislava, finally going inside the St. Martin's Dome
- going food shopping
- coming back home and chatting to Sami for a bit
(lubim ta!)
- study time again - trying to get some orientation in the Lebanese politics
- wonderful chat with Bee
(thank you for the inspiration!
looking forward to more of these when we meet in Bogotá, especially if they are connected with eating your cookies ;))
- getting inspired and even more motivated to finish off my bloody papers so that I can go to DO-IT
- getting an impression that life is beautiful
(yep, once again;) I just can't help myself - being an optimist is certainly a diagnose... )
and back to writing after this blogging intermezzo
one by one, ticking off my to-do list...
ode to Sami or an ad for happy marriages ;)
... one more thing - I just NEED to capture this feeling!I have one advice for everyone on this planet:
Get married to your soul mate!
who else:
- shares the same values
- loves you as much as you love him
- sees the role of your relationship in the very same way
- shares his life with you, so that it is no longer only ME & YOU, but also US
- trusts you so much that he gives you a complete freedom of choice
- understands and supports your dreams as well as you understand and support his
- puts things into perspective when you need it
- knows you so well that he's doing exactly the right things in the right moments
- gives you so much energy and food for thought as well
- understands the difference between being married and being settled ;)
Sami, thank you for our chat about being married & still being in AIESEC.
Thank you for being my soul mate.
Thank you for being you.
PS:
I would never believe that one can be sooooo deeply in love after 4 years, 3 months and 11 days, especially after not spending the last 68 days together and going through such intense experiences...
Dream?
No, our reality ;)
Will I DO-IT?
hmmmmmmmmm, i so want to go to
DO-IT 2006!
why?
many many many reasons, you can summarize them in two words:
emotions & friendswhat hinders me?
luckily, not money this time!
just a couple of little details:
- 2 uni papers
- 2 conference reports
Will I make it over this weekend besides my other "cultural" plans such as going for the Casino Royale movie tonight with my brother after reading
Carissa's blog and long awaited Slovak musical on Saturday night?
Well, time to test the
will power and the
ability to sit and
focus.
So, enough of blogging, back to my research on Lebanon and Colombia.
Yay, exciting times again!
PS:I wish Sami was here to share them... only 8 more weeks without him and then Colombia ;)I wonder who else has such a caring person who works out your pre-travel to-do list just to make sure that besides my studies & AIESEC stuff I don't forget those down-to-earth things.Thank youuuuuu!
what made me smile today...
hm, I am in a blogging season - it's obvious because i should be studying now ;)
today, i got this random e-mail from a friend of mine
it's good against bad mood, so enjoy!
Oxford Dictionary's Latest Definitions
Atom Bomb: An invention to end all inventions
Boss: Someone who is early when you are late and late when you are early
Cigarette: A pinch of tobacco rolled in paper with fire at one end & a fool at the other
Classic: A book which people praise, but do not read
Committee: Individuals who can do nothing individually and sit to decide
that nothing can be done together
Compromise: The art of dividing a cake in such a way that everybody believes
he's got the biggest piece
Conference: The confusion of one man multiplied by the number present
Conference Room: A place where everybody talks, nobody listens and everybody
disagrees later on
Criminal: A guy no different from the rest....except that he got caught
Dictionary: A place where success comes before work
Diplomat: A person who tells you to go to hell in such a way that you actually
look forward to the trip
Divorce: Future tense of marriage
Doctor: A person who kills your ills by pills, and kills you with his bills
Etc.: A sign to make others believe that you know more than you actually
do
Experience: The name men give to their mistakes
Father: A banker provided by nature
Lecture: An art of transferring information from the notes of the lecturer to
the notes of the students without passing through "the minds of either"
Miser: A person who lives poor so that he can die rich
Office: A place where you can relax after your strenuous home life
Opportunist: A person who starts taking a bath if he accidentally falls into a river
Optimist: A person who while falling from Eiffel tower says in midway "See, I
am not injured yet."
Philosopher: A fool who torments himself during life, to be spoken of when dead
Smile: A curve that can set a lot of things straight
Tears: The hydraulic force by which masculine will-power is defeated by
feminine water power
Yawn: The only time some married men ever get to open their mouth
family history? interesting!
I always knew that my Granny and her siblings were quite active fighters against the fascist regime during the World War II. I kept hearing random stories from those times but I always took them just as my Granny's memories.
Today, unexpectedly, I got a bit more details on what kind of people my ancestors were. A professional Slovak historian collected materials about my Granny's brother, Karol Pajer and prepared a proper exhibition about his life.
Why? Because Karol Pajer managed to escape from occupied Slovakia after being persecuted for distributing anti-fascist leaflets. With his fiancé, they fled to Yugoslavia over Hungary and then he continued alone to France over Greece, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon and a couple of North African countries. But that was a typical story of those times. That doesn't make him so special.
In France, together with a friend of his, they set up a Christian Centre for Children in Vence (Central France). Over almost a year, they saved 552 children, mostly Jewish or orphans and around 182 adults. If that was not enough, he joined the French partisan army and unfortunately died in the biggest Nazi army vs. partisans battle while protecting his camarades on retreat.
Besides that, he wrote and published beautiful poetry about his love to life, to his fiancé and their little son he never met in person and to his home country. His letters to his beloved Janka were full of hope for peace and reflection on the brutality of war.
Sounds enough for a whole life, right?
He managed all of this by the time he was my age!!!!
Imagine...
when you hear this, things get a different perspective...
Knowing the kind of people in my family
Seeing proofs of such a strong moral character
Reading his poetry expressing the depth of his feelings, there is a big question coming to my mind:
What is going to be my life about - What will be my contribution and legacy?
Karol managed everything by the time he was 24.
Shit, and I feel I haven't started real life yet...
Zuzka, you'd better start figuring out how you want to spend your life in a meaningful way!
Well, there is some homework to be done ;)
PS: ...and there is absolutely NO information about Karol Pajer on the web!
Colombia getting real
Today, it's the day when
Sami booked me a ticket to come and see him in Colombia...
so many pictures of that beautiful country are already on my computer, but how cool it is going to be in reality!?
Travelling together, creating our own moments together, enjoying the country and all it has to offer with a bonus of seeing
Bee again... can there be any better prospects of the future?
Jan 26 to Feb 13
I can't wait!
WeGrow - session up & down
The best session experience of the conference:
Discovering Your Interests with
Sarah!
I enjoyed preparing and delivering it with you - you were just the right person for these kind of things! I missed working with you...
Hope to get an occassion again - hopefully soon!
The most challenging session of the conference:
Other GNs with
Pedro & PruthviI remember the feeling of complete panic when dealing with a powerpoint that Pedro and Pruthvi prepared, putting on the GN role call videos from IC that I copied on Sarah's computer because I didn't have the right programme to play them and desperately searching for the GN matching music in a music library that I had no clue about in a programme that I've seen for the first time in my life and thinking of what I actually want to say in the WENA part
ALL AT THE SAME TIME!
Thank God for working sound system, Sarah's enormous music collection and Pedro & Pruthvi's great work with the plenary! Uff!
WeGrow - I grew as a person ;)
WeGrow - ticked off from my to-do list(yeah, yeah, all the follow-up to be done, I know and I am on the case)
It was just wonderful - much better than I expected even though I already had high expectations...
The word of the conference for me as a person was for sure
"challenge".
I got challenged a lot - for my personality, my working style, basic concept of what I considered to be common sense, assumptions about communication but also my creativity and dancing skills.
For example, I got the award for the worst dancer of the conference. And I am just wondering how "seriously" it was really meant... ;)
Challenging questions that stayed in my mind:
How much yourself can you afford to stay while working in an international team preparing and delivering a conference? How much should you adapt your communication style, your working style, your ideas, your sense of humor? Where is the
border between staying
true to yourself and giving up your personality in order to
contribute to the team?
So many memories of situations, people, atmosphere, shapes, colours or smell will remind me of WeGrow 2006 experience...
Things that will stay in my heart:
Little streets with while tiles and colourful houses with patterns all over the place seeming to be full of brightness even when it rains
A humid warm evening in Lisbon full of Christmas decoration
The view from the hotel we were staying in
The feeling of ultimate fun and enjoyment while taking pictures with the WeGrow faci girls - just being young and foolish ;)
Taste of salty water while being thrown into the ocean with all my clothes on and then the sound of my bare feet full of sand while walking back to the hotel
Strengthening old friendships and building up new ones, spening an insane number of hours talking about very private stuff, gradual opening to each other and mutual understanding even without words...
Being proud of the whole conference team in the closing plenary and thanking everyone for their contribution to such a great success
And then the smell of fish store nearby while saying last goodbyes, giving and getting last hugs, desperately searching for the right words, not finding them and then feeling left alone and confused while travelling home alone
Facing a reality slap when arriving home and going directly to a classThat's how WeGrow feels for me, that's what I will remember on the personal level. One of my most beautiful and most enjoyable experiences in AIESEC.
TO: Annika, Lonneke, Olga, Makis, Pedro, Floor, Pruthvi, Lana, Juliana, Yat Wan, Sarah, Majken and Darko
Thank you ;)
growing into WeGrow
Excited!!!
that's what i AM.why?
because... I am who I am and I am where I feel I should be at this very moment;)
I left cold & snowy Slovakia for warm & cosy Portugal.
I got a wonderful welcome in Lisbon (thank you Bia, David and the others!)
More and more cool WeGrow people are arriving.
The conference is being shaped every second.
Joana, the WeGrow OCP, is just great!
Darko, the WeGrow chair, got his visa & flight.
I DO have internet access. And I get to speak to people I want/need to for professional and personal reasons. And,I got a Portuguese SIM card, yey!
I am doing what I enjoy doing with people I am getting to know and I enjoy.
Everything just works. For sure, there will be challenges coming soon. But I am ready to deal with them.
WeGrow, I am ready. We will make you special ;)
step by step, together!
Excited!!!
that's what i AM.
