My laptop is ill

Annoying as hell.....

Just when MC Planning was finally done and I was ready to do some work, my laptop decided that it didn't want to work with me. Instead it felt like blinking blue at me right before it turned off.

That was Friday. Today I still don't have my own functioning laptop which is annoying for two reasons. I can't work and I don't have the convenience of being connected to the internet from home. Makes it extra difficult to keep in touch with people. But I managed to survive the weekend thanks to Louise. And now thanks to Stefan. I feel like a computer bum asking around for people's laptops.

It's currently getting tested to see what exactly is making it sick. Hoping it's not the death of my beloved Compaq. Or I'm in for a frustrating week.

Slowly setttling into a "normal" life

Surprisingly, this was the first full week I've spent in Copenhagen since I moved into my new apartment in late July. A full Monday to Sunday with no travelling outside the city whatsoever. And after a full week it has finally dawned on me that I need a life! I have way too much free time on my hands with no clue what to do with it except for park my ass in front of my TV and laptop. After awhile that gets boring!

But I enjoyed my first full weekend in my apartment. I felt much more settled in not having to pack for another trip. I stayed in bed until 2 on both days. Friday night some of us went to see a movie. Saturday night was a little get together with the Copenhagen LCs. Sunday I cleaned the apartment which was actually relaxing. The apartment actually looks nice to live in now.....wonder how long it will last. And I finished off the weekend, just watching a movie on TV at my place with the twins. It was the 2nd time I've used the living room. It's actually quite comfy there!

I finally had a glimpse of what a normal life will feel like in Copenhagen. I think October only consists of one day of travel outside of the city, so it'll be interesting to see how normal it can really get.

My Quarterly Review: September

I'm going to keep this short and sweet.

More of IC in India - We got back to Copenhagen, one week into September. The last day in Delhi right before we left was great! We ate at McDonalds, Baskin Robbins, and T.G.I.F's......yummy, yummy American food. When we got back to Copenhagen, I don't know if I've ever been as happy as I was that day to drink water from the tap!

LC Planning in AIESEC UNI - After sitting in an MC office for over a year now, I've been so wrapped up in the development of things at a national level that it's easy to forget how things get interpreted when it gets down to the LC level. Something that makes complete sense to me doesn't exactly come out the same way when an LC talks about it. But what do you expect when you spend at least 8 hours a day, 5 days a week thinking about AIESEC, while the LC thinks about it on their spare time? So that was a bit of an awakening for me.

MC Planning - Skipping to the last week of September...this was a draining week. It was a long week of meetings that can sometimes be quite frustrating when your head is constantly running through a list of things you have to do. At some point in AIESEC, you need to stop talking, and just do something. Especially when one quarter of the year is done and the LCs are in the middle of recruitment activities, which you could be helping them on. But it's over and done with, we got through the week, and now we can actually get some of the actions done. Here's to the next 10 months.

My little holiday back in London, Ontario, Canada - I've talked about this already in one of my previous posts, so all I'm going to say is it couldn't have come at a more perfect time. London, Toronto, Buffalo, and Niagara Falls.....I still can't believe how lucky I was to be able to go home for 10 days to see Roi at this point in my term. I'm all smiles here :)

So that was my three months!

Looking back now, it was a hard three months. Unexpected challenges, bouts of loneliness, frustrating moments, and it felt like there were more lows than highs. But that's what I signed up for by moving to a new country alone. It's a personal challenge I took on that I know will continue to shape me all year. If there's anything I've learned from the last three months, it's this: I shouldn't ignore the good things that happen each day, no matter how small, because it makes a world of difference to my day. That's advice I've easily given to people in the past, but after all I've been through so far, I think I'm only realizing now how important it really is.

Can't imagine what the next three months will have in store for me...

It wasn't me, it was my bike! (partly true)

As I look back on the last three months, I don't want to forget to share some of my experiences happening now.

So I've literally been biking everyday. It's the culture in Denmark and it's much cheaper than taking a bus. You bike everywhere - to work, to restaurants, to parties, to a bar, to a friends place. Bikes are everywhere.

Its very convenient in a city like this...but I've been dreading it every day. Every day was a struggle...I swear it was taking so much energy out of me just to bike for 15 minutes to work. I was struggling, while everyone would pass me by looking like they were having the easiest time in the world. I just couldn't understand! I'm not that out of shape!

I almost thought I was going to have to absorb a bus pass into my budget because I didn't want to struggle like this every day for the next year, especially when it got colder.

But then Stefan, Renbin and Niels saved me! They helped me realize two things: 1) I wasn't using my gears at all to help me! 2) My tires were practically flat! That's why I've been having so much trouble.

So I feel good that I'm not slow or out of shape. But I feel dumb that I didn't realize all of this before. What do I know? I thought it was a magical bike that took care of itself. Guess I have a bit to learn....

But my bike ride home was the best ever! All I could think about was how easy it actually is! I'm ready for winter :)

My Quarterly Review: August

Travel, travel, travel....I saw my room for a total of 10 days this month.

Moving into my new apartment - I'm cheating a bit...this actually happened right at the end of July....I just completely forgot about it. My move took two days. The first move was the furniture move. People from the old team were nice enough to sell me their furniture at a decent price so it definitely made things easier for me. I managed to get 2 identical single beds (I hate having a small bed, so I'd rather have two beside each other), two dressers, mirrors, a small TV, two small coffee tables, a laundry hamper, a lamp and a bunch of other small things. It was almost like I shopped in IKEA. All for $100! The second move happened after we did a big move to our new office. I was lucky enough to have Renbin (one of my teammates) help me out. Two people with two big suitcases, four bags and one small suitcase. We had a brilliant idea to try to throw everything on our bikes and walk it over to my apartment which would probably take 15 minutes. After three attempts - the bus was a better idea. When we finally got to my apartment, we set up my room and I finally got to settle in. 110 square meters - two living rooms, kitchen, bathroom, laundry room, and two bedrooms. I've got a roommate who seems pretty nice. He studies Music so every now and then I can hear a piano, guitar or him just belting out in song. Finally settled into my apartment. Kinda funny that I only got to sleep one night in my room and then I was off travelling again!

ScaLDS 2005 - Scandinavian Leadership Conference hosted by Norway. It was about an 8 hour bus ride to get there. We stayed in Oslo for one night and met up with the MCs of Finland, Norway and Sweden as well as the chair - Elli, originally from Finland who just got back from her MC term in South Africa. About 20 of us altogether. After an intense two days of conference pre-meeting we were set for 5 days with our LC members. It turned out to be a great time. I met lots of people from all over the 4 countries, and really got to know some of the Danish LC members. It was a great kick start to the year.

NPM - 4 days after coming back from ScaLDS we were off to Stefan's summerhouse for NPM. Bonding with the LCPs and building the national plan.

IC 2005, India - 6 days after coming back from NPM, we packed our bags and headed for India!!! My first completely official trip to Asia!! I've been to Turkey before but it borders both Europe and Asia so it doesn't count. How do I sum up 2 1/2 weeks? In a nutshell, I went shopping and sightseeing in Delhi, visited the Taj Mahal in India and went to my first IC where I was reunited with Lanchanie, Araz along with a whole bunch of other Canadians and met tons of new people from all around the world.

Some lessons learned that I wanted to share:
- Drink bottled water all the time. Do not even think about drinking from the tap. Make sure your bottle is sealed when it's served to you
- Find out if the dish you're ordering is spicy...75% of the time it is!
- Shopping: when they say 300 rupees you say 150 rupees. If you're shopping in the markets, anything and everything is negotiable.
- You can buy two skirts, one shirt, a purse, two pairs of earrings, and a cute carved elephant and it would only cost you $20 CDN!
- 15 minutes probably means 45 minutes
- When you're in India, you might as well be a movie star. People will want to take pictures with you.
- Taking a picture with a man and a snake in a basket is not free
- It's hot...fitted clothes are not fun
- Sunscreen and mosquito repellant - your best friends
- Take malaria pills after meals or you're stomach will kill you and render you useless
- Cows, monkeys and dogs wander around everywhere...just don't touch them!

IC itself was an interesting experience. I wouldn't say it was absolutely amazing but that was probably my own fault. After four years in AIESEC, I guess you could say I had very high expectations of what it would be like. But I did enjoy it. I partied at GN parties, made some new friends, and went through the motions of attending sessions each day. I got sick on two days but I survived. The HP Digital Cafe was a life saviour as my connection to Roi. The food was good but pretty much stayed the same all conference. It was freezing cold in the hotel but it was an amazing five star location. Global Village was cool, but it was hot as hell. Standing around in a Danish flag suit is not the best thing to be doing in that weather. Some days went by quickly, but some days dragged on and it felt like the 10 days would never end. But that's the IC experience, and I'm happy to say that I've had a chance to be a part of it.

Well that's all I'm going to write about, but this short synopsis of my India trip doesn't really do justice to the whole experience. If you're curious about anything else, just ask!

August - definitely a month to remember!

My Quarterly Review: July

Well since I just started blogging now about my Danish MC experience, it works out quite well that I've finished 3 months of my term so far. So why not give you a quarterly report to catch everyone up? I mean it's not like the quarterly financial reports I got used to last year but hopefully I've learned something from there that I can apply here - how to be short and concise.

So let me take you back to July.....

The Departure: June 29th - The day after the final hurrah at the June Board Meeting, it was time to say my goodbyes to the people I've come to know over the past year. We had already said our goodbyes to Lanchanie at the beginning of June so now it was down to me, Roi, Karolina, Esther, Araz and Jonathan. We had our last official get together at Grace O'Malley's down the road from our office to have a drink and read the letters we wrote to ourselves at the start of our term. A satisfying and sad moment for all of us - to realize how far we've come together and to realize we were finally done. Of course after that relaxing moment it was time to rush for the airport.....so like me to underestimate the time I need to make it to the airport on time. So with Roi, I rushed my goodbyes to everyone else at the office, rushed to Greyhound to send some packages home to Winnipeg, rushed to the house to pick up my luggage and rushed to the airport during rush hour traffic. Not surprisingly, I got to the airport an hour and a half before the flight :S. Airport goodbyes had never been too hard for me....until that day.

The Arrival: June 30th - Kastrup Airport, Copenhagen, Denmark. After picking up my baggage, I was greeted by people from the 04-05 team and my new team with a gigantic Danish flag! So nice to know what it feels like to be on the receiving end of an airport reception! We also had our first new team dinner which was a great start to the term.

The Reception Weekend - The first weekend in Denmark and conveniently the weekend of my 23rd birthday. So it felt like a big celebration for me, at least that's how I interpreted it! I experienced the biking culture of Denmark (a bit rough at first since I haven't been on a bike in years), saw the beautiful sights and historical buildings of Copenhagen, met new members and trainees around AIESEC Denmark, got a bit buzzed at the Carlsberg Museum, went on a pub crawl, went on a canal tour, and relaxed with jazz music in the background during their jazz festival. It was a great way to be introduced to the country and its social culture. The harbour is a great date place and if anyone is planning to visit Denmark to see the Little Mermaid statue, I have to warn you - it's small!

The Month of Transition - A challenging experience for me. After being on one MC and getting used to a certain environment and a certain way of doing things, it was hard adjusting to a new reality. There were so many things I assumed was the norm everywhere for AIESEC that I soon realized was not quite the case. So my month was characterized by me having to break down my past experiences and ways of thinking and finding new ways to apply what I've learned to a different AIESEC reality. Denmark is not Canada, and I can't ever expect it to be that way. That's a lesson I learned all month and up until now, one I still occassionally face. But regardless, it was interesting to learn a new way of running AIESEC in a different culture where there are 6 LCs in a country that would have to be multiplied 25 times over to fill Ontario!

The AI Transition Party - This was my first experience of spending one hour on a plane and ending up in a different country in Europe. Loving how small this country is. I wouldn't even make it to Winnipeg from Toronto in that time! So we went to Rotterdam to visit the old and new of AIESEC International, which was nice. That's really all I can say about it. I had a personal interest in visiting and that was Lanchanie - Ms VP Exchange of AI. I missed not having her around for the last month and a half so I was so happy to see her again. Typical of us, we stayed up until the wee hours of the morning gossiping and catching up. There was a great Canadian presence during that weekend with the two of us plus Brodie, Tiro, Nacho (Argentinean by birth, Canadian by heart) and Brenda. Aside from Rotterdam, we also took the opportunity to spend the day in Amsterdam. We did the typical tourist thing by visiting the Red Light District and a coffee shop. We also walked all over the city to see the sights and even went to the Anne Frank museum which I really enjoyed, having read her diary twice when I was younger.

My Temporary Living Arrangements - For my first month here, I stayed in a university dorm. It was my first time in a dorm and my first time living alone - so a totally new experience with me. I had to actually find ways to keep myself from getting bored out of my mind. One thing that helped during this time, was it really gave me a chance to reflect back on the year just passed to capture my experiences and look ahead to what the next year has in store for me. So it was a bit of a challenge at times, but I survived to say the least. Living with myself wasn't so bad.

Between all of that was going on a team retreat, more biking around the city, my first trip to another Danish city, my first functional meeting with VP PDs, cooking lame dinners for myself, learning how to finalize my personal budget and watching CSI and Gilmore Girls almost every night.

That's July in a nutshell. Who am I kidding...I can't be short and concise! If only Roi was here to edit this! :P

Was it Home Sweet Home??

So after 10 days in Canada, I'm back in Denmark. It was good to be home.....but my definition of home may be a bit misleading to some.

Home could've meant Winnipeg - the city I was born in, studied in and spent the first 22 years of my life in. It's the city of family, old childhood friends, close university friends, and familiar places full of great memories.

This time, home wasn't Winnipeg.

Home could've meant Toronto - the city I lived and worked in for thirteen months last year. It's the city where I have had (so far) the most defining, life changing experience with 6 other amazing individuals who I will always cherish as best friends. It's the city I fell in love with - from the CN tower backdrop, to big buildings, to Much Music, to crazies on the street, to Baldwin, to Ultimate and everything in between.

But home this time wasn't really Toronto either.

Home could've even meant Vancouver where tons of my family live and where I spent most of my summers when I was younger. But no, I wasn't in Vancouver.

So where was home? Of all cities in Canada I could've been....where did I spend my 10 days of holidays back "home"?

Okay enough suspense - it was London, Ontario! A city that I've surprisingly visited twice in my life before this time. Once to visit some distant family for a few days and another time to attend AIESEC Western's S.L.U.T event last year. What possessed me to spend my time in Canada in this city??

Well despite the fact that I've never lived in London, to me I will still call it home. Maybe it didn't have familiar places or tons of familiar faces, but it had one familiar face, and that was enough for me to call it home. It was enough for me to be able to live with a normal and comfortable routine for 10 days, which made me extremely happy.

You know that movie - Home is Where the Heart is? Okay I still think that's an extremely sappy movie title, but I guess I can relate to its meaning a little more. How's that for cheesy?

So after all that, all I wanted to say was: Yes, it was Home Sweet Home.

I promise I won't blog anything cheesy again anytime soon.

I'm back to this blogging business

Okay, okay....I've put this off for long enough. After spending some time reading through some of my friends blogs, I've realized that I'm probably the only person on this planet away from home and not sharing my experiences with all of you. How selfish of me to keep all my fun stories to myself....right. So here we go again. Hopefully this time I can do this regularly. Enjoy!