My world

Hey all,

Unfortunately I’ve not been able to update my blog in the last few weeks. This mostly due to the fact that whenever I would like to use internet I’ve to stay in the office, which we obviously don’t like to do.  Today(Saturday) I’m sitting in the office and my major goals is to update my blog.

As soon as we got back from conference we had to switch from conference to work mood what would be quite difficult. If I look back at my agenda now I think the week after july was one of the lest effective week’s I’ve ever had.

The weekend (my birthday) soon would be the same. I’ve basically done nothing during those two days apart from eating, watching movies and wondering around in the neighbourhood. So not much to tell about those first weeks (apart from the fantastic chocolate cakes Robbie and Jess made for me.)

The second week after Julyconference would be a bit more productive. I had e few meetings booked with people the previous team met. After that we the whole team was very excited as the tree companies turned out to be hot leads. PWS, L’Oreal and HP should turn into new partners quite soon.

Newt weekend was again time to say goodbye. Some of the team members left fro SNA or specific coaching to their regions. The office would e empty and not much would go on in the next 2 weeks. Apart from the planning for the global entrepreneurship week there did not happen anything exciting till I left for Brisbane last weekend.

For the people back in Belgium, Brisbane is the capital of Queensland and you can best compare it with Leuven or gent. It’s a real student city. So a bit of visiting and a lot of parties.

I left on Friday evening quite late to take the plane. When I arrived at check in about 50 minutes in advance i would be the first one to be there. It’s not a joke or stereotype but in Australia they take the plane like we take the train. So most of the people showed up quite last minute. As they take the plane like a bus they looked quite weird when I showed a piece of identification at the gate. You just need your ticket to get trough, not control whatsoever  

I only arrived in Brisb at around 12.30 so not much happened that night. The day after we went for a visit to the neighbourhood. Like most Australia cities Brisb is a very spacious city where there are not too much cultural things to visit so we just drove around the whole day from viewpoint to viewpoint. I’ve to admit that brisb is a fantastic city.

In the evening my hosts, AIESEC QLD, organized an amazing blonda party for me. Quit soon i evolved from a bit tipsy to drunk, pissed, legless and finally the pass out stage (In Australia they know about 8 stages of drinking but I can only remember these 4). I’m fairly happy that I survived my first Queensland party. It was hard but we made it, I’m up for more J

The day after they took me to gold cost (the nearby city, about 150km). Gold coast is a city where the main attraction is the beach and for the rest there is not much to do. As it was a good winter day we were able to spent some time at the beach. During our “beach time” we were quite lucky and saw a school of Wales.  

For lunch they took me to their favourite place (only 125km drive but that’s quite normal for an ausi). 600 km later on we were back at the airport to catch the latest flight back to Sydney. At around 12am I was back in bed in Sydney and looked back at an amazing city trip. Thank you QLD (especially Jules and Kim) for the weekend.

That brought me straight to this week. The first few days were full of team meetings as we were preparing to send some people to IC. Like mentioned earlier I’m one of the 5 that will stay behind. When our delegation left on Thursday morning we were left behind demoralized in the office. We’ve needed two days to process the fact that we wouldn’t leave with them. But it will bond us as a team of people staying behind.

I’m looking forward to the rest of the weekend and the upcoming days. I hope to keep more regular updates in these less busy weeks.

Greetz

Hey all,

As promised this will be a longer post. Last weeks have been crazy with the preparation for our conference. The first week of July was filled with preparation for the conference. Writing sessions, preparing materials run trough,…. . We worked very long days but were able to pull together a very good conference preparation.

Friday was the kick-off of conference. With all State managers in the office to prepare for the conference it was my first touch point with the country. It was interesting to get to know those people and see the cultural difference between the different state in Australia. The MC team would like to give a special thanks to Dan for his contribution that day, resulting in a beautiful hole in our wall.  When we managed to get those destructive people out of our office we could start our simulation run trough together with the external facilitators. It was interesting to see how session would actually run.

Saturday, day 2 of the conference we could welcome the National leadership team. All LCP and SM joined us for a day of discussion around the conference (national plan, agenda flow, legislation,…). Apart from the plan launch of the ER cell not much happened. Later that evening we went out for a pub crawl.

Sunday was the subcommittee day. We gathered with some members to discuss 4 topics: Membership, national meeting (conferences) finance and exchange. I joined for the national meeting subcommittee, where we had to appoint LC’s to organize the upcoming conference. 

After this long meeting (9-17u) we would meet with the full facilitator team for the first time. A fairly interesting meeting with goal setting, agenda run trough, get to know and team building games. The less fun part was that most of us only left t-he office around 3 to get a few hours of sleep.

Monday, D-1 of the conference, was Developing leaders day. A day fully hosted by companies. This was the first contact with the brother membership base and some of My partners (I met Shell :-D). I had an interesting day networking with the new members and companies at the same time. Later that day we had the official opening with more networking opportunities with even more partners (I met Reckon, DHL, and more companies) joining. The OC pulled all their energy together and delivered a beautiful day to kick of the conference. For me the most exciting thing was to see te energy of the LC’s that were award an award on this official evening, but even more the energy of other committees to win that award next year.

After all this positive energy we headed back to the office for a logistics run trough and a detailed planning for the first day of conference. Around 2 we headed home to pack, and catch some sleep to leave the day after at 7 to the conference site.

Day one of the conference would prove to be very challenging. The team was very tired in the morning and we wanted to use the upcoming hour to prepare. SO as we arrived we went for some stretching and morning chat with the oc. 5 minutes after arrival we saw a cool bus coming on-site. We were not expecting one as we thought delegates would only arrive one hour later. SO instead of 1-1.30u we had about 5 minutes to set up everything ;-).

We sent Robbie on his mission to play the monkey and distract those delegates. In the mean time the rest of the teams pulled all their energy together and focused on preparing registration.  As delegates did not saw that we were stressed and rego went perfectly we were in a very good mindset to enter opening plenary. First day went like a normal first day of conference. It was cool to finally start the conference and be able to interact and talk to all those strange AIESECERS from all over Australia. 

 The rest of the conference continued on a fairly normal pace so I’ll just get some extraordinary events.

Day 2, Legislation. If you think Belgium LCP’s are difficult or talking about details I would advise you to go to an Australian GA. Al LCP’s have been very professional and look at each word of each motion. It was cool to see the dedication of the LCP and attending members to get the best motion mentioned in the compendium. On the flip side we were in legislation till about 3.15 in the morning. We saw the party start, people getting drunk, people going to sleep and the OC cleaning while we were in the other room hoping we would still be able to join .

Day 3, First session of Pieter. This was my first real session ever. I was a bit nervous at the beginning of the session, but throughout the flow I discovered that I actually liked doing this. In the end i only got good feedback, even from an ITC delegate so I can be quite sure that I delivered a quiet good session. Thanks to all delegates for their participation and feedback and Kay for the valuable input she gave to improve my session.

Day 3, Jerry Springer party Read sex change party. I’ve never seen such a motivated delegation to engage in a party. When I entered the party room I was amazed by the costumes they were wearing at this party. I’ve never see such things. Go Aussi

Day 4 was an emotional day and all about the MC Handover. Some goodbye speeches and video’s from the old team to official hand over the term to us. They tried but did not get us to cry. It was an emotional evening though

Day 5, the last night of conference! This is skolling night. It’s THE party night of conference. It’s the night were they have drinking races LC against LC. The rules are legalized and it’s a very serious matter. The feeling is awesome and impossible to describe.. the MC showed the as a team with coaching session in between ever race. The result of massive training and excellent team work is that we could take the skolling cup home! The MC rocks

This would be my first national conference. Only day 6 was left, with some emotional speeches at the end by LCP’s and SM’s. Thank you to the MC, members and alumni for this amazing week. I’ve enjoyed it so much.

On the way home we had to cope with limited care space, but the 96 litres of goon we took with us brought some hope. Back home it’s strange to sleep more than 3 hours (more than 10 days ago) and don’t have to run for the next session

This was my conference stories. I’ll try to add some pictures over the next weeks but you can have a look on my facebook.

Talk to you soon

Bye

Hey,

 Just posting a very quick update. Won’t be too long as we are preparing for conference, which will start tomorrow morning and there is still a shitload of work to do. This week has been mainly about working, working and working. Although I had a really nice dinner with two Belgium delegates for our the conference. 

 Last weekend we went to do a touristic tour in the city centre. Big thanks to Anne and Dazz for taking care of the internationals ;-). Here are some picture of the opera house, Sydney and the Bridge. 

Sorry but this is all for today. As i’ll have more time after conference you’ll hear back from me than

greetz

Hey all,

Last week was nothing special. We just had long days in the office, working on our upcoming July conference which will start in two weeks from nos. I’m really looking forward to meet all our members there. Apart from that my days were mostly filled with transition, trying to find out how Australia works and starting to get things settled for my job. Everything is still new and exciting so I’m having a fantastic time! 

 Yesterday we had a trip to the city centre. As there was a festival with all free food and drinks the whole team was exited. With our limited wages we are keen to hear the word free or happy hour  :-D.

First we went to the Chinese bakery to grab breakfast and headed for a walk along darling harbour. It’s in the middle of Sydney, but there is so much green and space. I’ll try to give you an idea:

Darling harbour:

Just next to the harbour, still in the middle of the city:

A special one for the starbucks  fans

It was also one of the firts good days:

Afterwards we headed for our food and wine festival, which would be amazing. A whole day of free food and wine, in the end we could even take 10 wine glasses home. Again an investment we won’t have to make.

After the festival we went for our favourite Chinese place to eat some dumplings  (with chop sticks ;-)), we crashed a birthday party and got free vodka and went on to the Retro club,  a70-80-90 club in Sydney, for an amazing party with the team. More pictures will come as soon as I get them.

I’ll have to get back to work now. Stay tuned for more updates

This is what the team and I will be managing: AIESEC in Australia

The AIESEC office when you enter

The ER office (also know as the fish bowl). My desk is the one facing the window

My office

 Have you heard about KANGA BANGAS? Kangaroo sausages, cheap and delicious!!!!!

Keep posted for more

Hey all,

It’s been a week since i’ve updates my blog. The last week has mainly been a week of transition and getting into work. Last Tuesday my international colleague Patricia from Colombia arrives, she is also known as the chuck of our team (more information see: here). It’s cool that I’m no longer the only international any more. We go along quite well and together we try to figure out our way around in this up-side down country.

In the last week I was listening about 10 hours a day to people about what was the country reality, the history of AIESEC in Australia, there systems and much more. When there was a first meeting where my input was required it was directly quite heavy, we had to decide who we would send to IC. Unfortunately I didn’t get to go, so no trip to Brazil this year, but this gives me more time to discover this continent.

On Friday night we went out to some club. It’s very different here! Parties start around 9-10 and they already are dancing around that time. The clubs are also not closed off but have big windows and you have a cool view wile dancing (definitely because we went out in darling harbour)

Saturday we had a day of teambuilding, where we decide that sustainability would be the theme that would be driving our team. It was nice to get to know the different people on the team, and our team coach. I’m really looking forward to work with these guys in the upcoming year.

On Sunday we went, apart from getting in the office to do some work, shopping. It’s actually quite cold in Sydney and as I didn’t thought about that during my packing process I had to buy some other clothes. It’s quite difficult to find your way in stores you’re really not used to. But apart from the fact that I was lost all afternoon, I found my two new jumpers

Today (Monday) was the first functional day. We sat together and start transitioning accounts, which let to my first corporate e-mails and phone calls. It’s a quite strange business culture as High profile people are naming you mate, and you only use first names, but you feel a connection with everyone straight away.

The last week was so much fun that I’m looking forward to the upcoming once. To give you a better insight on my life I’ll be uploading some pictures about our office and house mater today and tomorrow.

Hope you enjoy my postings

Stay tuned

Hey all,

Today was my first day in office! So I’m writing you from my new desk. It’s still quite empty but the work will come in the upcoming days. As today was a national holiday I had some time to clean up my stuff, settle, reply to e-mails,… I’m happy I had this very quite first office day

So to finish the history of my 30 hours lasting plane ride

Londen-singapore

I already motioned that I had a very good seat and enjoyed the service delivered by Singapore. I had another quite intriguing conversation. The steward responsible for my section (very beautiful Malaysian girl) had apparently Two degrees, one in biomedical science. We had a discussion about faith, success and happiness in your carrier. Quite interesting!!! I hope I want meet my brother on the flight back home (he is trying to get the same degree)

Singapore

I arrived in the new terminal 3 of Singapore Airport. Like you can see on the following pictures it’s a cool airport. Very spacious and free wireless internet everywhere. All high tech, but they could not accept Belgium credit cards. I love you guys

Singapore-Sydney

My first flight on the A380. I’ve to recon that this plane is gigantic! Although the fun of flying is not there I enjoyed the plane. From the inside it looks very big, so you don’t have the claustrophobic feeling you have in a normal plane.

Arrival

All went good during arrival. No luggage nor visa check and the full team were there for the welcome. Fantastic. Big thanks to the team for getting up so early

Day 1-3 in Australia:

The first day I enjoyed my jet leg quite hard. I did nothing really useful apart from beating my team in buzz (how I did it? No one knows yet). We went for a short walk in the city but did nothing touristic.

Second day was quite the same. Just relaxing and try to used to the time difference. Although we went shopping today: D. It’s quite difficult to find what you need in a new environment. Everything is really different!!! Luckily I found nutella at the end of the day

3^rd day would be now. I had a good sleep in as it is a national holiday (Queen’s birthday). Althoug i went into the office to update my blog as you can see.

So that was it for today. Hope you all enjoy yourself! Have a nice day

Hey all,

Today I write to you for the first time. I’m typing this text in Singapore airport! I’m here relaxing in a couch waiting for my next flight to leave in an hour or tree.

About 24 hours ago I started on a 14 month lasting international experience/ work experience/ holiday (please select one). As most of you know I’ll reside in Sydney the upcoming year. Before i could start this XP I’ve to travel about 30 hours!

I left from Zaventem on the 5^th of June (15.00U local time). When I arrived at check in some of my friends came to say goodbye. The result: a very random group of AIESECERS at our national airport, for more information check: http://www.stubru.be/node/59238. I received some gift vouchers here and thanks to studio Brussels I almost missed my plane (they were already looking for my luggage :D)

First I took the plain to London Heathrow. I was surprised to find my luggage very easy.  There I changed planes to fly to Singapore. I have to admit that Singapore Airlines delivers a very nice service. Both on the ground and in the air I enjoyed flying with them.

Now I’m here in Singapore waiting for my next plain (A380 :D) and it is Friday 17h local time

Keep posted for more stories  

Hey,

I’m on the moment in Lithuania, another AIESEC conference! Now only for LCP’s, and i have to admit that it’s maybe even more powerful than IC!

The story started on Friday when we left  from Zaventem. Phillip just did not missed the plane. For the rest everything was OK.  There was an awesome OC pick up, only the Indian gaan we were waiting for and has not yet arrived till today (maybe he is in jail) was quit annoying! We had to get in two way to small cars, so we had to work together to get in and out the car, to make sure we could see what we were doing,… Quite an experience. We arrived at a first hotel, foolbooked, but the second time we were more lucky.

We went to a quite place to eat and at 3.30 we were back for some sleep.

Saturday, Day 0 of the conference. Wake up was 2 minutes before actual departure, so we did not had the time to enjoy the facilities of the Hostel (luckily). We rushed off for Global village, in the middle of the biggest shopping centre of Vilnius. We amazed quite some people with our appearance, and so we had a great exposure for AIESEC.

Afterwards there was official opening and moving to the site. We arrived here a one of the most beautiful sites I’ve ever seen, a real conference site! In the middle of the forest so no neigbours to disturbed in the process of enjoying our parties.  

Sunday, today, day 1 of the conference. Today we started meeting our self, and the other LCP’s. We are a quite funny group. We just turned back from a animating promotion of Lithuanian dances, we could participate so each one of us enjoyed!  

Now I’m returning to the party, and try to get some new friends

See you in a few days.

Hey,

It’s a little month since IC now. Many things have happened, many things have changed but we can look back on a very successful start of the year. We are working together with our team on the recruitment, we are almost half way now. Class presentations, info session, … have already passed and everyone is very positive looking forward to the Get to know day in a few days.

For me as a person’s this month has been very intense. It’s the first moment I have some time to write a little text on my own blog. I’ve had a very busy time, with a lot of up’s and downs, difficulties and moments of happiness. But throughout all this I’ve had the opportunity to get richer as a person. I’ve had the opportunity to lead my team, I’ve made some mistakes but they gave me the opportunity to learn, that was the most interesting part about it.

I’ve never lost my motivation throughout this month and my motivation is stronger than before. I’m very much looking forward to Euroco, another AIESEC conference that I’m attending, I’m looking forward to see old friends back!

I hope that in the near future I’ll find some more time to inform you about the things I’m doing.

Greetings of an over motivated

Pieter