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,

 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,

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,

Since two days I’m back from IC.

The last day on IC was a bit disappointing. First we had the Launch of the new IT system that will be used as soon as possible. The idea of the System is cool but the launch lasted way to long. Hopefully this system will be more trustworthy than the one running now.

Afterwards we had the Closing of the conference. The expectations from my side were very high, everyone told me it was one of the most powerful experiences of IC, but in the end it turned out to be approximately the same as the opening. It was cool but I learned not to expect to much, so you are not that disappointed.

Afterwards we went for a visit of Istanbul. In the evening we went to one of the restaurants at the side of the Bosporus, with an amazing view.

The day after we went to visit the highlights of Istanbul in a quick rush trough te city. We saw the Blue mosk, the bazaar, The university of our guide Gözde and the Aya Sophia. Due to limited time we had to limit our visit to these four well known monuments.

This was my Experience on IC. It was one never to forget and toughly live changing!!! I’ll be back next year in brazil.

Today was back to reality as we kicked off for our thesis. Next year will be tough but the finish will be a beautiful one! I will try to keep you up to date of the things happening throughout the year!

AIESEC in the news??

it was not that possitive but rather tipical for belgium.

Sikh met tulband mag Brugs café niet binnen

ma 20/08/07 - In Brugge werd vorige week een sikh geweigerd in een danscafé. De internationale studentenvereniging Aiesec reageert teleurgesteld op het geval van racisme.

Een groep internationale studenten wilde vorige week een avondje stappen in de Brugse binnenstad.

Een van hen, een Indiër, werd in een danscafé geweigerd omdat hij een tulband droeg.

Louise Martens uit Brugge is ondervoorzitter van Aiesec België en zit erg verveeld met de zaak. De avond zelf is beslist geen klacht in te dienen.

De jongen die werd geweigerd, is een sikh. De mannelijke aanhangers van die godsdienst mogen hun haar niet knippen en moeten een tulband dragen.

Hey all,

Today we had our first day of rain!!! But this means also a bit of refreshment (BTW it’s not realy rain, there was water for 10 minutes)

Yesterday we had alumni day and today it was all about learning network. Both very interesting experiences but as I’m sick i can’t enjoy it that much. I try to actively engage in activities but it is difficult to keep focused!! IC is long, maybe to long. After 10 days of conference i feel exhausted but happy I have the opportunity to live this experience.

A short post today cause I have to go for the extension presentation (Rwanda is the extension of Belgium) and afterwards there is WENA party. Hopefully I will survive the next few days

Greetings

Hey all,

A quick update from IC.

Today was the developing leaders day (DLD). A day hosted by external faci’s to get to know your leadership style, manner,… It was really powerful to see how we could in an easy way try to improve our way of managing a team, and I’ve a lot to bring home with me.

It was also cool to experience that even a 40 year old person can enjoy the AIESEC spirit.  Our 2 faci’s were dancing, sharing, enjoying together with us for the whole day!!

Afterwards there was a Turkish night planned, which was, and maybe you won’t believe it, the least experience of my IC till now. Everyone was lame and nothing special to do. So we went with a part of the Belgium delegation, and 2 Pakistani’s for a shicha. Those two LCP’s empowered me to once go to their country, it was again an amazing international opportunity.

Have a good night and luckily we have a sleep in tomorrow, I can use it!!!!