National Conference 1
Over the last week alot of things have happened, we have had 3 earthquakes over 5 on Richter Scale, we have had a Tsunami which killed over 600 people, we had another violent outbreak in Timor. We had new cases of bird flu but what I´ll talk about is the really important stuff, that´s National Conference 1 in Surabaya. We arrivet to this amazingly hot city on Tuesday after 12 hours of a cold, cold train ride (I caught a cold there, seriously). Then we were driven right to a food place, I will not call it a restaurant because that would degrade that beautifull word. It was just couple of tables by the road, an open fire and some pots and pans (and they are surprised that the bird flu spreads??) when I was offered a chicken brain soup, I, for the first time, drew the line and decided to swallow my pride and just order some regular food.
In the night we stayed at Fadils place which is a guy I know from a conference in India last year. His house was inhabited by his family but more importantly thousands upon thousands of blood thirsty mosquitos, I got 13 bites just in the evening before I went to sleep. I had seen a mosquito poison and had been defending my self bravely against the swarm of incoming troops, when Fadil told me, "ahhh... while I remember, be carefull with that spray, it has been banned from the stores because it is also poisonous to humans." Great to know after you sprayed all your surroundings for an hour.
The next day the conference started, and what a conference, I will not even try to describe the athmosphere at the conference here because those who have not been to an AIESEC conference can never understand the feeling by reading some shallow words. But I had an amazing time and all the delegates inspired me greatly.
I held trainings on Leadership, Team Management, Project management, for my people (company people) on negotiations, and then 2 functional sessions with my vice presidents, all in all a huge success and after the conference when reading the messages we write each others on these conferences I became so touched (not in a Michael Jackson way) by how inspired many people were by my trainings, it makes all the hard work worth while, so thank you guys!
So now it is back to work, coming back to Jakarta was nice, finally getting back into the traffic jams and endless pollution, it is starting to feel like home.
That´s it for now.
Tale of the shivering spider
Just a spider that shall not be discussed.
Anyway, a week gone by and what has happened?
For one, I got one year older, or well, obviously I am one week older than last week, but I passed that silly day which suddenly makes you a whole year older, interesting day, it's like we don't aknowledge any growth over all the other days, but this day... ahhh.... this day we suddenly experience a one year of maturity (or in my case, not so much maturity).
The day started of weird, you am used to having your family to congratulate you from the moment you wake up, spending the day with friends and the phone going off all day with friends and others greeting you, nonono... here I woke up, quite alone (no females of any species there :) spent the day quite alone... started listening to Icelandic christmas songs (no, I did not listen to Celine Dion, All by my self, I promise... or do I?) and at 7pm I had not had any birthday greeting, not personal one, through sms or phone, I went to the internet cafe to see if someone sent me an e-mail, nope... but then something great happened, my mom and dad called me, yay!! It was so nice talking to them! Then I met Ewa, the Polish girl working in the national commitee of AIESEC with me, she also wished me happy birthday. We went to this bar I know, a friend of mine from football was playing there with his band, the whole night untill the final match of the world cup. It was so great, I kept giving everybody beers (they are very cheap) even started giving an old man called Walter who sat across from me. He tried to stop me but I kept pouring into his glass, after giving him 5 beers he told me that he was driving home :)
Then Youssuf my Indian friend came over and it turned out to be a very good ending of a weird birthday.
Week went by without major incidents, we are preparing for National conference 1 which will be held next week. Alot of preperation going on, then me and Grace, my lovely president of AIESEC here singed a partnership with one company today!!!
yaa.... think that is about it...
I´ll write something on monday, but then I´ll be out for around a week.
Cheers,
Tómas
Mistery of the singing cat
Hey... yeah sorry... I have not been to the office the last two days, nor on friday last week, so the 2 days in between I had alot of work. I have been a bit sick, some fever stuff, but nothing serious (let´s hope). One little story... I was sitting in the common area of my boarding house at 3 or 4 am and was trying to write a little story I am working on. Then suddenly I see this black beast coming fluttering down from the ceiling. It lands quite close to me and takes the aim at me. Then I see this is a cockroach, and not an ordanary cockroach but a huge mother fucker. I am an Icelander and we don't have these beasts in our paradise island (interesting enough, a cockroach is supposed to survive a nuclear war, but they can´t survive Iceland... wussies) so I am not used to them, and in Dominic Republic they were many but rather small, so you would shudder a bit but then kill them off quickly. This was another dimension, the beast was almost as big as my palm and as I ran out of my seat (very manly I must admitt) the cockroach starting climbing the wall behind my chair. He climbed all the way up and then he did this kind of para gliding thing. He flapped his wing and flew around me as I stood in the middle of the floor. I reacted by running out of the room and watched the monster closely. He crawled back to my chair, up the wall, except now a lizzard (not Sheva, one of his friends) attacked the monster, but the cockroach as I explained was a super cockroach so he turned around and snapped at the lizzard (or gecko for those who care) and the lizzard ran away like a scared baby (not like me, who was hiding, out of the room). It crawled all around with occasional leizure flying sessions. After around 15 minutes I decided to be brave and when it was in the far corner, I ran in, grabbed my laptop and dived into my room. The whole night I kept imagine the beast getting into my room... not a nice thought... that would had been a bloody battle.
That´s todays story...
The world cup... what the fuck!!!?!?! Italy-France... did I wait 4 years to see this... pfff I spit on this... I like alot of teams, England, Sweden, Argentina, Holland, Spain, Ghana, Ivory Coast... is it to much to ask for one of those nations to get to the final? apparently, and we will have a final of the Italian machine (I wonder if the corruption of the league has gotten to the international level and that is the explaination of their success?) and the retired French team. And as the matches are played at 2 am here I really need some entertainment to stay awake. But hey... we only have to wait for 4 more years to get a decent world cup final!!! I´ll be watching the game in my favorite bar, and I guess I'll take my Icelandic scarf and viking helmet and cheer on Iceland in the match, as a protest of this bullshit, in 2010 I am sure Iceland will make it to the finals in S-Afrika so it will be like a warm up.
Chiao for now...
Deeply shocked and battle wounded,
Tómas
