PAI - a woman!

The AIESEC International President was elected. And for the 4th time since 1948, it's a woman! Her name is Gabriela (this name rocks ;o)), she is Romanian and is certainly receiving the best wishes from all of us.

Congratulations, Gabiza!

See you around the world, my friends!

Last week, 3 of the AIESEC interns left Sydney: Alenka, Augusto and Jerry, who were working for GE in the last 18 months.

To be honest, it was quite strange, because these guys have been around since I arrived and were quite part of my Australian experience. I'm certainly going to change Alenka's energy, Jerry's chili and Augusto's sense of humor a lot!

Besides saying goodbye, the other strange feeling that arises is for the fact that it's been almost 7 months that I'm here already, therefore in the middle of my experience. Time flies...

(Not) Feeling Australian #3 – Drinking

As I’m experiencing the Australian culture in all its length, I decided to take part in some drinking events. I don’t know if I mentioned before, but drinking is a quite important aspect of the Australian social life, as happy hours, friends catch ups and parties in general quite always involve drinking.

In December and January, I took part in 6 drinking events.

Hash run (twice): a run around the city, where you need to follow arrows, help your fellows and arrive in the end of the path. When everybody is there, we form a circle and the Hash Master conducts a very funny, interactive and culturally unique ceremony, where people end up drinking for different reasons. To be honest, it’s quite a nice game.

Power hour: one shot of beer every minute for 1 hour. People get quite drunk.
Skolling night: a night dedicated to skolling as fast as you can, where different AIESEC local committees form their team, cheer, chant and try to take home the Skolling Cup, which exists since the beginning of the 80’s. People really get into it. It’s impressive. And scary. I just watched.

Vodka night: a Sydney pride night, where people toast for great things existing in the city. Just Sydney people are invited.

Century club: one shot of beer every minute for 100 minutes. I just went for 50 minutes, but the winner stood until the 201st shot. It was quite an unpleasant experience, as people got completely smashed and didn’t enjoy the rest of the day.

As referred in the post title, I don’t really feel Australian in this sense. I don’t really care that people drink sometimes, but having alcohol in every social event and in every ceremony doesn’t seem right to me. Besides, it seems to me that educated and smart people get distracted about drinking moments and its effects instead of being healthy, having great conversations and caring about things that matter.

My last AIESEC conference

The purpose of my visit to Adelaide was actually the AIESEC in Australia National Conference, which I had the pleasure to chair. It was quite a different experience to me to be in another country's national conference, at the same time not understanding the whole picture and being responsible for the accomplishment of all objectives, which involved growth in currently processes, introduction of new strategies and elections of the new leadership team.

What can I say? It was great!!! The national team is quite competent and supportive, the participants were very energetic and I felt very comfortable to tell stories, contribute to an inspirational mood and enhance the individual and organisational learning. Besides, it was great to be again in a passionate environment and test my multitask abilities ;o)

One of the most special moments for me was closing plenary. We all took our shoes off and entered a semi dark room, covered by paper. On the paper we could write the special moments, learnings and desired next steps, while a calm music was playing. Then, everyone received a candle and could place it anywhere it made sense. A final message from my side and each one could give the candle to somebody essential in their conference. It was great to create such an unexpected, different and touching environment for each participant in the final responsibility moments of what probably was my last AIESEC conference.

Thanks Ralph, Mel, Ausra, Michael, Kyle and Ruth for the opportunity. Thanks AIESECers for your energy and for the space to interact and learn from you. See you around!

AIESEC Conference – AWESOME

In December, I chaired the AIESEC in Sydney AWESOME conference. It happened as a result of two entrepreneurial individuals – Jake and Nicky, who wanted to have an experience in running a conference as well as guarantee all members had the right training to accomplish next year’s plan.

Half way through the conference, I re-started enjoying quite a lot the AIESEC environment, especially the innovation in education and the unique team spirit.

Thanks for the invitation, guys!

Global Village

After some frustrated organisation efforts, our global village finally happened! And it was great! Stands for Romania, Bulgaria, Brazil, Norway, Turkey, Russia and Czech Republic, with pictures, souvenirs, food and drinks; cultural presentations; and lots of dance and fun.

Some learnings:
- Czech Republic had the biggest consumption per capita of beer in the world;
- Romania is the most important country in the world, as the pencil investor is Romanian;
- Not all Brazilians can play capoeira properly;
- Russians sing a very sad song about an orphan mamut to kids;
- Dancing is an universal gathering instrument!

First "saudade" feeling

Last Sunday, I received some incredible news, closing with a golden key my leadership experience in AIESEC, especially the last year in the national committee.

1) AIESEC in Brazil received the Regional UBS Award, for its Excellence and Achievements in the year 2005-2006. This means that we were the best country in the region! Congratulations to all the ones that put their passion, talent and effort to make it happen!

2) The other brilliant news was that AIESEC in Brazil was chosen to host the International Congress 2008, the biggest AIESEC conference in the world, which counts with young leaders from almost 100 countries, lots of externals, media, etc. It’s an honor and a big responsibility, as it’s the first time this meeting is happening in Latin America. Let’s go for it!

Well, I think I don’t need to say I am very proud and happy with such recognition and confidence demonstration. And, for the first time since I’m in Australia, I felt a strong saudade (for the non Portuguese speakers, saudade is a deep nostalgic feeling of missing something special). I wish so much I could celebrate these results with all the 7 great individuals who were part of the National Committee 2005-2006, eating a pizza in Cascaes, having great conversations and dancing some pagode.

I’m sure each one of them is feeling exactly the same: joy, pride, continuity wish and a good amount of saudade.

“SAUDADE

na solidão na penumbra do amanhecer.
Via você na noite, nas estrelas, nos planetas,
nos mares, no brilho do sol e no anoitecer.

Via você no ontem , no hoje, no amanhã...
Mas não via você no momento.

Que saudade...”

Mário Quintana

Friends from all over the world!

It’s with lots of pleasure that I write this post!

Besides me, there are 6 other AIESEC interns currently in Sydney: Siddharth (India), Gerardo (Mexico), Augusto (Italy), Alenka (Czech Republic), Salih (Turkey) and Salma (Romania). Isn’t it cool? And all of them have been part of AIESEC national committees before, which mean everybody is quite competent, experienced and definitely have friends in common.

Last Friday, we all met for our weekly happy hour. Besides us, there were 3 Australians and 1 girl from Lithuania, which means we were a group of 11 people, from 9 different countries.

After some beers in our Rugby Bar, we went to eat the best hot dog in the city (!) and visited 2 other pubs. I think I don’t need to say we had lots of fun!

Meeting AIESECers

Another random but quite nice surprise I had last week was to meet Uzo. Uzo used to be president of AIESEC in Nigeria in 1999, is currently working in USA and staying some weeks in Sydney.

Somehow, he got my email and wrote. Interesting, isn't it? We definitely met, had nice conversations, figured out we had friends in common and showed a bit (not too much) how Latin American / Africans can shake their bodies.

Social life every day

One of the things I like a lot about Australia is the general philosophy of enjoying life. People don’t work too much and the social life is quite busy.

This atmosphere is helping me a lot on my objective of having a more balanced life style. So far, I’m having some kind of social moment almost everyday. Yesterday (18/08), for example, it was Aleka’s (Czech intern) birthday. We went to a pub, celebrated, welcomed the new Turkish intern – Salih, changed pub and had some more cool conversations.

While we were there, a German guy appeared and – guess what – I knew him! He was from AIESEC in German and was part of the organization committee of the conference I went in India, last year. He is doing a MBA in Sydney right now and showed up in that specific bar that night. Small world…