TMU key phrase

Today is officially my 4th month of AIESEC life in Latvia. But I am at the moment in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Talent Management Unit (TMU) , one of the Global Support Teams in AIESEC, is having a physical meeting from Dec 7-11, 2009 in AIESEC International (AI) HQ. This year TMU consists of 34 people representing every world region from Venezuela to Australia; we are running projects in 4 areas, i.e. Competency Lab that works on revising Competency Model and adjusting it to the current needs; Innovation Inc that will works around AIESEC eXPerience to strengthen it; Leadership Academy that run lots of Leadership Audit at the moment, reviewing leadership development programmes we have in AIESEC as well as coming up with a new one soon; and Live Support, which I am a team member of, that directs its focus and actions on coaching the countries on Talent Management processes, supporting the network 24/7, etc, etc.

So, today a few of us have arrived, and we had our 1st "hang out" time together, where the key phrase was discovered. It is OMG!!! It has become a virus during the evening; even the waiters coming to us and taking orders were saying , "Oh my God! Let me pass." or "Oh My God! Will you order anything else?" :) So now every person in TMU knows our password - OMG! :D

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Getting to AI office, and then getting to the student building where we are staying was another funny chapter in my life :) And Rotterdam looks so much peaceful. Need to discover it this week. The funniest thing was that I miss Brussels sooooo much. Probably those 2 days were very much emotional for me as well as very much significant. Best days ever that I had recently!

2 .be in Brugge

Who has ever fallen in love at first sight?

Not with a woman or man

but with a city, scenery, food, etc?

Today I opened a new bottle full of bubbling LOVE sparks. Its name is Brugge, a medieval fairy tale city in the western Belgium.

Brugge cannot be described- you must see it! It is cozy, astonishing, lively, touristic, helpful, friendly, middle crowded, diverse and it is my LOVE!

Delicious waffles with chocolate flavour, cherry flavoured Belgian beer on the bank of the river together with Central America guys, chilly wind messing up my hair and my soul is enormously content, happy and relaxed.

One of my best days this year was today in Brugge!
Merci!

What it feels like for a girl

118 th day in Latvia.

1st day in the capital of Europe.

1st feelings of being home in Brussels, Belgium.

Don't care if the feelings are true only the first seconds. They will last forever.

I am being true to myself, and I am being immensely happy a whole day: first, early morning till noon in Riga with AIESEC Riga members, who have organised Lotus Conference on Digital Marketing. Though I have attended only one lecture in the morning, I can say that it was a good introduction for the project. Minutes I spent during coffee break with Organising Committee team- our beloved autumn members- were full of jokes, good mood and excitement that bubbled in me. Then I headed off to the Riga airport for my Riga-Brussels flight, and of course I had "adventures" - I usually do not travel with some slight problematic situations that make me being stressed, nervous that I will be late for the flight. On one hand, it is boring if I do not create these "problems" for myself, and add some adrenaline. On the other hand, what is the point to be stressed? Count the minutes for being happy, even if you are afraid to be late. (Sounds very weird. But it sometimes works for me :)

Fortunately, I managed quickly and a bit risky to solve my "problems" on the way, and at 2.30pm the plane took off, I waved to Latvian land Bye for 10 days, and said Hi! Welcome to Brussels! in 2 hours after.

I am having the sweetest time here today. I met for 100th time AIESEC Belgium of 1970s Alumni, AIESEC Ukraine 2000s Alumni. Interesting conversations during our dinner alltogether. Then, Sasha, AIESEC in Ukraine Alumni introduced to me the European capital. Probably here I need to stress on the importance of this "introduction". It was not a typical sightseeing outdoor event that I previously did myself for others in Kazakhstan - AIESEC interns, internationals, colleagues- or had received from others in India, in Romania, in Lithuania, in Latvia, in Estonia, in Russia, in Ukraine. It has been haunting, captivating, hillarious, amazing, informative, friendly, encouraging, authentic!

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take but by the places and moments that take our breath away.

P.S. The pictures will be soon uploaded and link will provided here :)

And thank you Sasha for 1st Brussels evening!

A dancing star

Confession.

Integrity is one of the significant traits I barely find in people. Yet, it is one the most valuable traits I seek in human creatures.

Am I sincere with others then? Or do I necessarily have to be sincere?

Hovewer, if I expect people being frank in conversations, actions, beliefs why don't I expect it from myself? Or do I demand some extraordinary things from relations I have with my network? :)

I truly believe in people. No matter what happens in human relationships, how bad and painful break-ups can be, the time you have spent with each other is your history, is your memories that warm you in cold evenings, that give you strength to move forward and not to give up.

I am thankful for all those past moments that made me stronger, visionary, flexible, optimistic.

Transformation.

I am feeling something I cannot hide at the moment, which I also cannot truly describe even to myself. But it feels like evolution. A dancing star within myself. A chaotic star that leads me to something I haven't thought of or fully experienced before. Mystery. And I am deeply in love with this condition.

< I wonder how just "new" mothers feel when they see their babies born. Somehow I compare their emotions to what I am feeling now these days. What is it? A birth of new Assel or influence of pictures/books/conversations/articles/trips/food/music/smells/senses... What? >

Motivating myself: what is the best way to do it?

112th day in Latvia.

All these days I have been as powerful as I could have been at my daily work in AIESEC. I had my ups and downs, and had learnt a few things necessary for me. A few of them are managerial operations, cultural sensitivity, personal effectivenes, resilience.

I am recapturing August activities when I just had arrived here, and how I was approaching my work, my new friends, my environment and myself. The hottest words that month were "Experiment. Try new things out.Don't limit yourself".

September was full of operational stuff- you want to get result from your 8 hours sitting in the office? Stand up, go and do your work then. It was also the time of educating people on how to manage workload. It has been the time of a high sense of ownership for all activities in AIESEC in Latvia, mainly in member recruitment. It has been the time for another new activity for me: outlining the National Training Seminar (NTS) with all its pros and cons, and then delivering it in mid Oct. The vocabulary in Sep was mainly about "Risk management. Upfront planning. Maturity".

In October I have bonded myself with AIESEC in Lithuania while facilitating at their National Conference (NatCo). Surprisingly, during Lithuanian NatCo I was celebrating my 3rd year in AIESEC as I have had my first AIESEC conference on 23-25 Oct 2007 in my home committee AIESEC in Almaty, Kazakhstan. NatCo has also showed me some simple lessons, e.g. sleeping bag can be as warm as my home blanket, conferences in schools are perfect premises for cutting costs in the budget, and I have known how AIESEC in Lithuania hosts parties during national conferences. Vocabulary has reminded me connotations of "Inspiration. Leadership.Resources"

Right after our NTS 5 fresh members of AIESEC in Riga has tasted their first successes and failures in organizing Train the Trainers (TtT) national conference for our members. It has been a memorable time for all of us I reckon: guys had only 2 weeks to raise the venue for the conference and for hosting delegates, to find financial support, to promote the conference, to build their team, etc. Yes, TtT experience had its peaks of a big growth for all of us, and one of the biggest lessons I carry out from those 2 weeks is Crisis management. I felt really proud for TtT team and Mara, the Organising Committee President (OCP) who stepped up for a short term project but had done her best, and I assume, she has learnt a lot from the experience.

Final picture after 3 days of learning how to be a good trainer
International table: Krista, Latvia, Assel, Kazakhstan, Laura, Denmark, Seb, Germany, Silvia, Romania

Meanwhile, I was also preparing for TtT to deliver in AIESEC in Lithuania, which has been last weekend right after our TtT. 2 similar conferences/seminars in content but slightly different in its execution. Nevertheless, if at our TtT I had learnt how to be very much flexible in preparing for the conference, not to panic and be innovative, in Lithuania I had experienced again co-facilitating, AND I learnt that female's training team is not the worst case scenario :) I had a few worries that all of the trainers for Lithuanian TtT are girls, and we would confront in viewpoints, in team work, we would just waste our time in discussing some fluffy stuff. For instance, we spent about 7 or 8 hours at pre-meeting in discsussing questions, which we have been discussing via emails for a month! This is why I love working with men: they are brief in decision making, precise enough and time for them is money. However, for a 100th time I have witnessed how wrong my judgements can be: in the end our trainers' team, comprised of black haired girls, Dominika from AIESEC in Slovakia, Ezster from AIESEC in Hungary, Sasha from AIESEC in Russia and me, has spent enormous time together in chatting, co-facilitating, sightseeing, and caring about each other. Lithuanian Train the Trainers conference has been my 4th and final conference in 2009 that enriched me positively.

Dominika, my co-FACI. I value our pair work a lot

Ezster who blossomed in the last minutes of conference in Vilnius, Lithuania

Sasha and I: our talks before-during-after conference

have fulfilled me enormously.

I have already forgotten how important it is to feel confidence, to show it, to value and love yourself. These 3, 5 months have been more as a race. Time race, mental race, emotions' race. I have completely forgotten about myself, somehow forgotten about family; what's more, I gave up the idea of what I will be doing in 7 months. I have been urging myself, "Come on! You need to decide as soon as possible what you will be doing in summer 2010. Your term in AIESEC in Latvia will finish soon, but you need to be sure at least what you want to experience in the future, what you envision for yourself in 10 years, in 20 years, in 30 years". And then, one day I said to myself, "Stop! If you can't answer simple questions now, if you can't orientate yourself to summer 2010, you better not do it at all. Eventually, you will understand what experience you wish to have. For now, just pause. Do smart choices, not fashionable ones" I guess AIESECers will understand what I mean by these questions. Nov-Dec is a time when many applications are out for applying for Member Committee Presidents/Member Committee Vice Presidents positions in the whole AIESEC network. It is the time full of brainstorming, data analysis, prognosis, sleepless nights in filling the application forms, and loads of other work. However, I am not doing any of these activities. The answer is clear, I still have not decided what my 2010-2011 year looks like. I have a vision of my life in 5 -7 years' time but I have nothing yet for the next year. Yet. Perhaps, forthcoming physical meeting of Talent Management Unit (TMU), the Global Support Team in AIESEC, will guide me for the decision that is to be made. Vocabulary for Nov is about personal effectiveness, inner strength, strictness, collective intelligence.

A little bit of sweet memories ...

Should the world start thinking about its future?

... Or does the world already think about it?

I have recently come across one video that quickly shifted me back to Kazakhstan and its future, and then of course questions were directed towards in general. Yes, I am thinking in a very narrow route, first referring to my country and then globally.

In the video the author Hopkins questions about Transition to a world without oil. A very much relevant video I'd say. While I was watching it, I was inquiring myself on: what does our nation think about it? How do people in Kazakhstan plan to live in case we have no oil?

If I look at Kazakhstan's development for the past 10-12 years, it is the time of our actual growth. The development plan "Kazakhstan 2030" prioritizes where the country will put its biggest efforts, what focuses are relevant in every year, decade since 1997 when it was introduced. The economic growth is visible everywhere as well as you can notice a big GAP between the rich and the poor. For instance, I always laugh when I look at the statistics: average salary of a Kazakhstani employee is usually high than it is in fact. According to different media sources like this or you can search here I'd bet wages in the oil rich West region are higher than in the Central or Eastern part. Additionally, living standards are totally different from region to region. What's more, is that if the Parliament announces about increase for 20-25% in teachers', medical staff and other budget personnel pockets' 2-3 months ahead, prices for food, public utilities, transport, etc rise immediately!

Ok, back to the point. The video I recommend you to watch here should be one of the hot topics discussed in Kazakhstani schools with youngsters, should attract our attention now when it's not too late- we need to start thinking about the world without oil. We rely on our natural resources a lot: yes, we all know that the Caspian sea is still under research, yes, we have enough plentiful supplies of oil and gas for at least 30-40 years... Excuse me, what will be after 2030?

The country is still a big exporter of non renewable resources. However, I am glad to read in the news and observe some of the new trends for the state such as focus on education, focus on Innovation centres, focus for fostering the development of Health care system, Socio-economic areas. On the contrary, I again doubt a lot that this development starts blossoming only when the Government pushes local admins to or when there is a public case of revealing a true situation with some politicians engaged into bribery.

I still have a lot of questions, and I will be glad if anyone could share with me thoughts on the future of the world either with or without oil storages.

Time VS Qality:2

"Nothing you do for children is ever wasted. They seem not to
notice us, hovering, averting our eyes, and they seldom offer
thanks, but what we do for them is never wasted."