AIESEC International Congress Malaysia - first impressions!

I have a confession to make. I have never been outside Europe. I have been to the Black Sea in Romania, but that's it. I did not get more far away. Recently, AIESEC gave me the opportunity to visit another continent and I am currently writing from the Palace of the Golden Horses in Malaysia.
Together with my team I made a trip where the adventure already started during the journey as we had visa challenges, traveling through Bangkok and our team faced major frustration about the way things were managed. I realized how privileged I am as a European. I can travel wherever I want and can get a visa for some weeks just because I want.
Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia is one of the few cities I have been to that has a lot of sky scrapers. It is known for the PETRONAS Towers, some of the highest buildings in the world. I have seen them, I took a picture. I have also been to the Bantu Caves a little bit outside of KL. That's when it hit me that I am actually on another continent. The caves are host to temples, monkeys and doves. You recognize it fast by the giant statue of a god with its golden color shining in the burning sun. You climb stairs into the sky and enter the cave with extremely high walls and a glimpse of the sky in the background. Monkeys eat coconuts; monks give you prayers and mark you with dots on your forehead. The temples are Hindi from south Indian culture. And having two Indians in my team, we had extremely good guidance through the experience. Result: I want to go to India! The food, the people, the culture is something that I really want to experience closer.
Right now I am thrown into a melting pot of people from all over the world. The AIESEC International Congress has started yesterday and I am already facing a major sleep deprivation. The thing is that we had a pre-meeting before the actual congress where we prepared for what was going to happen. These 9 days are the most valid days as preparation for our year ahead, as we have the global leadership collected in one place. Here I have the chance to meet AIESEC'ers from truly all over the world. I am currently sitting in a room with over 100 nationalities. The vibrant energy in the room is slapping you in the face at times and it is fascinating to see how many of these people I actually have met before. We are all connected and if we do not know each other directly one of our friends does and that's what makes it so unique. We are all connected by a thing called AIESEC. We had a global village, open to public, where every culture was present, we had a fascinating opening ceremony with taste of Malaysian culture. Today, we started the content delivery and included over 700 virtual delegates joining us from all over the world. Right now we discuss leadership and in what way AIESEC is a leadership organization. For me AIESEC is the people and opportunities it offers. That's what makes it a leadership organization? People continue beyond their AIESEC experience to have a positive impact in society. We actually do something about the issues around us and it is incredible to see how many excellent people are gathered under the same cause.

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My Personality

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Copenhagen moves me!

I am done with my studies. Let me think… yes, I have attended institutions of education for 17 years. I am 24 today, so I have spent more than two thirds – almost three quarters of my life studying. Maybe you can imagine the feeling I have now that I know that I am most probably done with it. I enjoyed the ride, it was exciting and fun, but I am ready to try out a new rollercoaster. Every time people ask me how I am lately I have to say: “I am good! I am free!”

I started my new job as Member Committee Vice President of External Relations for AIESEC Denmark. A title that fills a whole line of my entry and is not sexy to use in bed. Trust me, it’s not! I work with sales and external communication of our organizations’ activities. People expect me to get national partnerships, have cool companies attend our national conferences, train the sales people in the local offices and a lot of other things. I was scared a lot before I started to work and wondered about all the worst case scenarios which suddenly popped up in my head. Now I am here, doing the job, learning a lot from my predecessor and calling companies to book meetings. I have a sweet boss, which is great. In my last position in AIESEC, I was the boss and it is nice to have someone above you for a change.

For my new job I moved to Copenhagen, the biggest city in Denmark, but honestly, when you are here, it seems like a collection of a bunch of smaller typical Danish cities with a couple of highways in between. On my way to work, I pass cows, hosted by some kind of scientific institute and I barely bike on the bigger streets, as there is a fine system of bicycle paths. I bike everywhere, and I also use my creepy helmet, after all I am biking in a bigger city.

There is but a few things I am not satisfied with, yet. I dreamed of coming to Copenhagen and be the best version of me. I always make these plans when I start something new. I am not eating healthy and way too much out of the house. I do not prepare lunch packages and eat instant noodles instead. My membership in Fitness World is still paid for, I just do not go there. And last but not least, my room is a mess. I need to focus a little bit more on my personal health, I can feel that I get tired fast and my energy level is low at times and sleep doesn’t really help right now. I got to move it – move it a bit more often and eat something with real vitamins. I have to spend some quality time with myself. And drink more water!

In general life is great! I am free!

Pictures:
1. crossing the Big Belt Bridge on our way from Funen to Sealand when I moved.
2. The Play Doh man I created during transition.
3. A sqare in Copenhagen City.

Love your family!

My discovery of vblogging!

Today is a weird day. It's raining outside and I am in this crazy excited mood, where I am not able to actually do something constructive. So I am procrastinating in an innovative way, as I am not doing what I am supposed to, like packing my stuff for moving, but I let my inspiration boil in my mind about my next steps in AIESEC until they are ready to get out to the world. The soundtrack of my thoughts is still Emilia Torrini with "Big Jumps". I just talked to Fernando, my local vice president of finance and very good friend, and he told me he just has created a blog himself. He wanted me to take a look, it was not at all finished, but he posted his two favorite youtube videos, which he had shown me quite a couple of times before. As I am in the not-packing-inspiration mood, I watched them again and landed on an one hour lecture of Michael Wesch, a professor in anthropology. He gave an anthropological introduction to youtube. This is especially interesting for me, as I study this kind and it made me think about the possibilities connected to the online world out there. I am not a computer minded person at all, but I really think that if we use this space in a smart way, we really can have an impact. AIESEC International created a path to this mindset, now we just have to grab the opportunities and use them in a creative manner. One thing: It is actually possible to have a vivid communication with my local External Relations responsibles, if they actively participate in it. Second thing: Why the hack to we still waste time on approaching conservative media like newspapers and TV, which is quite expensive, and actually use online spaces instead. Come on! So, the thing is that I created a google group and invited all new ER's to it, but nobody responded. WELL! Now, I am going to post a video on this beautiful group and make them start communicating with me and each other. This is the result. I am now officially out there. With my face, poking my ear while I talk, have a stupid hair thing in my face and do what I am best at, babbling about what I think. It actually takes me like 3 minutes to end my speech, I am not able to say: "That's it! Good bye!" But bare with me, it is an authentic picture of Anna Banana on a Sunday afternoon, getting all proactive and inspired :-)

Ok, so here is the video that really inspired me:


And this is my proactive reaction to it:

Terror, Excitement, Stress!

In two weeks, I'll start my term as Member Committee Vice President of External Relations. The past twoo weeks, I have struggled to finish my Bachelor degree more or less successfull and now all I have to do is wait for the results of my final exams. But fortunately I do not really have time to think of all this, as everything is kind of culminating right now. It seems like a wave of four years in Odense is dashing over me and all I can feel in my stomach are a million butterflies, because everybody, EVERYBODY!, I meet is happy and friendly and somehow the city of Odense says "Goodbye! It was cool having you here. Please come back some day and enjoy your time inbetween!". And I say thank you, Odense and "Hello Copenhagen!". This weekend I have to pack and sort out what I want to take with me to that tiny room in Frederiksberg, where my dearest friend Alenxandra will live just a room away and we'll support each other, have fun and talk all night, like we used to. Next week, my mom will come and help me move, she will also be there for my birthday. I really do not know when to say goodbye to anyone, when to thank all the nice people for all the things they have done. I really feel blessed with everything happening right now and I hope this feeling will last for a while. I know, the next year will show me yet unknown challenges, but it'll all be good, because I will go out stronger than before. And, last but not least, I can hope for going to Malaysia for the AIESEC International Congress, the biggest conference a year, with people from the whole world, really! Life is exciting. I hope to be able to share as much as possible.