nobody does

I don't know what happened to that girl I used to know. No... that's not true. She's just hidden under layers of something or other.

I never wanted to be this cynical.

ROWDIElicious

Just got back from Rowdies RoKS 2007... although my entire body hurts and I'm stressing about catching up on the two weeks of reading I have to do tonight, attending and facilitating sessions was well worth it.

I am constantly amazed at the concrete, wonderful relationships that can form after spending a weekend with fun people. In the past two days, certain individuals became some of my best friends in AIESEC, although we have only gotten to know each other over this weekend and over a week-long conference two months ago. At RoKS, Many newbies were woven into the framework of our LC for good and will be slowly morphed into the leaders of the next generation of AIESEC Madison. It's so cool to see their development, even from one day to the next, especially when they start to really "get" AIESEC. :)

I also realized that I really like facilitating sessions, even though approval problems for the presentations can get a little exhausting. But regardless of any issues, the sessions went off almost perfectly.

Surrounded by all these newbies, I'm starting to feel old... but in a good way, like I am contributing to the organization at a high level and I can answer any questions that come my way, in addition to being able to serve as a kind of guide to the new members. It's a great feeling, but I think that because the old members are at this level, we need to work harder to integrate the newbies so we are all on the same page. To me, that is my mission in this next semester.

can you feel it?

Really... can you? I just got home from our first official AIESEC Madison meeting of the semester, where we welcomed 43 newbies!! It was truly amazing to stand in the biggest lecture hall in Grainger and see it almost filled to the brim with exciting, chatty faces that have no idea that their lives are about to change in amazing ways that will affect them forever or that they are now part of an international network that will take them to places they have never imagined. I have no idea how we're going to make this work, but I'm pretty sure that when we do, we will be an AIESEC Madison that's stronger, more brilliant, cohesive and unrivaled around the U.S.....

To all the newbies, WELCOME! and to everyone else, this is what we've been waiting for. Let's do it. :)

...

I can't separate the events from my feelings of culpability, whether justified or not. Because it keeps happening. And the only common factor is me.

Ouch.

where does it all go?

On a whim, I was trying to calculate how much free time I have each week..

Out of 168 hours every week, I estimate about 20 hours a week on AIESEC, work and school each. Also subtract sleeping time, non-multiatasking eating time and transportation time and I'm at about 25 hours. If I were able to space it out over the week, that would be three hours a day for free time, but in reality, most days I get maybe an hour, so I react by spending entire Saturdays doing absolutely nothing. Which I think is fine. :)

But seriously. Where does all the time go??

tidal

My life is scheduled in weeks. Each week seems to have a main activity or task that is like a weight exerting constant pressure until I finally deal with it. Last week, it was the national marketing materials. The week before, it was recruitment. The week before that, it was classes beginning. But this week, the main tasks that I need to accomplish have to do with work, which is rare.

I've been investing so much of my time and energy in AIESEC that I've started to shrug off work. I like my job... it's just that because it's so flexible, I am able to push it aside when there are other things going on, which is good for my sanity, but not so good for my assignments. But to be honest, when I know that an article I'm writing about some random program in some random department that's doing something semi-interesting isn't really that important to get out on a Thursday instead of the next Monday, there's not a lot of motivation to work extra hard on finishing it a day early.

My assignments are all the same, and it's easy to follow the basic format to bang out a story in a matter of hours... kitschy intro, then background details, then a quote or two, the general context and a catchy ending with contact information. I can't decide if the fact that I have it down is good or whether the lack of challenge is wasting my time. The only challenge, really, is getting people to respond to my e-mails on time. Which really has nothing to do with me anyway.

Work takes a back seat to so many other things in my life: family, school, AIESEC. But I got a lot done this weekend in all of these areas so that leaves room for work to creep back in. It's good to catch up every now and then, I guess.

¡vamos a Mexico!

Here's to spending two weeks and my twenty-second birthday in the "place of frogs" with my favorite @ travel buddy...

Flight 1
AMERICAN AIRLINES #2301
Depart : Chicago(ORD) at 6:10AM - March 22, 2007
Arrive : Dallas/Fort Worth(DFW) at 8:35AM - March 22, 2007

Flight 2
AMERICAN AIRLINES #3737
Depart : Dallas/Fort Worth(DFW) at 9:40AM - March 22, 2007
Arrive : Guanajuato/Leon(BJX) at 11:10AM - March 22, 2007

Flight 3
AMERICAN AIRLINES #3810
Depart : Guanajuato/Leon(BJX) at 7:10AM - April 06, 2007
Arrive : Dallas/Fort Worth(DFW) at 9:30AM - April 06, 2007

Flight 4
AMERICAN AIRLINES #2340
Depart : Dallas/Fort Worth(DFW) at 11:00AM - April 06, 2007
Arrive : Chicago(ORD) at 1:20PM - April 06, 2007

AIESECers from around the world, leadership development, crazy parties and amazing culture... does it get any better than this?