Kicking off my AI journey

Today is just like roller coaster.

Morning, 10a.m.,I sent my letter of rejection to my beloved U.S.A and said goodbye to whoever might be waiting for me in D.C..

Noon, 12a.m., I cooked again, as normal.

Afternoon, 1p.m.,I printed out all the AI candidate application forms of last session and AI VP Finance forms of last 3 sessions. 248 pages in all!

Afternoon, 2p.m., my intensive time schedule for AI journey is finished, including AI forms, EL& Networks, MC Finance, IPM Prep, Visa&Logistics, Master application, PD system dev, 7 parts in all. I'm crazy.

Afternoon, 3p.m.,I enrolled in GMAT test on Feb 8th, my Birthday. But God knows I havn't touched anything named GMAT for one year already.

Afternoon, 4p.m., I went out for shopping, mainly about Global Finance Magazine and Books. I enjoyed a sunny walk by the Pearl River.

Afternoon, 5p.m., at home, I opened Email and saw emails from Beatrice & Mindy, saying I could be matched, and I think, umm, great, accept it. It took only 2 mins, from knowing there is a TN to accepting it. I stayed calm when talking with Mindy on MSN phone. GCP for X Growth Strategy.

Evening, 7p.m., I watched my beloved 金田一.

Evening, 8p.m., I got an email from Erasmus, saying my application is qualified, as long as I could provide GMAT over 650.

Evening, 9p.m., I made several phone calls, knowing that a very high-profil @er might be my potential competitor, and I began quivering.

Evening, 9:30p.m, I made many insane calls...shame on myself.

Evening, 11p.m., I began calm down

Evening, 12p.m., I began my AI application form Version 1.2

Evening, 12:30p.m., Andrea talked to me! She encouraged me to chase for AI in her special way!:P

Evening, 1a.m., Vladi began sharing his election XP with me in details, and even shared with me about his private personaility. I just could not stop saying "Vladi is too great!" to Mindy, who is crazy about another stuff:P

Evening, 2a.m., Tobi asked me to improve the input for endorsement letter.

Evening, 3a.m., I read the mail from Gabiza that she would run for AI PD also.

Evening, 3:30a.m, I talked a lot with Beatrice on MSN of being their incoming intern and her insight into LC dev & personal goals! I was amazed a lot by her! Add oil, Beatrice!

Evening, 4a.m., Ines said " you are crazy, dont work on the last day of year!" and told me that she is running for AI PD also. Suddenly we 2 both said at the same time, we are so proud to be PDU!! Yes, we are the most excellent this year!

Evening, 4:30a.m., Gary said to me on MSN, I hope Crystal could speak out I'm proud to be AI candidate. Yes, I'm proud, but I won't speak out! Haha~

Evening, 4:50a.m., I'm going to shut down my laptop babe and sleep, but I'm just too excited to fall asleep, simply not only b/c it's the last day of the 2005, but also b/c it's the 1st day of my AI journey!

How do I feel?

F**king Excellent!!! I keep smiling the whole day, yeah, I don't hava any reason not to do so, because I'm so closd to my dream, my @ dream right now!

Let's hope!:P

Update..

..of course passed exam! :)

12 hours to go

finally made it home in a rush after phonecalls confirmed that also the party area of Hong Kong "lan kqai Fong" and the complete area of Central is going to be shut down after riots by koreans started a few hours before....

Anyway...13 cigarettes (I just wanna confirm that I AM (!!) a non- smoker!!) and 2 Mars bars later I am a little less frustrated about want awaits me today but still verrrrrrrrrry angry....12 hoursa to go before I ahve my taekwondo exam...anyway wihs it would be like dear Ron said: you jsut need a pass! But wanna have more than 'pass" and second even pass seems to be unreachable at the moment...having doubt about the exam now grew into doubt about the purpuise of human existance..( you kow this kind of...." the whole world is bad" thoughts...) and I still completly nerveracked about the exam....... i think this time I really cant do it...I know i could do it but can i do it today i guess...or am i just to nervous...arghhhhhh...should stop thinking about it and jsut get over it..too late anyway..12 hours to go...12 hours to practice left.....WISH ME LUCK! GUYS PRAY FOR ME!!!

and hopefully waiting for the answer: WHO IS MCP IN GERMANY 0607?!?!?!??
smile (just because drunk and stoned) andi ;))

2nd Blog from conference

last session about CSR and Fari Trade....

""productive and hardworking workforce 'which is underpaid' should be history"
... how much more time has to go by to reaLIZE THAT...just with a short glanze over the border at the factiroes in china....

CSR that is pursuit to enhance profits is not CSR"
... than i guess we need to rename a lot of company activties currently branded as CSR ... as one of the answers why they do CSR is usually also as longterm strategy to increase market share and profits...


bye for now...more sessiosn to go..

Blogging from WTO Fair Trade conference

just sitting in fourth session listening about how fair trade lsessons can imapct policiy maing, speaker FTO leader from nepal:
working with woman empowerment ...and all the stories she uses to underline her work as FTo leader sound so similar to Grameen Bank experience in Bangladesh: margelised woman receiving funds and skills training and with that growing confidence due their finacial independence from husband income and contribution to the uplifting of the family situation.

"WTO should promote the trade without creating any redical imbalances"

Just think about the broader sense, poverty in nepal should be no suprise for anyone of us. Just yesterday read different articvle about Hong kong: Hong Kong as the highest number of Rolls Royse per head population....and than this: 'The proportion of elderly in the working population dropped from 31.5% in 1981 to 12.9% in 1998. With such meager earning power, the old persons spend over 10 hours on picking up cardboard boxes by hauling a trolley through the traffic. They can only earn about HKD5 (USD0.65) a day or HKD150 (USD19.4) a month. A catty of cardboard boxes (about 600 grams) cost HKD15 cents (USD0.02). "

Poverty is not only where we all assume it to be, where we jsut expect it to be....it is most of the time jsut aroudn the corner in our own enviroment and we ignore it. Another article mentioned that a family of three has a budget of 500HK$ a month (!!)(my budget which I eceed regulary is 500HK$ a week just for me!!) for all accuring living expenses, the live in an "cubine". The article mentioned that a Mercedes benz is bigger than the whole cubine. Can you imagine living under this circumstance ..forever, not just for some time....?!?!

Need to make more sense of all of this....blog later again... more days to go in conference...

Our Hard Core!

If I am going to use one word to depict my feeling right now, it should be "excited". Yes, I am very sure all 12 individuals from Steering Team is extremely excited about the outputs of today. To be honest, we were all in a state of confusion in Day 2 and Day 3, as it seemed difficult to put things together, define organizational strategy and the business logic, interconnect all perspectives and set goals, critical success factors and key performance indicators.

But today, when we splitted into 2 groups on drafting the global planning and execution framework for AIESEC 2010, it was incrediably surprising both of the groups did come up with very similar framework with same principles which are aiming at delivering the hard core of the organization, striving for high quality process and creating centre of excellence to collaborate countries' efforts in maximizing impact. Well, when we checked again the relevance of the strategy map and the whole process, everything was very much interconnected and stakeholder-focused. Awesome.

The whole planning process made me very excited about the coming of IPM06 and translating our strategy map into measurable action with the other MCPs. I am now very proud to work in such a great team, and be part of the future, AIESEC 2010.

Another excitement was from Brand Update, IS Strategic Planning and Yoga lecture by Kamil.

Time flies. Tomorrow is the last day of 1st Steering Team meeting. Mates, let's gear up and find out the next steps to make things happen.

Gary

Update from The Netherlands

Dudes, I eventually arrived AI office in Rotterdam yesterday, and now staying in Kamil (AI VP Information System)'s flat. The first night with AI was simply so much fun and with a number of key learning points based on personal engagement with those individuals.

Most of the AI dudes are living in the same building on different floors. And they are having team dinner, from every Monddy to Thursday. Yesterday's team dinner was prepared by Tom Gara. Man, he is awesome. The food and dessert is extremely delicious. During the dinner, we not only heard rumor Dey, is the best cook ever, Brodie's the worst, and Sveta never cooks, but also made some jokes on each other.

Instead of having fun, I was impressed by Kamil, my roommate. I have never imagined we were so strongly connected and talked for more than an hour, about Chinese philosphy, IS architecture, Yoga, Tai Chi, reading and poetry. He smiled and said, 'Gary, have you ever imagined an IS guy will talk about poetry?' Ha! This is Kamil, a guy who is so much passionate about knowledge and wisdom.

I am sure Kamil and Alvin, are both green people. Some of you may know what it means.

Now is 8:25am. And I am very ready to start the first day of Steering Team meeting in the board room.

Attached are some pictures taken in Amsterdam.

Heading for Rotterdam!

I am now sitting in the Cathay Pacific lounge and waiting for my flight to Amsterdam. Still have 15 minutes to go, and do my very best to connect to the limited Internet access here.

What a day. The Supervisory Group Meeting came to an end at 930pm, and it made me rush to the airport and checked in as soon as possible. When I entered the gate, I got a strange feeling that this was the first time no one laughing at me, when I was checked in the immigration entrance...

Yes...I am travelling alone...

But with higher responsibility......

Hey, it's 12:10am. Time to go now! See you later!

December 2005

i guess i should be mroe creative with my Titles...anyway..shouldnt really matter i hope......

...finally got my life back...NLDS and AP Breakfast "forces me to quit all my precious daily routines....no gym in the morning....no taekownod at night...for a scary period of almost two weeks! After angry calls from my trainer how I imagine myself passing the exam in exactly 17 days (AHHHHH!!!) i went back yesterday.....uh.....am i out of training...and facing that i have only 169 days to go before i have to compete i have to seriously rethink my palnning,......anyway...


lots of challnges in the last tow weeks: NLDS was awesom!!! We had a great time and best of it...after 4 month living in this crappy apprtment we had a really really really nice bungalow for us!!! was s awesom bathroom!!!! But as always...... just a dream for 3 days..... what a pity! DLD was great! And in the end our facis...after saying no for soooo long, finally dance a AIESEC dance! and how!!! Man! what a memory!

And Glenn was the man of the CPs!!!! What a guy...funny...smart....with tremendeous life experience! It was such a honor for all of us to attend his CP!!! And with boe Tie, screaming green 80ties jacket and this funny hat he was definitly the most stylish man of the evening! AN dafterwarss he told me: "it was the best evening I had for a very long time"....hachhhhhhhhh!!! How nice!!! This is what makes it worth!!! :)

And now where i finally got my private life back, my two ceeders arriving soon to rock Alumni and Media are even harder and prudence rocking anyway...i can focus again on the more strategic parts of my work...and empower my teammates with all the operational detials :)))


smile
andi