AIESEC Roadtrip #.... 4?

This week I bought all my tickets for my big Brazil trip. I am leaving this morning and will be out and about for 12 days.

July 21 - July 24 - Curitiba
July 25 - July 29 - Recife
July 29 - Aug 2 - Salvador

For a map, you can go here. Curitiba is in the south, and both Recife and Salvador are in the northeast.

I am sure a huuuuge post, or several, will follow when I get back ;)

The Post You've All Been Waiting For...

Oi Gente!

Eu escrevo esta post em Portugês!! (não bom portugês.... mas....)

Na Sabado, eu fui para o feira. Eu comprei mais de comidas. Eu comprei os batatas, as maças, os cenauras e mais. Então, eu fui para supermarcado. Eu comprei o leite, os biscoitos, o suco de morango, o arroz e um bolo de banana. Legal, não é?

Depois, eu vi uma filme em TV e eu almoçei. Então, eu foi para ponto. Eu peguei o ônibus para Vila Madalena e eu paguei o mêtro para Vila Mariana. Eu foi para Festval Japonês com quatro amigos. Lá, eu comi sorvete tempura. Muito bom! E eu bebi caipirihna de sake.

Na Domingo, eu levantei a quatro horas e meia. Eu fui para ponto e eu peguei o ônibus e o mêtro para São Judas. Eu fui jogar softbol com os personnes de FEA. Eu bati o balo :P Estavo muito muito divertido. Nós chegamos em São Paulo a cinco horas. Eu fui para minha novo casa.

Hoje, eu escrevi os emails e eu fui para USP. Então, eu fui a casa de Marina. Ela ajuda eu entender portugês.

Então, eu fui para minha casa e eu jantei - arroz e chá. Mmmmmm.

Amanhã, eu tenho uma reunion com os AIESECers a cinco horas.

Esta tudo para hoje!! Mais tarde!!

Tchau tchau

Muitos Japas!

New Home

Friday was moving day. After our EB meeting (yes.. an EB meeting on Friday night during vacations... aren't we dedicated :P ) Fernando and Renato (both Japanese so I can still use the main title) drove me back to Iza's house to get my bags. I finished packing and said goodbye and then we we off in search of my new home. Yep... in search. None of us knew exactly how to get there, haha. But after a breif stop at Habib's to refuel (us, not the car) we found it. I am now, for the next two weeks, staying at Guilherme's apartment while he is away for vacation. So that works out well, but I will have to move again in two weeks when he comes back.

Japanese Festival... with a Brazilian Twist ;)

On Saturday afternoon I bravely took a bus to the subway and met up with Koba, Judy, Barbara and Kyle (LCP of @ITA) to go to the Japanese festival. They had a Taiko drup set up that you could try (pictures forcoming) and lots of little shops. There was a whole shop filled with manga but it was all in portuguese, oddly enough ;) They also had booths set up with food from all the different reagions of Japan. It was interesting, though, how everything was still a touch brazillian. One of the stalls was serving sake caipirhina, called saikirhina (don't quote me on the spelling). Other stalls were selling pastels :P Haha, so very Japanese. I tried some icecream tempura, which was veeeeery good. Then I had the great challenge of getting home. I took the subway and then the bus and asked for help in finding the right street, in Portuguese! And I made it back just fine.

Field of Dreams....

Yes.... this picture (which will be coming soon) IS in fact a softball diamond in the middle of a farm!

I got up at 4:30 this morning and met some of the members from the FEA USP softball team at the subway. Then we drove for a good hour and a half to a small town and then into the middle of a farm... where there were a set of beautiful softball diamonds. And wow, what a sight for sore eyes that was! I was in heaven! Softball diamonds!!!!!!!

So how does this section fit in with the main title? Well according to the team members, it was the Japanese who introduced baseball and softball to Brazil, and it is still largely this group that plays it. So 95% of the people there today were Japanese. The whole torunement was sponsored by Japanese companies and at lunch time they even had some Taiko Drum players come and perform, which was really cool.

I was so happy to be playing ball. They started me at shortstop (what on earth gave them that idea???) in the first game. I went 2 for 3 at the plate with the out being a line drive right at the third basemen that she caught >_<. We lost though. The in the second game I started in Centre Field, then went to First Base and then Third Base. We were down 8-0 after the first two innings, but had a great comback inning where we scored 7 runs... but it wasn't enough and we lost 11-9. I was 1 for 2 with a walk, the out again a liner at the third basemen (darn it!). But the hit was a really nice one, and I was very glad to have at least one really solid hit :)

Ok, ok... enough of the play by play... it was interesting playing in Portuguese :P There were cheers of "Vai Vai Vai!!!" [Go, go go] and I felt odd calling for the ball and yelling in English :P The team thought it was pretty neat to have me playing with them, and they cheered "Go Jess Go" when I batted :P Overall they were a really great group and I told them to stop by the AIESEC office in Aug for a visit. And I might get to play again with them later.

Playing today made me realize how much I missed softball, and if I have to opportunity to play ball at any point in the rest of my life, I should take it ;)

Oh, another intersting note, the rules they had were a real insult to gender equality (in a funny way). The guys were not allowed to:
- hit a homerun (if they did they were out)
- hit the ball "hard" at a girl (if they did they were out)
- steal
- slide
- bunt
The only thing the girls were not allowed to do was pitch. I thought this was quite humorous because I could hit the ball harder than a couple of the guys. :P

FEA USP FEA USP Vai Vai Vai!!! ;)

Essential Lessons from Plan

Hey, I haven't updated for a while because I haven't had access and time. I seem to have one, but not the other, at any given moment, which makes it tricky. :P

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Originally I wrote a big long post about the whole LC Planning process and my experiences as a faci for the sessions. But then I thought that it was rather long and boring for those not interested in such things. So if anyone should so desire that I explain how we modeled out LC planning with the AIESEC 2010 Scorecard, by all means ask me and I will be glad to tell you ;)

Overall it was a crazy and stressful but fun weekend. We had meetings until all hours of the night and delivered sessions on almost zero sleep, with ENERGY! We reararranged the agenda like a million times and still managed to get almost everything done :P

Here's a list of "interesteing" things I learned at Plan:

- Flash drives are amongst the best inventions ever. They save sanity.
- Doing vision sessions on mattresses does not lead to active listening
- When you are running on no sleep even the World Cup Final cannot keep you awake
- I suck, and I mean really suck, at Samurai Intergalactica
- Brigadeiro makes an excellent midday snack
- When people are half asleep you have to be very specific with your intructions
- Gotta love the inputs
- I like the CSFs, but the KPIs are still evil
- When you are sleep deprived you can't tell if you are listening to Portuguese or English
- Freed from Desire should be required learning for New Members
- Tunuk Tunuk will always be more popular than it should be
- If you have an election, and there's a pool nearby, you probably don't want to win
- On USP roadtrips you discuss the merits of the Brazillian military
- A giant hat will ALWAYS get around ;)
- Queen + Rubinho = the funniest rendition of We Will Rock You ever created
- And last but not least.... When we are all at our wits end, we will be saved by the $R1 cookies

*Note: pictures will be coming soon, but this computer doesn't have a USB port (stone age?... just kidding) so I have to add them later*

tick tick tick .... boom!

Haven't updated for a while because there hasn't been much to say. I've been working every day this week getting the sessions prepared for the Planning this weekend. I ended up with seven sessions in total. So I've been glued to Powerpoint and Word and @.net. Plus we are trying to finish our proposal for the Education project and capacitate the new EB.

I think my host family thinks I'm off partying every night because I come home so late :P And then I leave in the morning before they get up. I actually haven't seen Iza for days!

I'll admit that I have learned a lot in making the sessions :P But this week has been intense. I'm posting this right now just because my brain is totally fried from CSFs, ILPs, visions, values and other things.

I'd write something about the Planning process, but I think I would explode. Maybe later.

On a side note, I brought my laptop to school today, so I have internet! I even brought my webcam, but haven't had a chance to use it :( Come on MSN people!!!

Meetings, Futebol and Canada Day

Meetings:

This was the week of meetings. Steering Team. Education. Executive Board. It’s been busy!

On Friday I stayed home in the morning to make Nanaimo Bars for Canada Day. And I’m pleased to say they turned out really well!! And it was a nice break from measuring Key Performance Indicators ;)

On Saturday morning we had an EB meeting at Super’s house. It was supposed to start at 9:00am. Everyone was there…. Except Diogo! Haha, but we made some pancakes and just hung out until the meeting got underway (at 11:00). A quick Churrasco decided that I would be doing the meeting minutes :P.

Futebol

The Good the Bad and the Ugly:

The good: After the EB meeting we met up with some other @ers and went to a bar to watch the Brazil-France game. It was set up by Benoit, the French trainee, and we all got in free if we were supposedly sheering for France ;) They wanted to put him on TV as representing the French fans. Everyone was really excited and the green and yellow was almost blinding (and the noise almost deafening!)

Cheering for France, Gasp! Benoit (French) and Alexandra (Swiss)

The bad: Brazil lost. A lot of people looked really crushed. Honestly France played better, and deserved the win. But it was still disappointing. The fever is over. A lot of people came over and congratulated Benoit and wished his team luck, which was really nice.

The ugly: A couple people took the game a little too seriously, and after the game two guys started yelling at Benoit. A few plastic trumpets were thrown and then a few minutes later a fight broke out, between two Brazilians. Daniel, one of the former LCPs for @USP, kept telling me not to worry, but I wasn’t really. The @ers were all really embarrassed at the display and kept telling me that only the stupid people get carried away, which is true. 95% of the people were totally fine.

And now... the bright plastic trumpets fall silent

Funny side note: At the bar we ran into an American and when she found out I was Canadian she asked me “Hey, do you know how to play Eukre?” which I thought was pretty hilarious.

Canada Day

Last night I had my Canada Day party, which was really more of a get together than a party. I was hoping for a bigger turnout, but we had about 15 people there. I made pancakes and maple syrup, then we ordered some pizza as well. One of them was tuna! On pizza! But the @ers told me this was very normal… Go figure. After the pizza we had the Nanaimo Bars, which were very popular :) Then we listened to some Canadian music, including some Arrogant Worms, which everyone liked. And then I talked for a little while about Canada, and they asked me questions. Some of the questions were really good, like why didn’t Canada join with the US when the US went independent? And why do we have territories and how are they different from provinces? How is Canada affected by terrorism? I missed the last subway back home, so I stayed the night at the MC house with Barbara, one of the new MCVP LC Coaches.

Yay Canada Day!
Judy, Koba, Rubinho, Rubens, Alexandra

Mmmm... Nanaimo Bars

Upcoming: Next weekend in the LC Planning, which will be really intense. I am doing double duty as a faci (facilitator) so I have to prepare sessions as a member of the steering team and the EB. So this week will be a lot of time on the computer and on AIESEC.net. But I’m learning a lot through this process and I’m really hoping we can develop a strong year plan for the LC. Plus it will be really cool to have everyone together for the weekend, since it’s so rare for us all to be together.