Monday, November 20, 2006
Quick one before midnight...
Another quick update as I just want to share some quick impressions with you before going to sleep...
Here are the highlights of the past days:
On Thursday, I was at Chodov with Solnitchka (Jana), having a relaxing evening and also learning a lot about the Czech Republic and the history of the area where I work. We were having dinner in the shopping center and enjoying the first Christmas decorations.
It was cool to discover the story behind the statue at the metro stop where I work. Before the revolution, Chodov was called Budovatelu, referring to the workers ethic of the communist period. We also discovered that by night the brand new business park looks even more futuristic than during the day. Thanks for the nice evening, Jana.
On Friday I had to work although it was a Czech national holiday. This is a small disadvantage of working for the Belgian market. However, AIESEC Prague was organising a whole day event called "Communism Day", which ended in a small visit to the Jan Palach memorial and a nice trainee dinner. I was lucky enough to be able to join for these last parts.
On Saturday I spent half of the day studying Czech, and the other half in the city with Judit's friends. This weekend it was her turn to host a lot of visitors. (5 of them, mainly from AEGEE Budapest)
On Sunday I spent most of the day at home. The weather was not exactly inviting, as you can (not) see in the picture below.
For my next post, be prepared for a Prague by night photo report. I'll show you a bit more of the beauty of my current home city.
Stay tuned...
Here are the highlights of the past days:
On Thursday, I was at Chodov with Solnitchka (Jana), having a relaxing evening and also learning a lot about the Czech Republic and the history of the area where I work. We were having dinner in the shopping center and enjoying the first Christmas decorations.
It was cool to discover the story behind the statue at the metro stop where I work. Before the revolution, Chodov was called Budovatelu, referring to the workers ethic of the communist period. We also discovered that by night the brand new business park looks even more futuristic than during the day. Thanks for the nice evening, Jana.
On Friday I had to work although it was a Czech national holiday. This is a small disadvantage of working for the Belgian market. However, AIESEC Prague was organising a whole day event called "Communism Day", which ended in a small visit to the Jan Palach memorial and a nice trainee dinner. I was lucky enough to be able to join for these last parts.
On Saturday I spent half of the day studying Czech, and the other half in the city with Judit's friends. This weekend it was her turn to host a lot of visitors. (5 of them, mainly from AEGEE Budapest)
On Sunday I spent most of the day at home. The weather was not exactly inviting, as you can (not) see in the picture below.
For my next post, be prepared for a Prague by night photo report. I'll show you a bit more of the beauty of my current home city.
Stay tuned...
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Meetings, offices, trainings
I am getting more and more convinced that AIESEC gives you exactly the company experience you need. Not by going on company visits, but because AIESEC is like a company itself. I spend most of my weeks attending meetings, designing trainings, or messing with a computer system which does not always work. Doesn't that sound familiar?
On Tuesday I joined the LC meeting of AIESEC CZU Prague. At the end of the meeting I held a small training about AIESEC history, values, vision and AIESEC 2010. It was really fun to look at these concepts with the perspective of AIESEC in another country.
In the office I am now working both with ancient AS/400 terminals and the latest release of SAP, and surprisingly both systems have very similar problems.
Even more surprisingly I have seen problems of this type before in something called AIESEC.net/Insight XP...
On Tuesday I joined the LC meeting of AIESEC CZU Prague. At the end of the meeting I held a small training about AIESEC history, values, vision and AIESEC 2010. It was really fun to look at these concepts with the perspective of AIESEC in another country.
In the office I am now working both with ancient AS/400 terminals and the latest release of SAP, and surprisingly both systems have very similar problems.
Even more surprisingly I have seen problems of this type before in something called AIESEC.net/Insight XP...
A busy weekend...
During the past weekend I had 6 visitors from Belgium in the apartment. Eva, Maggy, Elie, Annelies, Rob and Filip were all very enthousiastic about Prague.
There is still a long way to go before people in Western Europe will realise how cities like Prague are catching up with their home cities like Brussels and Paris and how in many ways Prague already has taken the lead.
It was very confronting to experience the differences between Belgian and Czech culture in this way. I had no idea about how much I already changed over the past months. The Czech culture is way more silent and people are really listening to each other. I noticed that in a Belgian group of 7 people on average 3 people are speaking at the same time. Because of this people need to speak louder to be understood. In a Czech group only 1 person is speaking while the others listen.
The Czechs also are much more aware of their culture, history and heritage. Petr gave us a tour of the national museum and he was really able to answer all our questions about the history of the Czech Republic and the city and the famous figures represented by the statues.
A last theme of the weekend was the overall cleanliness of the city here. People do not even think about throwing trash on the floor, even when in the whole metro system there are no trash bins.
To finish, here are some atmosphere pictures:
There is still a long way to go before people in Western Europe will realise how cities like Prague are catching up with their home cities like Brussels and Paris and how in many ways Prague already has taken the lead.
It was very confronting to experience the differences between Belgian and Czech culture in this way. I had no idea about how much I already changed over the past months. The Czech culture is way more silent and people are really listening to each other. I noticed that in a Belgian group of 7 people on average 3 people are speaking at the same time. Because of this people need to speak louder to be understood. In a Czech group only 1 person is speaking while the others listen.
The Czechs also are much more aware of their culture, history and heritage. Petr gave us a tour of the national museum and he was really able to answer all our questions about the history of the Czech Republic and the city and the famous figures represented by the statues.
A last theme of the weekend was the overall cleanliness of the city here. People do not even think about throwing trash on the floor, even when in the whole metro system there are no trash bins.
To finish, here are some atmosphere pictures:
Monday, November 13, 2006
FEEL 2006
This is a very late update, but I still think that my time at FEEL 2006 in Slovakia is worth a posting.
The past weekend was also interesting, but the update about that one is coming later this week.
FEEL 2006 is the biggest national conference of both Slovakia and Czech Republic. Because the 2 countries have this conference for their new members together it actually becomes an international conference.
Over 300 people participated and I got the opportunity to join a team of over 20 facilitators to make this conference a success.
Getting to the conference was a lonely train and bus trip of almost 12 hours, but that was soon forgotten when I arrived to the premeeting. The atmosphere was great and people were getting creative to make this event unforgettable for the new members.
The next day we officially opened the conference with one of the most energetic plenaries I've been in. JC from Norway was an excellent chair who managed to raise the energy level even higher.
Then we went into the team building games, which were the start of an intense simulation block which included a large range of AIESEC skills and knowledge.
One of the main sponsors of the even was L'Oreal. This allowed the organising committee to host a Funky hair party which was an amazing sight. Literally everyone was participating in this hairdressing extravaganza.
TopAlky is the most loved AIESEC tradition in both Slovakia and Czech Republic. This drinking competition is almost a religious event here. Even with 4 teams racing at a time the competition still took several hours. For the first time I participated in this game. My team only made it to the second round, which allowed me to wake up the next day without a headache.
For the rest of the conference I enjoyed the time in the simulation with my group, in the plenary representing the point of view of an AIESEC intern and in the Global Village representing Belgium.
Ted uz musim jit spat... (Now I already have to go to sleep...)
Kevin
The past weekend was also interesting, but the update about that one is coming later this week.
FEEL 2006 is the biggest national conference of both Slovakia and Czech Republic. Because the 2 countries have this conference for their new members together it actually becomes an international conference.
Over 300 people participated and I got the opportunity to join a team of over 20 facilitators to make this conference a success.
Getting to the conference was a lonely train and bus trip of almost 12 hours, but that was soon forgotten when I arrived to the premeeting. The atmosphere was great and people were getting creative to make this event unforgettable for the new members.
The next day we officially opened the conference with one of the most energetic plenaries I've been in. JC from Norway was an excellent chair who managed to raise the energy level even higher.
Then we went into the team building games, which were the start of an intense simulation block which included a large range of AIESEC skills and knowledge.
One of the main sponsors of the even was L'Oreal. This allowed the organising committee to host a Funky hair party which was an amazing sight. Literally everyone was participating in this hairdressing extravaganza.
TopAlky is the most loved AIESEC tradition in both Slovakia and Czech Republic. This drinking competition is almost a religious event here. Even with 4 teams racing at a time the competition still took several hours. For the first time I participated in this game. My team only made it to the second round, which allowed me to wake up the next day without a headache.
For the rest of the conference I enjoyed the time in the simulation with my group, in the plenary representing the point of view of an AIESEC intern and in the Global Village representing Belgium.
Ted uz musim jit spat... (Now I already have to go to sleep...)
Kevin
