Back at Blogging

Its been almost a year since my last blog here and everything has changed and not much as changed. Time passes so quickly and so much happens and yet as I look through my photos of the last five years, I can remember each of the events so clearly that its hard to believe it happened so long ago.

Twitter

its been way too long and i forgot that there was a big photo at the top of my website, so i thought it time that i get back on here and post something. i have recently become enthralled with Twitter, much like the rest of the world, but i was surprised to find that not a single person in my gmail contact list was using it. so as a result i have gone out and started searching for new twitter friends. so far it is pretty cool, and i can see the possibilities are quite great as twitter becomes more popular, in Australia in particular. there is the ability to find out things from people as they are happening, like natural disasters, election results, etc. because people write a quick, one-line message about them as they happen and it appears on my twitter page. also people twitter about things that interest them, interesting news articles, websites and the like. Finally, there is the opportunity to ask a question as a twitter and have any one of the people following your twitter to respond with their opinion or their useful answer. it is quite extraordinary and exciting.

Movember Yes! Exams Done!

Its Movember and I've donated my face, specifically the space between my nose and my mouth, to raise money for research into prostate cancer and male depression. To find out more click here, or to sponsor my Mo please go to http://www.movember.com/au/donate, enter my registration number which is 179488 and your credit card details. Or you can sponsor me by cheque made payable to the "Movember Foundation" clearly marking the donation as being for my Registration Number: 179488. Please mail cheques to: PO Box 292, Prahran VIC 3181. All donations over $2 are tax deductible.

The money raised by Movember is donated to the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia and beyondblue - the national depression initiative, which will use the funds to create awareness, fund research and increase support networks for those men who suffer from prostate cancer and male depression.

In other news, I have completed all of my exams for the year and I am relatively happy with how it all went. My first and last were ok, but marketing in the middle was supposed to be my best but i think i mucked it up. We'll soon see. At this stage there is nothing I can do except enjoy my holidays and try and get some stuff done. These holidays I'm doing three weeks of work experience at three different companies, holidaying in Mollymook, and have a conference in Perth (as well as time for fun). I can't wait. In the mean time I'm working on a number of little projects and catching up with friends I've been meaning to see for ages.

I love summer.

Its been a long time

Hey. I'm back. Its been a while since I have posted and I have no excuse except for the fact that i'm blog lazy. I've been trying to avoid blogging of late so as to concentrate on studying, but I feel I have to leave a quick post. I lost my domain name this week which has resulted in avecmatilda.com leaving my hands. If you are reading this post you have visited it at avecmatilda.blogspot.com . All this is a big pain in the ass, co sit has meant me having to redirect all emails and links to non-avecmatilda.com addresses and it couldn't have come at a worse time. I'm not sure if i'll be able to get it back. i have emailed the registration company but i dont know what will come of it. it really pisses me off. i never once got a warning or anything and i have had the domain for 4 years. damn it.

in other news, i have three exams this semester, and they are all next week - mon, wed, fri. and I am very much looking forward to getting them done so i can relax and do some other more constructive stuff. its a beautiful day today, i love the sun. i'm gonna head into uni and do some study. wooo.

My AIESEC Experience Thus Far

It feels like a lifetime ago that I went searching for a student organization that would allow me to stay in touch with my love for travel, but it is not that long ago. Last year I lived and worked in Paris and met many people from around the world. On returning to Australia at the start of the year I knew that I needed to do something more than just study and went looking for a student club that I could join, which would enable me to maybe do some more travel and have some other adventures overseas before I finish my degree at the end of next year. However, what I found was so much more than that.

I joined a handful of student organizations at the start of the year because I didn’t really know what each one was, and what each one did, so I figured, like most things, trial and error was the best way to find out which one was suitable for me. The first days of AIESEC were interesting, but it took me a while to get even the slightest grasp of what the group was. I took a leap of faith and went to the State Conference over a weekend in April, to a little site in Flinders somewhere with 80 plus new people I had never met. I, like many other new members, didn’t know a single other person, so it was a strange experience, heading out to the countryside, to who-knows-where, with total strangers, to find out more about an organization I knew nothing about. I remember my fear that AIESEC might be some fundamentalist Christian group or that there would be a no-alcohol policy at the camp. However, I soon found out that, although AIESEC is a force unto itself, it is not fundamentalist, and it certainly doesn’t have a no-alcohol policy.

After State Conference I had a better idea of what the organization was. It wasn’t just about exchange, although that’s the main purpose for the group. I discovered that there was much more to it, all centered around the people of AIESEC. Essentially, the organization works to enable people to go on exchange from Australia to other countries, and for people from other countries to come on exchange to Australia. However, it also enables new friendships of people who would have otherwise never met, to foster understanding between different cultures, to improve individual’s management and organizing abilities, to challenge people and push them from their comfort zone, and to expand people’s belief in themselves and help them discover that they are only limited by their own perception of their world.

I soon realized after State Conference that AIESEC was probably going to dominate my life as I discovered that everything the organization believed in and stood for essentially aligned with my own beliefs and goals. I had found an opportunity to challenge and improve myself, while meeting new people and discovering new cultures, and to top it all off it opened up a world of exchange to me. Exchange possibilities such as going to a development conference in Africa, helping set-up committees in countries like Yemen or Bahrain, working for a non-profit organization in Veitnam or China, teaching English in Romania, or working in a business management firm in Brazil, or Russia, or South Africa, or South Korea, or Canada, or anywhere… The possibilities are truly endless.

My world is simply limited by me and what I believe I can do. You discover in AIESEC, through real experiences, that you can truly do anything that you believe you can do. You realize that in the past, the only reason you didn’t try something is because you thought you couldn’t do it, and looking back you discover that it was YOU who stopped you from achieving and nothing else. Everyone has the amazing ability to do wonderful things, if you just try and do it, succeed or fail, try, and try again and before you know it, that event or goal that you thought could never be done, will be accomplished and you will be looking for the next great challenge to conquer.

After National Conference in July this year, AIESEC Melbourne came back to university with a renewed vigour and true understanding of this limitless potential. We are now striving to pass on this opportunity to as many people as we can and have them living and working their dreams overseas or in Melbourne. All members of the organization in Melbourne work so hard for AIESEC to enable themselves, other members, and new recruits terrific opportunities in Melbourne and around the world. We go to uni and attend classes, but after learning about event management or human resources, we don’t just go home and open a book and do some more study, we attend meetings with Melbourne businesses, organize our own events, strategise new possibilities for the future, and develop our members in the direction they want to go. In AIESEC you aren’t just studying at uni and meeting friends, you are developing an aspect of yourself which other people won’t develop for many years in their life, or may never develop. As an AIESECer you are leagues ahead of the rest of the pack, but it doesn’t matter because you are achieving amazing things with wonderful people and having a great time doing it.

Holidays?

Exams are over. Woo hoo. I've been on holidays now for a week and its been a welcome change from studying all hours. For the last week I have been planning for Global Village, helping my parents with their business, and working hard at the coffee shop. Its been a nice break, but it is soon to be over. I've managed to do somethings that I wanted to achieve these holidays. But there is still tonnes I would like to do. So far I've managed to get a haircut, the shortest in the last 3 years, and today I went to the dentist. It was very worrying because I was visiting a new dentist (because my old dentist was a butcher) however it wasn't a big deal. I had a really big hole, which he filled, and he found another small one, which I'm getting fixed up tomorrow. My teeth are not in good condition and I blame all the sugar I ate while travelling in the US, and the fact I didn't brush enough while I was travelling.

So Sunday July 8 is the day of the Global Village, a big cultural celebration being hosted by AIESEC Victoria at the University of Melbourne. And its FREE. It starts at 10am with morning tea and an introduction of the day. Then you can chose to attend a forum on 'Media’ s representation of race and culture' or an 'Oaktree foundation leadership workshop' or a 'Story of migrants workshop'. A free lunch then follows, where there will be stalls with representatives from various NPOs and AIESEC Local Committees, music from Jungal and the Ghana Association, and cultural trade stalls. Following lunch, you can then attend another choice of a forum or one of the workshops: a forum on the 'Impact of immigration policies on Australian society', or a workshop on 'Love and Friendship across cultures', or a workshop on 'Interpreting and translation'. Then at 2:45 there is the closing ceremony and the day ends at 3pm. It should be a fun and exciting day, and I am looking forward to meeting some new and interesting people.

Then on Monday the AIESEC National Conference begins where representatives from the 14 AIESEC committees around Australia meet at Melbourne University to discuss the issues we see as important in the world at the moment, strategies for tackling these issues, and skills to enable us to better live and lead in the future. We'll also be doing lots of fun stuff too, and partying every night. It should be a blast.

Exams Goddamit.

Exams are coming up hard and fast and I am studying like a ferret chasing a rabbit through a bamboo garden with a water feature. Its getting tiring and I haven't even had my first exam yet. Its in two days and its Operations Management and its a headache. But my exams and assignments are reasonably well spread out so its not that bad. I have roughly a week following this exam to finish a Classical Athens essay, then I have another week til my HRM exam, then another week until my Viking assignment is due. So its pretty good. However, I am still stressed and I cannot wait for it to all be over.

Today, on the tram into uni, an old man sat opposite me. He looked a little down on his luck, with a torn cardigan, a hole in his shoe and an old gym bag, but I was busy studying so I tried to concentrate on my reading. However, this was difficult as he was attempting to fix his watch. When the tram made jerky movement he kept almost dropping the watch and I could see he was battling. Then, inevitably, he dropped the little metal pin that was causing all his grief. The pin that holds the arm to the watch. He leaned over, head virtually in my lap, and tried for the next 5 minutes to pick up the minute piece. However, his old eyes and shaky hands prevented this and he eventually gave up. I offered my assistance and, thanks to the fact that I haven't cut my nails in too long a time, I had no trouble in picking up the tiny piece. He pushed the watch into my personal space and said in a slightly desperate tone, "you fix?" I told him that I doubted I could but that I would give it a shot. He said, "oh, thank you, thank you." I told him to hold onto his thank yous until we saw how I went at it. Unfortunately, I had no luck and I apoligised, handed it back to him and suggested that he kept it safe and take it to a watchmaker. He said ok and proceeded to continue to try and fix it himself. He dropped the tiny metal piece again, but lost it that time. He then lifted his left foot, lifted his right foot, I lifted my feet. He looked all around, in the folds of his jeans, in his cardigan pocket, under his bag, then finally he stood up and it was there, underneath him. He then droped the watch.

I picked it up and asked if I could have the little metal part again. I carefully examed it and realised that one end of it was springy, so for the next ten minutes I fiddled and fiddled, and finally, thanks to my femininishly long nails, managed to click the little pin back in, and thereby fix the watch. He said, "oh thank you, thank you" again and I told him that it was no problem. He got off the tram at the next stop and thanked me again before departing. I then returned to my study, comfortable in the knowledge that if these exams don't go as I hope, I can always fall back to my other skills such as watch fixing.