Buzz.
I'm on eight straight working days and counting!
On Thursday and Friday LC Tehran ran it's Induction Session for our 27 new members. It was a blast - we have some fantastic new members - really high quality. It was full on, lots of faci'ing, lots of organising etc - just the usual running around, but it felt great.
Yesterday was a public holiday for Eid al-Adha, or Eid e Gorban as they call it here. Iran really does Eids differently to other muslim countries. It's just not something that's really celebrated, as far as I can see. Persians call the New Year (March 21) Eid.
I think there's still a lot of bitterness about the Arab influence on Iran, everything from the alphabet, to some words, to Islam - all of it was brought (or imposed?) on the Persians, and they haven't forgotten.
/tangent.
Yes, so I spent yesterday at the boss' place, having a 'team day'. We did a good lot of work, mostly sharing our plans for the coming months, identifying our strengths and weaknesses, and reflecting on the past 5 months of our term. It was really good for us, we needed it.
So I'm back in the office today, then another weekend (which I also plan to work), then zoom off to Turkey for ATEMCO. Re-entry visa is in process, cheap bus tickets are being investigated, all in all we're looking good :)
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
ATEMCO
Ok - great news.
I applied to facilitate at a conference next month, and I was accepted!
I will be going to Turkey (Biggest Smile Ever) for ATEMCO - a conference with 700 delegates, running from 12-15 December.
I the re-entry visa is in the works, I will be able to get back :)
The conference is being held in Antalya, this massive tourist spot on the Mediterranean Sea.
I really can't wait - I'm so excited. I will be travelling by bus, because a. it's cheap, and b. I get to see parts of Iran and Turkey that I just wouldn't see by plane.
oh wow, oh yay! I really can't wait. I haven't been to a conference in sooo long, I can't wait to get my faci skills back in practice, and can you imagine being in a room with 700 passionate, excited, driven young people? What an adventure.
I applied to facilitate at a conference next month, and I was accepted!
I will be going to Turkey (Biggest Smile Ever) for ATEMCO - a conference with 700 delegates, running from 12-15 December.
I the re-entry visa is in the works, I will be able to get back :)
The conference is being held in Antalya, this massive tourist spot on the Mediterranean Sea.
I really can't wait - I'm so excited. I will be travelling by bus, because a. it's cheap, and b. I get to see parts of Iran and Turkey that I just wouldn't see by plane.
oh wow, oh yay! I really can't wait. I haven't been to a conference in sooo long, I can't wait to get my faci skills back in practice, and can you imagine being in a room with 700 passionate, excited, driven young people? What an adventure.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Wow, so life has been tearing along at an insane pace in the last few days. Ok, weeks.
I have been so busy at work, I'm losing my hair. (no, not really). We are currently mid-way through the "Recruitment - Selection - Allocation - Induction process. This means we are finding new members to join AIESEC, selecting the ones that are the best fit for the organisation, training them and putting them into teams.
It's been crazy. This week is selection interview week, so we have people coming and going all day, having hour-long interviews. I've done some as well, and the people are very promising.
I'm also still trying to keep fit. I'm certainly a lot healthier than when I left Australia. I'm feeling and looking good (if I do say so myself). Having two very fashionable friends is also helping my wardrobe!
The mountains are covered in snow - it's my mission every morning to check them out, to see how covered they are, if there are clouds obscuring them etc. Some days it's so cloudy, it's as if the mountains were never there in the first place.
The air is getting colder and we breathe out fog in the mornings. It won't be long until the snow starts falling in the city, I'm sure. The air at night is so cold, I know it's going to creep into my bones very soon. Time to start layering under those coats!
My team has been in Oman this week at a conference, so I have been the only MC member here. It's been fun though - nice not to have those stinky boys cluttering up the place :P
well, I think that's it for the minute. Nothing of consequence has really been happening (except adventures to different coffee shops). I'll write again when this madness of recruitment is over.
I have been so busy at work, I'm losing my hair. (no, not really). We are currently mid-way through the "Recruitment - Selection - Allocation - Induction process. This means we are finding new members to join AIESEC, selecting the ones that are the best fit for the organisation, training them and putting them into teams.
It's been crazy. This week is selection interview week, so we have people coming and going all day, having hour-long interviews. I've done some as well, and the people are very promising.
I'm also still trying to keep fit. I'm certainly a lot healthier than when I left Australia. I'm feeling and looking good (if I do say so myself). Having two very fashionable friends is also helping my wardrobe!
The mountains are covered in snow - it's my mission every morning to check them out, to see how covered they are, if there are clouds obscuring them etc. Some days it's so cloudy, it's as if the mountains were never there in the first place.
The air is getting colder and we breathe out fog in the mornings. It won't be long until the snow starts falling in the city, I'm sure. The air at night is so cold, I know it's going to creep into my bones very soon. Time to start layering under those coats!
My team has been in Oman this week at a conference, so I have been the only MC member here. It's been fun though - nice not to have those stinky boys cluttering up the place :P
well, I think that's it for the minute. Nothing of consequence has really been happening (except adventures to different coffee shops). I'll write again when this madness of recruitment is over.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Birthday
Last Wednesday was my birthday. I turned 22. It was a very strange day here in Tehran, and it was certainly the most unique birthday I've had so far.
I got up as usual, getting ready for the day. My roomate made me tasty chocolate biscuits to go with breakfast.
Work was strange. I spent almost the entire day alone in the office.
Why?
On 4 November 1979, Iranian students stormed the American Embassy and took the people inside hostage for 444 days. This year marked the 30th anniversary of that, and the young people this time were out, protesting the current government again. They haven't had a proper chance to do this in months.
So I was alone in the office because one of my collegues lives near a main trouble spot, so he had to stay at home. It was just far too risky to be out on the street. My other collegue didn't come in at all, and it wasn't til that night that he called me to say he'd been at another trouble spot, and had been affected by tear gas.
Finally 5pm rolled around and I headed home. I was under guidance to pack for a normal weekend, and to wear something nice.
The first thing that happened was that I was taken to get my ears pierced. It's been years since I've worn earrings, so it was nice to see them with little stones in there again.
We drove around for an hour, often passing the same places more than once, but no-one would say a word about what we were doing.
Finally we arrived at our regular awesome restaurant, Hafeziere. We headed upstairs, where I was greeted with a bunch of my friends singing 'Happy Birthday'! Complete with a coffee-flavoured cake, candles ablaze.
We had a wonderful dinner, laughing and enjoying ourselves. When it came to cut the cake, my friends did a traditional 'knife dance'... it's Persian dancing, but with the cake knife. Every time I tried to take it, it was danced away again. It was good fun. Finally, I had the knife, and made the cut. Suddenly, I watched my friend dig his hand into my cake. I had just enough time to think, "What the hell is he doing?" before I found cake all over my face! Another Iranian birthday tradition!
We shared the giant cake with some other folk who were having dinner on the other side of the restaurant. We were being pretty loud, and by that stage I'd also heard the Persian Version of the Happy Birthday song.
Well, the people to whom we gave the cake came over and wished me well. A large, well dressed man (complete with red bow tie, no less) said that he couldn't let the birthday girl go without having Happy Birthday sung in Italian! The man, Aldo, had a wonderful voice, and it was such a quirky surprise.
I received some wonderful gifts from my new friends too, I'm very lucky.
The evening ended soon enough. If we'd been at home of course, we would have headed out to while away the night somewhere dark and loud. But, alas, there's nothing like that to be found in Tehran, so instead we headed home.
I spent the rest of the weekend doing not a great deal, just relaxing. I don't think I'll see another birthday like that! (photos to come)
I got up as usual, getting ready for the day. My roomate made me tasty chocolate biscuits to go with breakfast.
Work was strange. I spent almost the entire day alone in the office.
Why?
On 4 November 1979, Iranian students stormed the American Embassy and took the people inside hostage for 444 days. This year marked the 30th anniversary of that, and the young people this time were out, protesting the current government again. They haven't had a proper chance to do this in months.
So I was alone in the office because one of my collegues lives near a main trouble spot, so he had to stay at home. It was just far too risky to be out on the street. My other collegue didn't come in at all, and it wasn't til that night that he called me to say he'd been at another trouble spot, and had been affected by tear gas.
Finally 5pm rolled around and I headed home. I was under guidance to pack for a normal weekend, and to wear something nice.
The first thing that happened was that I was taken to get my ears pierced. It's been years since I've worn earrings, so it was nice to see them with little stones in there again.
We drove around for an hour, often passing the same places more than once, but no-one would say a word about what we were doing.
Finally we arrived at our regular awesome restaurant, Hafeziere. We headed upstairs, where I was greeted with a bunch of my friends singing 'Happy Birthday'! Complete with a coffee-flavoured cake, candles ablaze.
We had a wonderful dinner, laughing and enjoying ourselves. When it came to cut the cake, my friends did a traditional 'knife dance'... it's Persian dancing, but with the cake knife. Every time I tried to take it, it was danced away again. It was good fun. Finally, I had the knife, and made the cut. Suddenly, I watched my friend dig his hand into my cake. I had just enough time to think, "What the hell is he doing?" before I found cake all over my face! Another Iranian birthday tradition!
We shared the giant cake with some other folk who were having dinner on the other side of the restaurant. We were being pretty loud, and by that stage I'd also heard the Persian Version of the Happy Birthday song.
Well, the people to whom we gave the cake came over and wished me well. A large, well dressed man (complete with red bow tie, no less) said that he couldn't let the birthday girl go without having Happy Birthday sung in Italian! The man, Aldo, had a wonderful voice, and it was such a quirky surprise.
I received some wonderful gifts from my new friends too, I'm very lucky.
The evening ended soon enough. If we'd been at home of course, we would have headed out to while away the night somewhere dark and loud. But, alas, there's nothing like that to be found in Tehran, so instead we headed home.
I spent the rest of the weekend doing not a great deal, just relaxing. I don't think I'll see another birthday like that! (photos to come)
Weekend of Adventure
Last weekend was amazing.
On Friday I jumped into a minibus with a big bunch of people I'd never met (and three I had met, to be fair), and drove off into the Iranian morning.
We drove for hours, climbing higher and higher mountain roads that seemed to get windier the higher we got. We stopped halfway for breakfast, overlooking a plain, complete with a lake and the most incredible snow-capped mountains in the background.
The drove some more and ended up in this little village. This village and it's inhabitants are the custodians of the most magnificent waterfall I have ever seen. Surrounded by apple orchards, giant cliffs rose up out of the earth, providing the melting snow an avenue to race down and fall from.
We drove some more, heading to another wee village on another mountain side. We unpacked the bus and headed for a little clearing, where we built a fire to cook our chicken on.
After a great hot meal, and some well-timed rain, we piled back into the bus, full fat and happy (and damp) to tackle the mountain roads home again.
We piled out of the bus in a mad rush, because by that time we were terribly late for our next adventure - an Iranian wedding.
We raced home, and I found myself squeezing into a red dress, my hair was primped, my face was painted, and suddenly we were racing to the other side of town. Finally, painfully, we arrived, 20 minutes away from the end of the proceedings.
It was a segregated wedding, so all the women-folk could dress in their finest clothes without the men ogling them. We walked in to see a hall filled with literally hundreds of women - a living, breathing rainbow of colours. There was more make up in that room than the storeroom of Myer, I swear.
They saved us some food, so we ate, and a bottle of the hardest liquor on offer: orange soft-drink, did the rounds of meeting family, and then all of a sudden it was over.
It was an incredibly intense day, but every minute was amazing.
On Friday I jumped into a minibus with a big bunch of people I'd never met (and three I had met, to be fair), and drove off into the Iranian morning.
We drove for hours, climbing higher and higher mountain roads that seemed to get windier the higher we got. We stopped halfway for breakfast, overlooking a plain, complete with a lake and the most incredible snow-capped mountains in the background.
The drove some more and ended up in this little village. This village and it's inhabitants are the custodians of the most magnificent waterfall I have ever seen. Surrounded by apple orchards, giant cliffs rose up out of the earth, providing the melting snow an avenue to race down and fall from.
We drove some more, heading to another wee village on another mountain side. We unpacked the bus and headed for a little clearing, where we built a fire to cook our chicken on.
After a great hot meal, and some well-timed rain, we piled back into the bus, full fat and happy (and damp) to tackle the mountain roads home again.
We piled out of the bus in a mad rush, because by that time we were terribly late for our next adventure - an Iranian wedding.
We raced home, and I found myself squeezing into a red dress, my hair was primped, my face was painted, and suddenly we were racing to the other side of town. Finally, painfully, we arrived, 20 minutes away from the end of the proceedings.
It was a segregated wedding, so all the women-folk could dress in their finest clothes without the men ogling them. We walked in to see a hall filled with literally hundreds of women - a living, breathing rainbow of colours. There was more make up in that room than the storeroom of Myer, I swear.
They saved us some food, so we ate, and a bottle of the hardest liquor on offer: orange soft-drink, did the rounds of meeting family, and then all of a sudden it was over.
It was an incredibly intense day, but every minute was amazing.
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