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.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
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.
Friday, October 23, 2009
Sorry I haven't written in so long!
It's Saturday yet again, so I find myself in the office, getting on top of things before the guys come in. This weekend was lovely, a really good recharge.
We played games (if you were a garden gnome, what would your name be and what colour would your hat be?), chilled out and watched Twilight, again.
Yesterday everyone headed up to hike Tochal, the 'Roof of Tehran'. I stayed at home, because I had a different appointment. A meeting at the Australian Embassy!!
I headed up to the fanciest area of Tehran, mansions everywhere, to find the official Australian Residence. A portion of the expat community gathered to discuss what to do in the event of an earthquake (we are sitting on a fault line, and there was a quake in the south last week). But that took about 15 minutes - the other 2 hours were spent socialising, listening to folks with the same accent as you, talking about where they were from and what on earth they were doing here.
I hadn't spoken to any Aussies in 5 months, and I'd forgotten how much I missed them. I'd also forgotten how to network! I spend most of my days using pidgin- or moderated English, so I found myself a bit rusty speaking in a completely natural, polite way to people.
This week should be a busy one, we are about to come into the busiest period for my area of responsibility.
Lots of love xo
It's Saturday yet again, so I find myself in the office, getting on top of things before the guys come in. This weekend was lovely, a really good recharge.
We played games (if you were a garden gnome, what would your name be and what colour would your hat be?), chilled out and watched Twilight, again.
Yesterday everyone headed up to hike Tochal, the 'Roof of Tehran'. I stayed at home, because I had a different appointment. A meeting at the Australian Embassy!!
I headed up to the fanciest area of Tehran, mansions everywhere, to find the official Australian Residence. A portion of the expat community gathered to discuss what to do in the event of an earthquake (we are sitting on a fault line, and there was a quake in the south last week). But that took about 15 minutes - the other 2 hours were spent socialising, listening to folks with the same accent as you, talking about where they were from and what on earth they were doing here.
I hadn't spoken to any Aussies in 5 months, and I'd forgotten how much I missed them. I'd also forgotten how to network! I spend most of my days using pidgin- or moderated English, so I found myself a bit rusty speaking in a completely natural, polite way to people.
This week should be a busy one, we are about to come into the busiest period for my area of responsibility.
Lots of love xo
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Thursday was a good relaxing day. I tidied up in the morning, swapping emails with mum (hi mum!).
Then I dropped into the Faculty to pick up my salary (No kidding, I got two 1,000,000 Rial notes)
I jumped into a taxi (observation: they are so easy to use, really. I don't know why I was so frazzled before) to Enghelab Sq, on the advice that the place is full of bookshops. I wandered around for ages, questioning my eyesight, before I finally found them all, on the other side of the Square.
I wandered through, 10, 15, 20 shops? all of them full to the brim with books. Most storefronts were displaying how-to-speak-english resources, TEOFL prep packs etc. Dictionaries abounded. I was looking for something to help with my Farsi study, but to no avail. I finally picked up a Farsi-English dictionary, so now I can start to decode the children's book I'm reading...
I inherited 3 novels from my predecessor, and I've read them all twice. I was looking for some fresh material, but no matter how hard I looked, I could not find a single English novel anywhere. It's disorienting to notice that my usual love of bookstores was a little dimmed in this case.
Finally (finally!) I found an english language book, "Great Expectations" by Dickins. I've never really been inspired to read the classics, but I was desperate, so I grabbed it.
More wandering, I came to my favourite coffee place in the whole world (excepting Cibo Rundle St). Translated to "Civilisation Cafe" this place is the bomb. The walls are covered with images of various revolutions (the fall of the Berlin Wall and Tehran 1979 are notable). The vibe is chilled, sometimes there's live music, the hippy guys and gals hang out there, smoke haze wafts around, and the coffee is decent. It's the coolest little place, I could imagine finding it down a Melbournian alley.
I saw out the sunset there, and wandered home.
Last night was grand! Mojdeh gave me a call, so I headed up to Darband with her, Mohammad and some non AIESEC friends of theirs (gasp!). Smoking shisha, drinking coffee and eating cheesecake, followed by dinner in the park. It was just so chilled out, and it's so nice to meet new people. I practice my farsi, and they practice their english, good times. In two weekend's time, I'll be heading to Shomal (the North) for a chillout session with them all, I'm really looking forward to it.
Work is going well, it's challenging to focus on it with all the dorm/visa dramas that have been going on lately. But we're getting there.
A comparative analysis on Tehran and Australian traffic etiquette will follow soon, hopefully :P
Then I dropped into the Faculty to pick up my salary (No kidding, I got two 1,000,000 Rial notes)
I jumped into a taxi (observation: they are so easy to use, really. I don't know why I was so frazzled before) to Enghelab Sq, on the advice that the place is full of bookshops. I wandered around for ages, questioning my eyesight, before I finally found them all, on the other side of the Square.
I wandered through, 10, 15, 20 shops? all of them full to the brim with books. Most storefronts were displaying how-to-speak-english resources, TEOFL prep packs etc. Dictionaries abounded. I was looking for something to help with my Farsi study, but to no avail. I finally picked up a Farsi-English dictionary, so now I can start to decode the children's book I'm reading...
I inherited 3 novels from my predecessor, and I've read them all twice. I was looking for some fresh material, but no matter how hard I looked, I could not find a single English novel anywhere. It's disorienting to notice that my usual love of bookstores was a little dimmed in this case.
Finally (finally!) I found an english language book, "Great Expectations" by Dickins. I've never really been inspired to read the classics, but I was desperate, so I grabbed it.
More wandering, I came to my favourite coffee place in the whole world (excepting Cibo Rundle St). Translated to "Civilisation Cafe" this place is the bomb. The walls are covered with images of various revolutions (the fall of the Berlin Wall and Tehran 1979 are notable). The vibe is chilled, sometimes there's live music, the hippy guys and gals hang out there, smoke haze wafts around, and the coffee is decent. It's the coolest little place, I could imagine finding it down a Melbournian alley.
I saw out the sunset there, and wandered home.
Last night was grand! Mojdeh gave me a call, so I headed up to Darband with her, Mohammad and some non AIESEC friends of theirs (gasp!). Smoking shisha, drinking coffee and eating cheesecake, followed by dinner in the park. It was just so chilled out, and it's so nice to meet new people. I practice my farsi, and they practice their english, good times. In two weekend's time, I'll be heading to Shomal (the North) for a chillout session with them all, I'm really looking forward to it.
Work is going well, it's challenging to focus on it with all the dorm/visa dramas that have been going on lately. But we're getting there.
A comparative analysis on Tehran and Australian traffic etiquette will follow soon, hopefully :P
taxi fun
Quick story from today:
I had to go down to the Ministry of Alien Affairs again today for visa stuff. (woo).
I got myself down to the junction, and jumped into a taxi ("Tacht Tavos? Merci"). We were cruising along, and suddenly my favourite Iranian song, "Jigili" comes on. So I try to restrain myself from rocking out in the backseat, but it doesn't quite work.
The next track rolls on, "Pure Love", a neat little mix of english and persian lyrics, of which I can sing exactly half. (Guess which half). *continues rocking out as discreetly as possible*
We arrived at Tacht Tevos with no worries. Anyway, I think the driver thought it was a hoot, or he'd just won the lottery or something. Taxi drivers will sometimes refuse to take the payment, because it's polite. Then you have to politely insist they take it, and then they do. Well, this fellow was particularly insistent, "gharbel nadare" over and over. I looked at him, like "are you serious fella?" but he was. I got out, looked at him again, to be sure, but he just smiled and drove off.
I have no idea what that was, but I'm pretty sure it's not a common occurance here!
I had to go down to the Ministry of Alien Affairs again today for visa stuff. (woo).
I got myself down to the junction, and jumped into a taxi ("Tacht Tavos? Merci"). We were cruising along, and suddenly my favourite Iranian song, "Jigili" comes on. So I try to restrain myself from rocking out in the backseat, but it doesn't quite work.
The next track rolls on, "Pure Love", a neat little mix of english and persian lyrics, of which I can sing exactly half. (Guess which half). *continues rocking out as discreetly as possible*
We arrived at Tacht Tevos with no worries. Anyway, I think the driver thought it was a hoot, or he'd just won the lottery or something. Taxi drivers will sometimes refuse to take the payment, because it's polite. Then you have to politely insist they take it, and then they do. Well, this fellow was particularly insistent, "gharbel nadare" over and over. I looked at him, like "are you serious fella?" but he was. I got out, looked at him again, to be sure, but he just smiled and drove off.
I have no idea what that was, but I'm pretty sure it's not a common occurance here!
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