Cook team dinner, weekend in Belgium, interesting AI life...

I feel quite guilty to update my blog during working hours. But I just wish to share what I've been doing in the past week.

The weekend in Anterwepp was good. (I am not sure this is the right spelling, but anyways.) There are 2 things make me like that weekend: I swam for like 2 hours; the suburb was so close to the nature. I realized why I always couldn't really swim. I learnt when I was 15 or 14 because everyone has to pass a swimming exam to be able to join high school. I haven't swum ever since. I found myself so afraid of death. Because I cannot ride a bike either. (Are you a Chinese? Common!) I just don't want to be hurt. Like in real life, I have never been frustrated by the opportunities I really care about. On the other hand, I have always been frustrated by myself or the guys I liked. I think this is a very interesting point to reflect more about!

Starting from July 3rd, AI 0506 is leaving for our planning week. I reckon it is a very very big turning point for us - after planning, we take 80% of the work and we also really have an AI plan to be accountable to which will make our weekly priorities make a lot more sense.

Other things strike me last week are:

1) Matthew Neagle asked me what are the big things going to happen in AP. For 5 seconds, my brain went empty. I haven't even thought about this which I am supposed to think about or even come up with something like a plan! ;-( Now, it is on my nerve 24/7.

2) Pressure from other GNs. All the directors seem have hell a lot of ambition and grand plans for their GNs. As how competitive I am, I don't want to be left behind and am not happy about the current situation.

3) How everyone of us are influenced by other people in many ways than one. E.g. who we are; what we should do; etc. Right now, many of those who finish their AIESEC life will take a traineeship - completing @XP seems like a universal solution. What I will do next year? Hm...if I am not staying on AI for another year, I think I need several months to figure it out after July next year. Especially, understand who I am at that point of time.

Yesterday, I cooked Chinese food for team dinner. I have never ever cooked for 17 people. It was no fun, believe me! I feel myself like those middle-aged ladies working in the school cafeteria. Cooking is not fun at all if it is a collective manner. And food can never be yummy when the cook is not happy. Hm...some people said they liked the food - well, of course I care! I even care about how yummy of the dishes I ordered, let alone say I cooked them. I didn't like them at all, cuz it is the same taste as I did the whole year last year. Hm...boring!

That's what I did. This week, I will stay with myself most of the time and prepare for the planning week!

Greetings to all ove you who spend time reading my blog!

The 3rd (aka last) day

It is a luxury to blog or read others' blogs. Time flew by - 3 weeks past since I came here. And the whole team building ended on a peaceful, joyful and achieving note. I was so emotional when we were running the last session when people affirmed that being honest is something they appreciate the most of me while remembering I took that as a negative part of my personality because I always appear offensive towards others by telling the truth. Also because I felt really grateful to Pete and Satu who walked us through the whole process, teaching us hell a lot of theories, practices, ways of thinking, not only beneficial for our team but also for our life in general.

AI is for real. It feels like I am driving on a highway - I am not on the ground and suffering with heavy traffic, and I am power through everything at an incredible pace. Everyday, I am learning new stuff, coming up with new thoughts, understand more about myself, reflect a bit more and improve a bit more. Yet, I feel like running and running, try to be faster and faster. Still, I don't know what to expect and don't want to set any expectation. Instead, I want to prepare myself, as much as I can, to do a good job and one year seems really short.

This weekend is another free weekend. I am going with Cliff to Belgium for a BBQ and swimming. I cannot swimming. But I guess it will be fun and I can take my new bikini! ;-) Tonight and tomorrow, Steering Team members are arriving! So good to see some of the 0405 MCPs! A nice week though only 2 days left to do real work. But, it is fruitful!

To Flic, ready to share a lot of inspiration by working on Talent Development industry.

Team-Building-ING

2005-6-21

Today, there is no quote. At least it was not given by the facilitators.

Today is more about the real action part of the team building – build the authenticity in the team. Almost all of us had more energy and participation compared to day 1. I got so burnt sitting under the sunshine for 12 hours.

It came across many times that if we do know who we are as individuals, and dare to let others know the real us as well. It is the confidence of how much you like yourself as well the guts to allow other people to know more about yourself then accept or dismiss you. Interestingly, everyone cares how others perceive themselves and care a lot about each other on this team as well. Just the way we carry it might be different.

Today, the path to understand our stands for life and the part to feedback to each other’s stand really helped me to understand more about myself and to bridge the gap between the me-perceived me and others-perceived me. Again, I came across the problem that I always cannot be concrete – my life stand was not as concrete as others plus the ideas I have behind are not that clear. I think I still have quite a long way to discover this issue, and think about it myself to decide what approach I’ll adopt to realize my life stand.

Other interesting things I learnt today are:

1) Our bodies cannot lie.
2) How the 2 facilitators can naturally link everything together one after another while putting everything we as @ers are interested in in-between. How difficult it is to facilitate a team building of an AI team while all of us have been through so many similar sessions, while we are very close as a team and the purpose is to build the intimacy. How to create the balance of being the catylist and outsider is really tough!
3) My rough ideas about what does team authenticity mean and how we should create it.

1st day of team building facilitated by Future Consideration

2005-6-20

Quote of the day – the unexamined life is not worth living.

It has been a very long but definitely interesting day because 2 professionals called Pete and Satu (both are AIESEC alumni back in the late 90s) from Future Consideration came and facilitate team-building for the AI 05/06 team. I am not clear about what this organization is doing, should be more than interesting to explore more tomorrow.

Taking a look at what we’ve been doing today, though I was very sleepy for 15 minutes in the afternoon, first was more about culture understanding and our individual/team reaction towards it. This gives us a very good feeling of what exactly it is, which stage me as an individual as well the team is at, then how we can build on that. The knowledge is very new to me. The theory itself helped to clarify lots of misunderstanding I had before.

The 2nd part was about how to deliver requests and assessments. How different actions and activities are; the process to deliver a request which makes sure both me and the performer will commit to it; what is an assessment, how to deliver powerful assessment; what are the costs of not giving an assessment to someone you wanted to give; etc. I never know that there is so much knowledge or theory in our day to day life and work. I also first time realized no matter how much I was building a team with completely honest and open feedbacks, I am not yet comfortable with completely open and honest feedbacks within the AI team. Probably because it is a big team with 20 people on it. Probably because we haven't worked together much yet.

I think this might be something Flic will be definitely interested about and passionate to work on – talent development. I seriously realized its value though working in AIESEC, we always talk about individual development and stuffs like that. I am not surprised that there are people working in this area and make a living out of it.

I think there are so much stuff for me to reflect upon my last year's experience as an MCP regarding the theory and knowledge I am going to receive in these 3 days then digest and understand more about team working theory. More, I think it is how people interact with each other.

After an hectic 12 days work...

People started to bug me that I should update my blog.

It is the 18th day since I came here. It was extremely busy in the last 12 days because we worked non-stop! Largely because the weekend was a 'take-off' weekend which means the 05/06 team has to gather together and do some team bonding stuff.

AI life is of very fast pace thus I feel very tiring at the end of each working day. All the meetings and discussions have fixed hours and tight agenda. I cannot sit like a piece of useless stone in the boardroom though I am still trying my best to speak when 20 even 40 people are in the same discussion.

There are several factors making my AI life quite difficult especially when it comes across team discussions or meetings. I was an MCP thus I was driving all the meetings and I have thought through everything already. But here, I am a team mate who is more than often very new to the topics we are supposed to discuss and I am supposed to contribute by sharing my perspectives, Apart from that, working on a team with 20 very very brilliant people is the first time so far. AI is far far far from countries. Thus I sort of feel lack of motivation due to lack of influence. Simply because I don't see my MCs and cannot communicate with them.

But whatever it is, I think I am still striving to improve.

I started to do a lot of sports: soccer, volleyball, and hopefully more will come. I really really wish to play basketball. Maybe I should organize one sometime! Here in the AI office, you just need to send a mail to "ai office" or "ai social", people will reply if they wish to join your event. Rotterdam has a big big lake with nice beaches around it, hell yes, including the nudy one! You can go picnic, BBQ, play volleyball, or just hang out in the cafe's there. Chillax! ;-) Last night I went to the cinema. (Dude, it is only 8.75 euro at a Friday night. And non-weekend evenings, I can use my ISIC card to get discount! While in Beijing, it was 8 euro all the time. Same in Shanghai or even more expensive.) I haven't been to a cinema for at least 3 years. So it was a nice experience though I was sleeping because: 1) The movie wasn't that good. 2) I played soccer for 2 hours from 7pm to 9pm. Still, a nice experience!

Here in Rotterdam, I know I am having a very very short stay as a relocated director. Also, I know it is just a one year's term. I try my best to hang out and experience different things! Cliff and me are thinking of watching Chinese Youth Team's soccer match in the following weeks. Man, that's going to be exciting and first time as well.

Today, I helped out Helena (lele) to cook a brazilian lunch for 23 people! Man, that was a massive project! I still have no clue of what is brazilian food but it was very very yummy and hell a lot of courses! Cliff and me are hosting a big Saturday Chinese late afternoon lunch before we finish transition. Yah~ I suddenly found I cannot cook well or cook that many dishes right now. Strange and sad enough. I'll think about this and practise more.

I was checking John Kelly's weblog - I feel so happy to see those boys: Leon, Adam, Pierre, Peter, Delfy! Seems like a new cycle has started - new peopel arrive Beijing, lots of events, lots of sightseeing and everything. For many reasons, I am still more attached to my MCP job than my current AI post. I don't even doubt the excitement Leon will go through over the year.

Congrats to Aditi since she got matched to DHL Singapore. Albert is going as well. Man, there is a huge gang of hardcore AIESEC alumni working there!

Also, to Jesse, take care of yourself in Africa and have fun!

I hope this is a pretty descent update. I am doing good here - everyday I am knowning more about the current and the new team mates and some new perspectives to be on AI or for life. It is really exciting and worth experiencing!

A week in Rotterdam

The AP Chair - Huilin (MCP from AIESEC Malaysia) asked me for my first week's life and feeling about transition to be published on the community homepage. Thus I might as well update my weblog for this purpose.

Rotterdam is still cold during most of the time in the day apart from late in the afternoon like 6-7pm, the sunshine is very strong and sky is very blue. It sometimes rains crazily like hale and out of a sudden turns sunny again. It is windy like hell though Beijing was no less windy just with more sands and dust! ;-) While here, there is no break given.

I am quite amazed to be in a 'western democratic country' when you see all different types of people who 'challenge' your world view to a great deal which doesn't show up back in China thus I am still trying to get used to the diversity.

Work is good right now. Information has been flooding towards me about AIESEC history (with all small little details like when the first acceptance note was created), core work and a lot more later on. But information is not completely given by AIESEC alumni or the current AI team. Instead, we need to dig them by turning the entire office upside down (it was fun reading annual reports in the 50's and 60's!). Besides, there are many many discussions going on - in short, you need to pull information and digest them then come up with your opinions or understanding!

Life is quite hectic. 8:30am, I usually sit in the office, checking personal emails but the entire day, I was driven by the transition agenda and then need to head off for team dinner at around 8pm and then get back to the apartment at around 10pm. Still need to work out how to manage a day better and make it more fruitful.

I guess that's it. ;-)

A New Start Again!

The 3rd time in the last 6 months that I am taking KLM - my most hated airline. Because I was once stuck in Schipol airport for more than 30 hours without being taken care of by the airport at all after IPM. And the Dutch doesn't keep the time at all (its trains are always late and platforms are changed in a sudden). Food was never nice. Neither was the service!

My AI term definitely has a not that pleasant start - being stuck in the Shanghai airport because of the hales in Beijing for 3 hours. The good thing is that Liv didn't give up waiting for me (she has waited for me for 3 hours at Schipol. Poor girl!) And 'The Undoutchable' is my welcome gift from her.

Holland, I've been here twice before this time, is going to be the country I'll live for at least 6 months during my 14 months AI term if not more than that. I've lived in Bonn for a month in early 2004. I've lived in Beijing for a year. Yet, this new start still makes me feel uncomfortable for many many reasons:

1) Language:
I hardly understand what I was trying to buy in the supermarket and backeries. The only good thing is everything is still in English letters rather than any other random symbols - thus I can guess. But it is also good that most of the Dutch can speak English. ;-)

2) Timezone:
I guess I am get over this pretty soon. New time zone means I need to re-calculate everything and see how I can still keep in touch with parents and friends other where else. Not sure I'll successfully coordinate it. At least, I really want to. As Brodie said, the 14 months working and living habbits are going to be formed in the very first 14 days of our year. So...I have to be discipilned of what I want to do whta I dont!

3) People:
It is a big challenge because deep down I am a shy and closed person. Well...probably too lazy to network or get to know another one well. We have 40 AI members plus a few CEEDers later on even internal auditors and steering team here in the office. I guess I'll have to reach out, talk to people and spend time with a big group. Most importantly, getting to know the team really well - it is yet not easy for me. For those who know me really well definitely understand the reason. I sometimes turn out to be too judgemental when it comes to a person or a situation. ;-( So...I'll try to be as open-minded and patient as possible this time!

4) a new environment:
It always takes a while for me to love what I am experiencing right from the start. So I guess I still need a couple of weeks to really feel how valuable my current experiences and learning are! Right now, I am just feeling uncomfortable with things happening around me and faces I see on the streets. This is indeed called - out of my comfort zone to a great deal!

5) time management challenge:
I am not good at managing my time especially when I come to a new environment. I'll be dizzy and miserable for a while instead of organized and efficient. ;p But right now, I am very concerned about what I need to do, what I should read, what I should think through before hand, etc. Then I'll try my best to arrange everything.

There are good things about being here! The apartment I am staying just for the 2 months transition is very nice - 30 minutes walk to the office (good excercise everyday!) and has an excellent window view of the bridge and the canel. Dairy products are very cheap in supermarket. Taco (Marty) is here who I always want to talk with. Liv is very very nice to me. Cliff is here! I have some very lovely team mates who I like immediately! Later on, I'll hang out more often with Marije and Ruth to understand the country and its people. Manish gave me an indian skirt (damn short!) as a gift - quite lovely!

Oh, I forgot to say that, summer in Holland is indeed cold! People are wearing thick jackets and scarf! What kind of summer it is! But I think it is very cool, refreshing and chilling. Nice weather, at least I enjoy very much.