YES - To Lead the Future

I just had one of the best Aiesec weeks of my life! Last Sunday night/Monday morning I found out that I would have the privelege of attending NATCO, Aiesec Turkey's national congress, and be facilitating YES, a congress for SN's (people who are going to be matched on traineeships). NATCO would be starting on Thursday evening, YES on Friday afternoon, but I would be heading to Istanbul on Tuesday afternoon for pre-meetings to prepare. The "faci" team for this congress was very small; only Tiago, who is actually a Brazilian trainee from Bursa and me, and the chair for YES congress, Ajda or "Adi", who is the MCP of Bulgaria (President of the national Aiesec in Bulgaria). I don't know how many people were there total from both congresses, but it was a lot. And I know a lot of people did not come because this congress was scheduled inconveniently right smack dab in the middle of university exam time. D'oh!

I can't elaborate on NATCO because everything was in Turkish and I couldn't understand even the titles of the sessions, but at YES we had sessions on Leadership, CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility), Cultural Understanding, and of course quite a few specifically about certain aspects of Aiesec. Of course, for as hard as Aiesec works, we play just as hard. There was an '80's party one night, and a crazy party sponsored by Beck's another night, where they donated a bunch of beer and brought their own dj's. And on the last night there was a really formal dinner. Not to mention that the hotel in which this congress is, is on the beach (Marmara Sea), and has a pool, hamam, bowling, and disco of its own. I can probably count the hours I slept the whole week on one hand.

The bags under my eyes are so worth it, though. If anything I regret sleeping even just those few hours. I met so many new people from all over Turkey, and I got to see some old familiar faces from the last congress that we went to in February. It was really quite nice to see the familiar faces, because when I said goodbye to them at the last congress, it was under the impression that we'd not be seeing each other again for a long time, if ever, since I was due to leave Turkey at the end of the project.

Ah yes, and the project. You've all heard from me how awesome the MMF project was, well now there's evidence! Aiesec Bursa took home three awards, and one of them was for Best Project in Turkey with MMF! The other two were Best LC Development, and Most Exchanges. So I think they deserve a pat on the back for that!

I learned so much myself, and made so many plans to visit people I don't know if it's humanly possible to do it all, but I'd sure like to try. I'm finding it extremely hard to focus at work, since it's my first day back. It's definitely no time for dilly-dallying, though, because I leave again in less than a month!! Yikes!