AIESEC crazyness

Dear non-AIESECers: this piece contains a lot of insider information, explaining it all would go beyond the scope of this blog and probably also confuse you even more than only this does. I hope that after reading this you can still take me serious in the future.

I find myself very very exhausted after a great conference this weekend. Friday afternoon I went with Alison the racecardriver and one of our new members to Hamilton, where this year's Ontario Regional Conference was going to take place. It was hosted by McMaster University. Why would you call a university like that? Somehow it doesn't transfer the image of high-quality education to me, but whatever...together with Brett and eight of our new members we went there on friday, staying at the Crowne Plaza downtown. We were just about to leave for the opening plenary when we realized we didn't have the right version of the dance we would use to present our Local Committee and had to adapt our dance to the version we had. Which was actually a huge success, because we won the award for the best rollcall!!! As I experienced before in AIESEC Canada, winning things in Conferences always gets rewarded with booze in one or the other way, so when we were at a nightclub later that evening, we got a bottle of wodka to celebrate our success. Very very nice. The party was fun, unfortunately, as always in Canada, we got kicked out of the club at 2:15 because it would close. Why be so reasonable??? The bouncers also marked Gelaine's hands with two big black crosses, because she is underage and was not supposed to drink in there. That looked sooo funny. After the official party we had an afterparty at the hotel with some uninvited Russian guests who showed up in their underwear and attracted security attention. For once it weren't AIESECers causing complaints in the middle of the night at a hotel!!!

Getting up at saturday morning was hard, but not as hard as in other occasions. I had a long day of interesting sessions, I didn't really learn anything new (since this was my 10th conference not very surprising), but I got a bunch of new perspectives on things and I just enjoyed being there. Our new members were awesome and involved and participating and dancing all the time, which made Brett and me feel like proud parents. On saturday night there was a banquet, so we all dressed up nicely and had a fancy dinner and danced for some time. There was of course a huge afterparty at the hotel again, which I unfortunately missed because I went to my room to change, got into a very interesting discussion with my roommate from Indonesia and her friend from Korea and then passed out on my bed. Considering the details I've heard from the "never have I ever" - game the next morning it is probably better for my peace of mind that I missed it. And I also was fully awake and functioning, which is a good thing, since I was running group sessions on what a CEED is, how cool it is to do that and telling people what exactly I am doing. That would have been hard if I have been in the same state as at NOGX. To finish the conference we watched a small movie which I'd like to share with you:



After the conference our whole delegation had lunch at the mall, where we decided, after discussing the highs and lows of the conference to scare some people and perform the chair roll-call in the middle of the food court. It was a Brazilian saying illustrated by gestures and judging from the gestures it was x-rated. We did that, I took a video (it's on my facebook) and after that we left quickly, since people gave us very funny looks. Unfortunately Alison forgot to take her purse with her and when we were back at the hotel she realized and ran back to the mall, together with Alexey. He arrived before her, but the bag wasn't there anymore. Also people were giving him funny looks and repeated some of the hand gestures we made before. So he went to the security guard, who had taken the purse in right after we left. Apparently our little perfomance seemed like hexing it and people were afraid. Alexey, half-russian and a member of the Canadian army asking for it 15 minutes later also didn't really help restoring our image. But whatever...

I got home at five, exhausted but very very happy, read my sugarcubes and got even happier and now I am back in Guelph everyday life, which is as busy as always. Unfortunately I am still exhausted, so I better go to sleep. A lot of things have to be done and this week is shorter than the others, because on thursday night I am going to Coburgh with Rebecca, our VP ER to celebrate Thanksgiving with her family and then on saturday I go to London to my LCP's family's Thanksgiving. Finally, exciting times ahead again.