Author: Preston

On Tuesday I went to the Fabulous Fox Theatre for an interview and I got the job right then and there. Today I went for orientation, and I shadow bartend on Saturday night, with my first working night being Sunday.

I have gotten back into the AIESEC mindset (where appropriate), and have begun having meetings with the current Executive Board members. I had a meeting with the VP External Relations, Katie, this morning at the fresh hour of 08:30 at Bobbi & June’s Kountry Kitchen. It was one I had looked forward to especially – not only because I love Bobby and June’s, but also because I foresee ER as being a very big focus for us next year. There is a lot of growth potential there, and I’m passionate about getting as many students in a functional capacity as possible. I for one will be increasing my ER skills to the max in 2008. She also revealed that in the Georgia Tech Library Archives there exist many documents from AIESEC GT all the way back to Year 1: 1987. I plan on donning a tweed coat, a Stetson, and going deep into the vault to record that ancient and forgotten information. It will help us to put together a comprehensive history and statistical picture of things like exchange and membership at AIESEC GT, and it will also be very useful for our 20th anniversary banquet this December, when we will have many distinguished guests and alumni, including the LCP who started it all and hopefully even our current MCP Missy, who was LCP of GT in 2003.

Tomorrow I meet with Maddie, my formidable opponent in the LCP race and also the current VP Out-Going Exchange. That is the other major area I wish to focus on next year. I’d like to see at least 50% of the people we recruit next year go on an AIESEC exchange within one year of joining AIESEC. I also meet with Johanna, VP In-Coming Exchange, which is a role that is in jeapordy because of national developments. It will be a difficult but worthy challenge to realign its relevance.

Real work begins next week. My life reenters a schedule.

Today was a good day.

I got a memory-foam bed topper yesterday, and though I awoke at 9:00 this morning, I didn’t get out of bed until 10:30 it was so comfortable.

I went to campus, dropped off my two photos for the study abroad photo contest, and ate.

Then I went to the Georgia World Congress Center and registered to work events there care of Food Team, Inc. I also received a 15%-off coupon for Safe-T-Sole shoes from Payless, required for the job.

I drove from there to the newly-opened City Life Restaurant & Lounge, located well within the hood, but that’s how I like it. The woman who opened it is getting her clientele from gentrifying East Point – I’m not down with gentrification, but I am down with aiding in their wealth redistribution to me. She liked me a lot so I’m pretty sure I’ve got that job down pat.

From there I went a ways up Buford Highway to get the shoes, returned home and ate some bread with pumpkin butter on it (the bombtrack), and had a nice long conversation with Gabiza, President of AIESEC International.

Then I won the election for Local Committee President of AIESEC at Georgia Tech for the 2008 term. We celebrated at Little Szechuan.

Due to a new wiki launched by New Zealand police, members of the public can now contribute to the drafting of the new policing act.

NZ Police Superintendent Hamish McCardle, the officer in charge of developing the new act, said the initiative had already been described as a “new frontier of democracy”.

“People are calling it ‘extreme democracy’ and perhaps it is,” he said.

“It’s a novel move but when it comes to the principles that go into policing, the person on the street has a good idea … as they are a customer,” he said.

“They’ve got the best idea about how they want to be policed.”

That’s awesome.

You know the feeling, relating once again to Maslow’s Hierarchy, when you are so hungry you can’t possibly think or progress on any task. That’s how hungry I am now, waiting for 7:30 to arrive so I can discuss my LCP application with Charlie over Willy’s. It was to be Mellow Mushroom, but then he has a call later – related to LCP work. I hope it won’t shanghai my little pleasures if I’m elected.

I have applied to about eight jobs now, and spoken face-to-face with two of the employers. The one the PBS (Professional Bartending School) placement woman wants me to get has responded positively, which also makes me feel nice on the inside. Plus, I’ve found a place to live for the fall unusually rapidly. Things haven’t gone this well for P. Rhea in a long, long time.

Perhaps it’s because I’m no longer a GT student! After paying my fee to get access to the Campus Recreation Center, I withdrew from the work abroad class and then submitted my application for readmission. I’m part of the wider world for the fall now.

In other news, Burma is raging against the machine, but the fascists are cracking down again. BBC has blogged accounts here and lists a blogger named Ko-Htike who is gathering information from inside Burma and posting it in London. I hope they topple the fascists – it would be a nice bright spot in an otherwise darkening worldwide sky.

I am unhappy that I did not manage to sit myself down and write about the entirety of my IC experience, but I will sum it up thusly: It was the hardest working month of my life, and I learned more from it than I have learned from any other experience. The teambuilding among the CC was terrible and we were all exhausted and kind of angry by the end of the conference, but I guess that’s part of it – the delegates had a great time. I had some great learning experiences and I met some people I would never have gotten to meet without the power of the network. With all that under my belt, I was damn glad to be home by the time home came – also after a lot of wrangling around with finding a plane ticket home that did not cost $3,000.

The Izmir possibility fell through, and just before the conference started I was surprised with an offer from a Panamaian company through my university’s work abroad program. They basically told me that I had a position to work for the fall, they just needed to finalize payment issues and send me a letter of acceptance on Wednesday, August 29, to begin work in Panama City on Monday, September 10. Therefore I purchased plane tickets to return home on September 1.

When the letter did not come, I called GT Work Abroad, through whom went all contact, on the morning of Tuesday September 4 – still without a plane ticket to Panama and with an appointment to the travel doctor for shots in Birmingham the next day. I asked where my acceptance letter was, and they responded that that very morning the company had sent a letter to the work abroad office, stating that the higher-ups had determined there was no money for an intern for only three months – even if they didn’t pay me. So like that, I was out of a sweet internship, and since it was so late in the game I was also out of a chance to sign up for classes for the fall. I saw my Fall slide down the drain.

I sent out pleas and feelers to people in my network to get me something that was at least fourteen weeks in an electrical-computer engineering field for the fall, but I knew it was basically hopeless – and so it was. If I did not get something that started by September 17, it was going to be a no-go – and so it was. Even though I had one job in Spain offered to me, it was for at least a year minimum, and I need to start school back in January, so I had to regrettably turn it down.

For two weeks I was kind of a loser – I watched the entirety of the show Arrested Development on DVD (I recommend it) and visited friends in Atlanta, Birmingham, and Tuscaloosa a few times. I applied to a few jobs for construction, especially with electrical backgrounds, but nothing was coming up. So I decided after advice from a person on my EB last year and talking to some others, that I would attend bartending school and be a bartender for the fall. I made that decision more or less on Saturday evening, September 15. The next evening I was off to Atlanta to attend the Professional Bartending School. At 8 AM sharp for the next five days I was at that school, behind a bar, for 40 hours. I passed my written exam and practical speed test with flying colors, and I am now the proud holder of a Certificate of Mixology. The job and apartment search begin tomorrow morning.

I am currently having to couch-surf, but this is not terribly desirable due to the low stability and the annoyance it brings upon those with whom I stay. I want to get a place to live as soon as possible, hopefully for the next two years – I just found out on Saturday that my time in Turkey was approved to complete my International Plan abroad time, which means I’m locked into Atlanta to graduate hopefully by Spring 2009.

I intended to wax more reflective in this post, but the energy is seeping from my body. The unusually comfortable futon, with my own pillow, will restore my vigour for the beginning of the rest of my life.

Tomorrow is the last day of preconference. It’s been really sweet with people here, talking to old friends and meeting new ones. But of course the most important thing is my CC Marketing work, and ain’t that turning out to be something to increase my rep! I’ve met with the AI representatives in charge of the accounts I’ll be responsible for – Microsoft and InBev – and I can tell it’s gonna be interesting. In fact, one of the people in the “Microsoft Top Ten” – who was once a President of AIESEC International – will be here, and so I’ll be responsible for him. Plus I’ll learn how to pour and draft beer the InBev way, a useful skill.

I am also thankfully no longer in charge of ER storage, which was proving to be a big time-sucker.

Also, because of my mad Engrish skillz, I will be the emcee for the Opening Ceremony in front of 1000+ people. Considering that the previous IC Opening Ceremony had a sharp-looking Polish top celebrity as its emcee, I reckon this will increase my rep profile as well.

Izmir traineeship fell through. One final possibility in Panama, and if it ain’t that, Ecuador and GT re-application here I come!

A coupla hectic days, as things have suddenly been piled on where there was almost nothing before. Yesterday we were schooled in the Turkish way of marketing by some members from another team while our team leader was on a site tour with the VP Marketing, and then when we tried to explain this to her when she came back she got very stressed. Yesterday also started the planning process when we allocated roles to everyone, and I like the fool I am volunteered for more things than I should have. After many, many hours of nitpicking details and smoothing things out though, I think I have a schedule that will mean no sleep but an amazing amount of practical experience. The best part is the partners I’m managing – Microsoft and InBev! This means I get to network with a company that actually means something for my major, AND I’m with everyone’s favorite AIESEC global partner, InBev, which means that, damn, I HAVE to be at the parties every night. I just wonder where I’ll fit in sleeping, eating, and enjoying the conference halfway like a delegate – and when I’ll network with AIESECers. I also played a little soccer last night after our meeting ran over, but I’m so out of shape and haven’t played in a year and a half so I quit after one half. I was tired anyway!

Today I designed our storage system and worked with the Special Events team on making Global Village palatable to the externals. I also had some phone conversations with the US Embassy and Consulate, who are going to provide the US booth at Global Village with sweet materials and even two people who speak Turkish! Having a good GV table is always something to be proud of. Pretty much everyone in the CC went to the nargile cafe tonight for a couple of hours which was nice.

I learned yesterday that AIESEC LC Istanbul has a couple hundred thousand Euros in their bank account, owns its own house, and most amazingly, has a quota of 75 incoming and 75 outgoing exchanges per year. In LC Ankara, it’s 52 and 52. When I asked if they were all locally raised and managed – not taken over by the MC national team – they said, “of course they are local!” At this I was ready to write a long letter to AIESEC US on the spot decrying our current trends of centralizing exchange and STILL being behind Turkey in exchange numbers, but then I realized that they are already in the Leadership Team Meeting and so it wouldn’t make an impact. If they’re not doing their job now, an email from a guy far away won’t do it either.

Tomorrow things will continue to be stressful. I’m working hard on securing this Izmir technical traineeship, and if it goes through, then I can just relax until I go back to GT – no more worries! But it’s up to GT if they’ll let me use it as credit. I hope they make the right decision.

Here’s hoping I’m alive at the end of the day tomorrow to write something!

Yesterday was a lighter day thankfully, it wouldn’t have been cool to ramp right up into work after the day in Istanbul. The Marketing team did some work and then we went to the pool. I was tired and didn’t want to take a shower or go all the way up to the dorm to change into swim trunks, so I just laid out poolside. But then, the scheming Tiffany and her Turkish minions picked me up with my shorts and underwear on and threw me into the pool – which she facilitated by innocently asking to borrow my camera (at least she had concern for its value). So that was unfortunate, since I was in a peaceful, restful state before. Also it sucked because I was very low on some necessary clean clothes, and when we went today with a Turkish guy to figure out how to do laundry downstairs the guy who deals with it did not tell us we needed to bring him detergent – so I won’t have clean socks or pantaloons until tomorrow evening. But life goes on.

Last night was the CC Global Village. Our sound system wasn’t pumping loud, but it was still quite fun. I felt ashamed that I had not brought any foodstuffs or alcohol, but I did not know that the CC would have its own global village before the main IC one. I really got into this herb-toast that the Indians brought, and the Slovakian delegate (whom I met at ITC) had some delicious cookie-things. And of course there was plenty of different kinds of alcohol, from the stomach-dissolving Serbian vodka to the reliable Colombian rum to the translucent Turkish liquor, which I had made the mistake of taking a shot in the bodega in Valencia, and so when I saw and smelled it bad memories rushed in and I knew to stay away. The room was extremely hot though, since it was small and they can’t turn on the AC and all we could do was open the windows but we were all laughing and dancing anyway.

This morning I woke up exhausted even though I got seven hours of sleep – probably because I only got four the night before. Today was a very busy day, and we had it full from the 9 AM plenary. I wanted to take a nap all day long, but I never got to – I was falling asleep in the evening full team meeting. We got a lot done though, and things are progressing well. The marketing team is coming together pretty well in a teambuilding sense, but the first real evidence of a full-CC connection only started to be felt at the full team meeting tonight when the Indians showed the official video from IC 2005 in Agra, India. Afterwards, Turgay, the Transportation team leader, said how the whole reality of what we were going to accomplish hit him as he watched the video and he wanted to be prouder of his achievement at the end of this IC than anything he’d ever done. If ITC taught me anything, it’s that a strong, connected team is the most surefire element in producing a great result for these things – even more than high skill. I anticipate things will escalate quickly from here.

Tomorrow there’s a CC soccer game in which I am participating. Except for one Friday evening with AIESEC GT, I’ve not really played since the end of high school – those non-Americans are going to school me!

I did not post yesterday because nothing interesting happened, other than we called companies to try to get partnership or in-kinds. We won’t know until Monday if any of it worked. We smoked shisha for a long time on Friday night and there was supposed to be a party afterwards, and there kind of was but I never caught it.

Today was cool. Had to wake up right early to get on the bus with the gang to go into town, the tourist part of Istanbul. We saw the Basilica Cistern, the Blue Mosque, the Hagia Sophia, and went haggling at the Grand Bazaar. The first three were the usual tourist bit, and the Blue Mosque was the first functional mosque I’ve ever been in. I had to remove my shoes and the women who were wearing shorts had to get these shawls and such to put over their legs and their heads, and we went in and saw it and there were about 10 people praying. The Hagia Sophia is no longer functional as a mosque or a church, just a museum, but it was pretty sweet except for the large amount of scaffolding in the middle for restoration work. After Blue Mosque we ate at a place right next to the Pudding Shop, the place for people on the “hippie trail” to meet in Istanbul on their way to Kathmandu back in the day.

At the Grand Bazaar we split up in fragments and walked around, and I found a few places where I could get some sweet shirts of an “exotic” variety to a very boring American person. Between the four of us we decided we wanted five shirts, and although the dude told us the price was 20YTL (about $15.71) per shirt, we eventually beat him down to 62YTL for all five (about $48.71, so just under $10 per shirt). One of the Turkish CC members with us told us that the seller was trying to enlist his help against us – talk about good marketing skills, if we can beat a Turkish bazaar dealer! Later the four of us who got the shirts – myself, Will from the UK, Ivan from Serbia, and Andrei from Romania, were sitting outside at a cafe terrace when this guy came up and pushed some small rugs on us. I had considered getting a quality rug earlier, but it would be too expensive and any one I could remotely afford would have been to heavy to carry around in my bags to carry home. So I was just screwing around with the guy who initially wanted EUR50 per rug of two rugs, but I got him down to 20YTL for one. We figured he had stolen the rugs. He was still hawking them at the entrance to one part of the bazaar. We ate late at the university and just sat outside and drank for a little bit. It’s late now and tomorrow we have a full day.