Farewell

Hi there,
To all my known and unknown readers, to the people interested in my stories and my life in the past almost 1 year. I'm writing my last (60th) post here. I'm writing a goodbye, a farewell post, a closure.
There was a reason I started blogging - I was away from home, away from my friends and wanted to share what's happening with me. I wanted the whole world to know my stories and to see what I've done. Thing's have changed, I changed! It's been half an year since I'm back home in Bulgaria! Many things happened to me, I experienced a lot, I did things I didn't think I'm capable of. Normally I would want to show off with them, share them, say it out loud. Alas, not any more! I just don't feel the need of sharing that much - some things are too personal, some are not significant, and some are maybe not so interesting. I've realized I'm not so dependant on people's opinion anymore. I did things that are questionable, that are not the things people expect of me. Actually I'm quite satisfied with those things.
Besides, an interesting part of the year is comming - the end of the old year and the beginning of a brand new one. In the next year I want to stop planning and saying too much, but actually act more and do the things I want. I just don't think that blogging is one of them.
So I want to wish you a Happy New Year and a tremendous beginning of 2008. May it be very eventful and interesting for you and I hope you achieve the things you couldn't during the past year but also start actions on the dreams you think will never be realized!
Best wishes!
Ivo

"This is my December
This is my time of the year"

That's right - December is my favourite month! I love the winter cosiness it brings, the beauty of the snow-covered trees, the many holidays this month has :P This is an eventful month trapped between the beginning of a new year of my life (just after my birthday, which is today;)) and the end of the calendar year. I give my best during this month an try to achieve what I couldn't so far. Looking back at what happened since my last birthday I can say this was truly an amazing year filled with so many new experiences and new opportunities. I'm proud of my achievements and realize the hunger for going on and on and challenging my limits. Even though sometimes I set too high goals, on this day I feel like everything is possible and nothing can stop me. Nothing can fade my smile today :)

NaLDS

It's about time to update my blog and share with you one of the most amazing experiences that happened to me recently - NaLDS. This is an AIESEC conferences that annually is held in Sankt Andreasberg, Germany. Throughout the years it had gained the popularity of one of the best conferences in AIESEC on the theme of leadership. Although a German conference every year it's becoming more international and there you can find delegates from all around the world. I was the only Bulgarian but I managed to meet very interesting people from Kenya, Romania, Denmark, Czech Republic, Serbia, Hungary, Nigeria, Columbia, Italy, Norway, Iran, Slovakia and many more. You can imagine the diversity we had during the Global Village :)
What is special about NaLDS is the atmosphere it creates. For one week you are disconnected from all your troubles and concerns back home and you have time for self-reflection and deeper understanding of your goals, vision and values. It makes you think about a lot of things and throughout the process you realize a lot of things about yourself. I really enjoyed the time spent with my home group - 12 amazing individuals (including 2 facis) with who we had great discussions, practical games and a lot of sharing. I once again realized how important is to share your thoughts and ideas and get a feedback from the others. I hope I managed to wrap up all the knowledge I got there and make use of the discussions and the reflection time. However I'm sure that NaLDS was very useful for me - I managed to align my thoughts and get really close to a very important decision about the next year of my life. Not to mention all the new friends I got there :) I love you guys and hope to see you again soon! Flyyy Eagles :P
Here are some pictures from NaLDS so that you can feel the incredible atmosphere there:

Home group 7 - The Eagles!


The whole group - Sami, Gustavo, Veronica, Ivan, Andreea, Maziar, me, Sascha, Martin, Martina, Davide and Sebastian

Official dinner

Work during the sessions

AIESEC dances

Me and Martina :)

Me and Peter - my host in Cologne

White, green and red - Bulgaria, Hungary and Italy

Can Bulgaria and Kenya be neigbours? On Global Village anything is possible :)

Nice snowy picture after the snow ball fight

LIS

So it finaly came - THE CONFERENCE - Local Induction Seminar of LC TU 2007! This was one of the most amazing experience I've had!!! It's hard to describe with word all the emotions I experienced, all the thoughts that were passing my mind, all the fun I had, and the satisfaction when everything finished!

So what happened and how we did it:

In LC TU we do it good, we do it interesting, we do it at the last possible moment :D We had so little preparation that I can't believe we made it. Instead of taking a good sleep before the opeing of the conference I was preparing sessions till 03:00 only to continue doing it from 05:00 on. We lacked time but we had a lot of passion and willingness to show our best and meet the delegates' expectations. We also had Ivo (MCP) who helped us a loooooooot and who made it possible for us to deliver such a good conference that will stay in the memories of the delegates.

And there came the delegates - around 35 curious people who had no idea what was going to happen to them in the next 2 days :) We left them no time to be bored :) I'm quite sure they enjoyed our sessions - both amuzing anf funny but also useful for them. It was my first time as facilitator. I thought it will be a bit uneasy and nervous for me but when I faced them and saw the friendly attitude in their eyes everything just came naturally. I was enjoying it so much :) My positive attitude and smile must have been contagiuos because the delegates were enjoing it as well. I was so proud back home reading my sugar cubes (short messages that everybody can send to whoever wants) where they were stating their approval of me as facilitator and of the conferense as whole :) It really touched me. Believe me the experience to face so many people and make them play, make them have fun, make them passionate about something is a feeling so great that I recommend it to everybody!

But what about our guests - we had quite interesting party delegates - a big group of alumni and members from LC UNWE came to see us and share the fun and the party with us. They were quite cool and really contributed for the good mood. Always in the middle of the party, they showed they have the AIESEC spirit in them and made me enjoy the night so much. Maybe the only bad thing about the party was that I slept only for 1 hour and barely made it home the next day, where the first thing I did was to jump in my bed and spend the next 12 hours thare ;)

I bet the conference was a bit tiring for all but also quite memorable and a cool start of a wonderful year in AIESEC! I do hope everybody was so inspired that those 2 days will keep them motivated for at least 2 years (:P) and lead them to success!

My thoughts are getting very random and I should stop writing. Instead I'll post some pictures :) I'll post more when i get the photos from Rumen who was not only an important member of my punishment team (oh my god this team was wild ;)) but also the person who made more pics than all the others together :D

Home Sweet Home

Last week I ended my 3-month traineeship in Coca-Cola and officially I’m unemployed now :) I needed a little break and I took it – I went home. It was 2 months since my last visit and my family was very happy to see me again. My brother went home with me so we were the 4 of us again.
Actually I had a reason to go home, a very good one – my grandfather had a birthday! It was his 70th birthday! We had a huge family reunion. My uncle, aunt and cousins came also so it turned out to be a big celebration :) My grandfather was extremely happy :)
I used the time in Shumen to catch up with some old friends, get a new phone number (+359883394826) and vote in the local mayor elections. Those were some nice relaxing 5 days that filled me with energy for the upcoming conferences – LIS on 1-2 November and NaLDS on 5-11 November. Looking forward to my next visit home!

My grandpa happy on his birthday

Nice family picture :)

First Step

First step as conference manager

First step as facilitator

First step in AIESEC for 25 enthusiastic persons

LIS 2007 - LIS the IIIrd
A chance to be creative. A chance to learn from past experience and implement good ideas. A chance to teach and learn.
LIS 2007 - let's make the first step together!

Recruitment

Today was the first day of a 3-day marathon of assessment centers and interviews for our candidates for new members in AIESEC. We have 53 applicant selected for that phase and only around 25 of them will be selected. It may be a tough competition because we have some very good candidates. It is quite challenging for us - the assessors - too. It's not an easy task to evaluate people. And no it's still the easy part - the tough will bet when we have to pick the exact 25 ones. I really hate rejecting people, it makes me feel bad. I need to be more bitchy and not care about that, but I can't! Anyway, I'll have to.

So, about today - very tiring but I'm very happy. We managed to go through 18 candidates and we really have some top picks. I was delighted by the working process and the profesionalism we showed. We also had fun together. Maybe here I have to say big thanks to Blago and Tanya, who helped us a lot! We couldn't make it without you, my friends!

And here are some pics with our candidates after completion of the first case of the assessment center :) They're cute, aren't they :P