Back from Suomi

After a couple of very busy weeks I was happy to escape to Finland towards the end of July. First I travelled to Turku were I visited my aunt and cousin and could finally rest - sleep in, eat delicious food, stroll around in town, have nice converstions and practise my Finnish. After three wonderful days with my relatives I went to Helsinki to meet my EB and start team days. The first day we spent with catching up, doing some sightseeing and simply having loads of fun. But on the second and third day we were more serious and spent many hours on planning the new semester, revising the compendium, discussing the upcoming recruitment and induction of new members and all the other things we didn't have time for during the semester. The meetings were productive and I now feel very motivated to get things done and have an awesome second half of the term as LCP. After spending time together with my team I feel that we got stronger and also got to know each other better. I'm very much looking forward to working with them in the upcoming months.

While in Helsinki I also met some friends I got to know at a seminar for university students with Finnish descent two years ago. It was loads of fun to spend time with Liisa (American-Finnish), Amina (Egyptian-Finnish) and to hear what they have been doing. I also met Jarno who I got to know during an AIESEC exchange project. Together with my team and the before mentioned friends I also explored the bars and clubs of Helsinki, with the result that I was rather tired after four days in the capital. ;-)

After these exciting days ScaLDS 2007 started at the School of Economics with the opening plenary. The following five days consisted of intensive discussions, sessions on (personal) leadership, team exercises, workshops held by externals on current issues such as emerging markets or sustainability, but also of too little sleep due to funny parties, great laughs with the Swiss delegation and many unique moments of randomness. I enjoyed the conference a lot, although I was very tired and towards the end also caught a cold. Once more I realized how cool it is to be part of the vast network of AIESEC.

Yesterday afternoon I got back to Switzerland and also after sleeping in today I feel tired, but nevertheless motivated to put all the ideas of the last days into action. Unfortunately I got an assignment for an university paper which is due in three weeks today. Oh well, it shouldn't be too difficult to work for my studies and at the same time for AIESEC, or should it? ;-)