across the ocean
It's definitely something to be here in Poland for IC. I'm not sure how to state it more exactly than that.
We're between sessions currently and I'm sitting at Prue's computer in the dormitory. Never thought I'd ever have to live in dorms again--now I remember why, vividly so, I didn't like it before. Beyond that, the campus would probably be beautiful if they actually mowed the lawns. I hear we're near the city centre, but I wouldn't know because there is hardly a minute free in the agenda. Sessions go until 2230, then you have a meeting. An hour later, the party is up and going.
And, let me say, the AP party was perhaps the funniest, most outrageous thing I've ever seen. Miss IC 2006 definitely looked like a woman in that minidress.
It's also nice to know that the caricature for women worldwide is big breasts.
In a room with 500+ people, representing roughly 95 countries, it's hard for the world to seem big. Nothing feels untouchable, and change has never seemed so possible. If you can bring all of these students here, to Warsaw, for two weeks out of their lives, why wouldn't they be the ones to make the change that's necessary to inspire greater things for our societies?
Two things from today:
1. David Pollay has been doing aspects of Positive Psychology with us throughout the conference and today's point was who is responsible for your being here at IC? The length of the list astounds me. And the complexity of the question in and of itself. Who got you to the point where you are? To the very place your'e standing--especially when it's such a position of privelege to have the luxury of membership in the world's largest student-run organisation, to being able to volunteer for the same, and then take two weeks and be in Warsaw.
The list began from birth and carried for decades (2.3 to be exact).
2. Another session today had us think about our ideal future and our goals in life. I shared them with a delegate from Afghanistan and we mused about the differences. I don't necessarily think about going back to my own country and changing it for the better. Oftentimes, I think about the United States as stuck in its own economic culture and being trapped in it. I used to dream about the impacts I could have on my home soil, and, truthfully, I still do to an extent. I know there's a lot to be changed there--and it's almost an umbrella of what's more in the world. Well, not almost. It is.
But now I find the appeal so much more to jump ship and head to other continents and see what I can do there before heading back to the States, if that happens to be in the game plan at all.
But it's so powerful to think of the possibilities. When you can have people from two countries with such political implications and recent regretful history sitting and sharing life aspirations in a country thousands of kilometers from home, what can't you do? Honestly.
There is so much work to be done. I have hardly a chance to journal anything because I've been busy, busy, busy. Today country meeting with Mexico. German meeting got cancelled. Set up a meeting with Afghanistan and will touch back with Pakistan for a definitive meet-up time. Crazy, crazy, crazy.
We're between sessions currently and I'm sitting at Prue's computer in the dormitory. Never thought I'd ever have to live in dorms again--now I remember why, vividly so, I didn't like it before. Beyond that, the campus would probably be beautiful if they actually mowed the lawns. I hear we're near the city centre, but I wouldn't know because there is hardly a minute free in the agenda. Sessions go until 2230, then you have a meeting. An hour later, the party is up and going.
And, let me say, the AP party was perhaps the funniest, most outrageous thing I've ever seen. Miss IC 2006 definitely looked like a woman in that minidress.
It's also nice to know that the caricature for women worldwide is big breasts.
In a room with 500+ people, representing roughly 95 countries, it's hard for the world to seem big. Nothing feels untouchable, and change has never seemed so possible. If you can bring all of these students here, to Warsaw, for two weeks out of their lives, why wouldn't they be the ones to make the change that's necessary to inspire greater things for our societies?
Two things from today:
1. David Pollay has been doing aspects of Positive Psychology with us throughout the conference and today's point was who is responsible for your being here at IC? The length of the list astounds me. And the complexity of the question in and of itself. Who got you to the point where you are? To the very place your'e standing--especially when it's such a position of privelege to have the luxury of membership in the world's largest student-run organisation, to being able to volunteer for the same, and then take two weeks and be in Warsaw.
The list began from birth and carried for decades (2.3 to be exact).
2. Another session today had us think about our ideal future and our goals in life. I shared them with a delegate from Afghanistan and we mused about the differences. I don't necessarily think about going back to my own country and changing it for the better. Oftentimes, I think about the United States as stuck in its own economic culture and being trapped in it. I used to dream about the impacts I could have on my home soil, and, truthfully, I still do to an extent. I know there's a lot to be changed there--and it's almost an umbrella of what's more in the world. Well, not almost. It is.
But now I find the appeal so much more to jump ship and head to other continents and see what I can do there before heading back to the States, if that happens to be in the game plan at all.
But it's so powerful to think of the possibilities. When you can have people from two countries with such political implications and recent regretful history sitting and sharing life aspirations in a country thousands of kilometers from home, what can't you do? Honestly.
There is so much work to be done. I have hardly a chance to journal anything because I've been busy, busy, busy. Today country meeting with Mexico. German meeting got cancelled. Set up a meeting with Afghanistan and will touch back with Pakistan for a definitive meet-up time. Crazy, crazy, crazy.
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