My 2007

My 2007 passed extremely fast. Celebration of 2007 seems to be so far away, so many things happened, so many places, people, emotions changed in my life.
I was sharing a lot of things that happened to me during this year, so if you want to know more details just read some of the previous posts. I want to mention here few most important aspects of the year.
Events that shaped my life in 2007
EuroEXPRO in Serbia, Weekend in Ivano – Frankovsk in May, Visa application, EBC 2007, LC visit in Naples, weekend in Rome, Exchange meeting in Rotterdam, 2 flights from Brussels, IPM CCP election.
People I want to thank for different things (even tough they might not realize that they’ve done something important for me):
My parents, Juraj Zdinak, Sveta Muzychenko, Slavik Lysak, Marinka Malkina, Tanya Mikhailyuk, Ira Legka, Nadya Lyubivaya, Anya Kovalchuk, Il’ya Boshnyakov, Cornelia Raportaru, Kevin Groen, Federica Rosi, Federico Caliri, Julia Khimchak, Olka Urina, Inna Kostyuk, Viktor Kryvenko, Matteo Orsi, Anabella Florea, Dora Salemi, Irene Sianard, Daniele de Lorenzo, Alba Cauchi, Dante Scognamiglio and his family, Giuliano De Marco, Michelle Gallant, Andrey Bezemchuk, Olya Kuznetsova, Gaspar Ndabi, Olka Semenyuk
Books that I loved:
“The tipping point” and “Blink” by Malcolm Gladwell
“The world is flat” by Thomas Friedman
Places I’ve been to
Ivano – Frankovsk, Kharkov, Kiev, Belgrade, Milan, Prague, Roznov pod Radhostem, Ostrava, Olomouc, Zlin, Brno, Istambul, Lignano Sabbiadoro, Venice, Naples, Rome, Catania, Trieste, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Brussels, Brugge, Leuven, Verona, Pisa, Como, Lisbon.
My dreams that came true
Visiting theme park (Gardaland)
Traveling around Europe
I graduated finally
Quotes of the year
Life is not the amount of breaths you take. It’s the moments that take your breath away. Alex Hitchins
Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss. Ralph Waldo Emerson
Life is change. Growth is optional. Choose wisely. Karen Kaiser Clark
Some other learnings and observations:
I learned to value friendship and maybe learned how to care more about people:)
I learned that my experience is what I make out of it myself and nobody else can be held responsible for that
I learned how to cook pasta:)

Pictures of the year

My 2007 was different: it was happy and challenging, full of troubles and surprises; I took few difficult decisions that have shaped or will shape my life and life of other people. I got to know myself better. I’m thankful for everything that happened to me, everyone I’ve met and I’m looking forward new discoveries and opportunities that 2008 will bring me.

Today's news

There are a lot of ways to express political will and promote your beliefs and views. A lot of them are illegal, and a lot are not very ethical. But there is one that is for sure not acceptable - killing your political opponents. Today world lost first female prime minister in and Islamic state - Benazir Bhutto. Not that I admired her or saw her as a panacea for Pakistan's problems , but she was definitely smart and brave woman. She did offer charismatic leadership at this crucial stage and she had the potential to provide Pakistan with the means of changing its ways.
It's sad to see such people being killed in other countries, but in our world...

Midnight thoughts

It has been already 4 days since I came back home to Ukraine for holidays!
Time passes by, I enjoy staying with my family, meeting my friends, eating food I love, walking down the streets of my childhood, everything is good, just can’t get read of some thoughts.
Comparison is something that I do hundreds of times each day, I know it’s natural and it’s kind of reintegration element (even tough I came for 2 weeks only).
So, firstly about my observations:
People’s appearance. In Vienna airport waiting for boarding to my flight to Dnepropetrovsk I finally saw a lot of Ukrainians in one place. My attention was taken by a girl wearing 12 centimeters high spike hills, jacket made from the fur of unknown animal. She had mop of perhydrol blond hair, huge blue eyes and pink lips. She was not prostitute, of course one can never know, but just my snap judgment (God Bless Gladwell for introducing me to this nice termJ), she was just typical, quite typical representative of Ukrainian or even post soviet beauty standards. I was shamelessly examining her for around 3 minutes, slowly realizing that I haven’t seen this kind of outfit for around 6 months. Observation number one: even tough I’m still quite shocked when people don’t iron their clothes, don’t make manicure and things like that, but I definitely got used to it to European casualness.
Fools and roads.
Roads and runways. Dnepropetrovsk might be not the best Ukrainian airport, but for sure is not the worst one, but seeing holes and cracks on the runways is not contributing to raising pride for my country.
Fools and attitude. I’ve traveled quite a lot in past 2 months and I was never ever asked anything about my visa, reasons of my stay in Italy. Never ever before arriving home and talking to a custom officer in DP. I had to spend 5 minutes explaining him in details what I’m doing in Italy, what is AIESEC and why the f… I came back home for New Year. In past few days I took hopper buses (марштрутка) few times and drivers were literally starring at me after hearing “Thank you” 3 times. After buying some of the gifts for New Year I realized that you can only hear thanks (especially from female shop assistants) after you buy something which costs more then 20 euros (in the shop with average price of 10).
And the last, but not the least, you always need to have wet napkins to clean your boots, because they’ll always be dirty.
That all is quite negative and pessimistic, isn’t it?
Those are random observations that practically don’t tell you a lot about the city, country and mentality, people etc. These are some random (yes, that is in the list of my favorite wordsJ) thoughts of a girl, who stayed some 6 months in the other reality and thinks that she has the power to criticize and judge something that she is too young to understand and evaluate. And that’s true. On the one hand. But on the other hand, the funny thing is that this criticism is only raising my feeling of patriotism that is properly “fertilized” by ideas taken from books that I recently have read.
Actually these kinds of things provoke me to think about what are the changes that my country needs, who are the leaders that have capacity, strong will and, moreover, belief in changes. I’m quite sure that country needs leaders, I’m quite sure that there are people capable of becoming such leaders, and there are people who can follow them. The question is how many people there need to be to create this critical mass that can turn this passive desire and dreams into kind of social epidemics that can in fact start the change. And the last – what can be my own contribution into that… I’m frequently coming back to thoughts of Raskolnikov from “Crime and punishment” about people who “the high and mighty” (власть имущие) or “weak people” (there is no literal translation I guess for твари дрожащие). All that thoughts not in sense of committing crime, but in the sense of being able and having courage to drive transformational change in Ukrainian society. Just a curiosity now whether I can really do something or whether I will give up as many others for having family, children, nice house, car, 24 days of vacations etc. which is in fact nothing bad, just ordinary… it’s not about being Mahatma Ghandi, Nelson Mandela or Mother Teresa… It’s about few words: desire and courage to drive changes.
“Because people who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world are the ones who actually do”….. even tough I know that changes start from within.
So what is the change that you are able to make in yourself to change at least your local environment for better?

Creativity is out of the office

The name of the post is rather random - my creativity has a day off today. It'll come back in the office tomorrow, so maybe next post will have a more meaningful name:)

I started to write this post several times, but then something happened and took my attention, time etc. so I never posted what I wrote.
In brief, in previous month I traveled a lot, maybe too much. To be very short and specific:)
9 days in Catania: LDS – national induction conference for newbies. It was great to spend some time with Innok:)Conclusions: now I’m not easily motivated by conferences even tough delivered on a good level.
4 days in Rotterdam: Exchange meeting in AI – good content wise and very intense. It was good to see how AI works and lives. Conclusions: the funny thing is that I finally decided not to apply for AI.
1 day in Amsterdam: my first birthday outside of Dnepropetrovsk. Woke up in Rotterdam, spent day in Amsterdam, spent night in Brussels:) a bit crazy as for one day, but I liked it:) Amsterdam especially – it’s worth seeing, but don’t waste time for Sex museumJ Madame Tussaud’s is worth seeing, I loved it:) Red light district – nothing special – dark, almost naked girls in windows, and kind of church in the middle of it. Worth seeing only once in life, unless you go there for something elseJConclusions: need to come back to see the rest of the Netherlands. Who wants to go?:)
3 days in Milan: plan review, good ideas, reviewed plans and a lot of work again:) ah-ah, new table, chairs, cutlery and Christmas tree in our house:) looks great!
2 days in Trieste: lovely city, much better then I expected! Interesting local committee:) Next time I come to spend more money there and they promised to take me for lunch to Slovenia:)
2 days in Brugge, Leuven and Brussels: I was happy to be there:) Friends will be friends….:)
and now back to Milan – cool pajama learning circoletto yesterday with my team mates:) and heading for hospital tomorrow morning. Well, you know, I can’t live without using my insurance, bothering doctors and creating random problems. Yes, and having very strange and funny health problems
and then.. Lisbon this weekend (unless something bad happens tomorrow in hospital). I’ll see the ocean:)
Dnepropetrovsk in 1 week.. can’t wait to be there. I missed everyone there so much. Will be happy to come back for those 10 days:)
Yes, you know where to find my pictures, as usual here

I don't understand

That's a stange one, but really stuck in my head for 2 days already..

From my conversation with a somebody on msn: "now why would I talk to you and ask how are you. everything is great with you and you'll boost in any way with what you have done, what you've achieved and where you've traveled"... that's simply confusing...

I still can't understand what drives people to say such things. not in this particular case, but in general. Is that coming from the fact that we are used to answer that everything is cool with us in most of the cases excluding those when you feel really bad? Is it in the human nature to be interested only when something bad happens? Is it that time when they see the added value that they are brining to a person? Do they only want to symphatize in difficult moments. why people just can't be interested in what's good happening? or is it not so entertaining... I'm really confused and don't understand.

Love and madness

Да, эту историю я тоже совершенно случайно нашла в старой папке с документами, пытаясь найти старую модель delivery Global Exchange Partnerships:) вот так иногда бывает..:)

Говорят, что однажды собрались в одном уголке земли вместе все человеческие чувства и качества. Когда СКУКА зевнула уже в третий раз, СУМАСШЕСТВИЕ предложило: А давайте играть в прятки!? ИНТРИГА приподняла бровь: Прятки? Что это за игра??, и СУМАСШЕСТВИЕ объяснило, что один из них, например, оно, водит, закрывает глаза и считает до миллиона, в то время как остальные прячутся. Тот, кто будет найден последним, станет водить в следующий раз и так далее. ЭНТУЗИАЗМ затанцевал с ЭЙФОРИЕЙ, РАДОСТЬ так прыгала, что убедила СОМНЕНИЕ,вот только АПАТИЯ, которую никогда ничего не интересовало, отказалась участвовать в игре. ПРАВДА предпочла не прятаться, потому что, в конце концов, ее всегда находят, ГОРДОСТЬ сказала, что это совершенно дурацкая игра (ее ничего кроме себя самой не волновало), ТРУСОСТИ очень не хотелось рисковать.Раз, два, три, - начало счет СУМАСШЕСТВИЕ. Первой спряталась ЛЕНЬ, она укрылась за ближайшем камнем на дороге, ВЕРА поднялась на небеса, а ЗАВИСТЬ спряталась в тени ТРИУМФА, который собственными силами умудрился взобраться на верхушку самого высокого дерева. БЛАГОРОДСТВО очень долго не могло спрятаться, так как каждое место, котороеоно находило, казалось идеальным для его друзей: Кристально чистое озеро для КРАСОТЫ; Расщелина дерева - так это для СТРАХА; Крыло бабочки - для СЛАДОСТРАСТИЯ; Дуновение ветерка - ведь это для СВОБОДЫ! Итак, оно замаскировалось в лучике солнца. ЭГОИЗМ, напротив, нашел только для себя теплое и уютное местечко. ЛОЖЬ спряталась на глубине океана (на самом деле она укрылась в радуге), а СТРАСТЬ и ЖЕЛАНИЕ затаились в жерле вулкана. ЗАБЫВЧИВОСТЬ, даже не помню где она спряталась, но это не важно. Когда СУМАСШЕСТВИЕ досчитало до 999999, ЛЮБОВЬ все еще искала, где бы ей спрятаться, но все уже было занято. Но вдруг она увидела дивный розовый куст и решила укрыться среди его цветов.
- Миллион, сосчитало СУМАСШЕСТВИЕ и принялось искать.Первой оно, конечно же, нашло лень. Потом услышало, как ВЕРА спорит с Богом, а о СТРАСТИ и ЖЕЛАНИИ оно узнало по тому, как дрожит вулкан, затем СУМАСШЕСТВИЕ увидело ЗАВИСТЬ и догадалось где прячется ТРИУМФ. ЭГОИЗМ и искать было не нужно, потому что местом, где он прятался оказался улей пчел, которые решили выгнать непрошеного гостя. В поисках СУМАСШЕСТВИЕ подошло напиться к ручью и увидело КРАСОТУ. СОМНЕНИЕ сидело у забора, решая, с какой же стороны ему спрятаться. Итак, все были найдены: ТАЛАНТ - в свежей и сочной траве, ПЕЧАЛЬ - в темной пещере, ЛОЖЬ - в радуге (если честно, то она пряталась на дне океана). Воттолько любовь найти не могли. СУМАСШЕСТВИЕ искало за каждым деревом, в каждом ручейке, на вершине каждой горы и, наконец, он решило посмотреть в розовых кустах, и когда раздвигало ветки, услышало крик. Острые шипы роз поранили ЛЮБВИ глаза. СУМАСШЕСТВИЕ не знало что и делать, принялось извиняться, плакало, молило, просило прощения и в искупление своей вины пообещало ЛЮБВИ стать ее поводырем. И вот с тех пор, когда впервые на земле играли в прятки...... ЛЮБОВЬ слепа и СУМАСШЕСТВИЕ водит её за руку...

Life in 100 words

Обыденно и грустно как-то, но занимательно написано. Один раз прочитать стоит:)

Колыбель. Пеленки. Плач.
Шаг. Простуда. Врач.
Беготня. Игрушки. Брат .
Двор. Качели. Детский сад.

Школа. Двойка. Тройка. Пять.
Мяч. Подножка. Гипс. Кровать.
Драка. Кровь. Разбитый нос.
Двор. Друзья. Тусовка. Форс.

Институт. Весна. Кусты.
Лето. Сессия. Хвосты.
Пиво. Водка. Джин со льдом.
Кофе. Сессия. Диплом .

Романтизм. Любовь. Звезда.
Руки. Губы. Ночь без сна.
Свадьба. Теща. Тесть. Капкан.
Ссора. Клуб. Друзья. Стакан.

Дом. Работа.
Дом. Семья.
Солнце. Лето.
Снег. Зима.

Сын. Пеленки. Колыбель.
Стресс. Любовница. Постель.
Бизнес. Деньги. План. Аврал.
Телевизор. Сериал.

Дача. Вишни. Кабачки.
Седина. Мигрень. Очки.
Внук. Пеленки. Колыбель.
Стресс. Давление. Постель.

Сердце. Почки. Кости. Врач.
Речи. Гроб. Прощанье. Плач.

La Dolce vita

I know I should write more often even when people are not reminding me about that:)

But the crazy life I live now doesn't give me any free minute to do it or should I again refer to my time management skills?

In brief - I'm busy these days and I actually love this feeling of being busy, needed, useful and good for something.

I'm happy these days because I saw and will see tomorrow people that I love and care so much about: Olka, Luka, Innok:)

I'm satisfied because my life now is more diverse: I'm getting to know a lot of new people, I travel a lot now (actually I've fulfilled my Italian travel plan for 70% already:)) and I have a chance to see some of the most beautiful places in the world:)

I'm glad to have mentor who is always there to support and guide me. And I see quite clearly what do I need to do to define my goals. Thank you, Juraj:)

I miss my family - but I talked with them in skype with webcam today:) and I'm going to be in Dnepropetrovsk on 22nd of December!

I'm intended to learn Italian better - even tough I see my progress, I know I should do more. I want to speak by the end of June.

I'm curious if Italian LCs could raise 107 X until 21st of December and I'll have to become blond as promised:)
I'm looking foraward my travels to Rotterdam (who doesn't want to see AI office at least once in their AIESEC life?:)), Belgium and Portugal.

I'm still not sure about what do I do next? But that's normal period of uncertanty, right?:)

Please don't think that I'm never depressed here and everything is just amazing. Sometimes I do have bad moments. But I'm practicing positive attitute here and try to focus only on good things. Am I good in it?:)

The definition of success

Tonight I'm writing an essay for a scholarship that I might get for a business camp that I want to go. The topic of essay is connected to success and making the best out of yourself. While looking for some good quotes about success, I've found an article about success. It was totally nothing new for me and I bet will not be new for you - we all are very smart people, but how often do we really take some time to think how successful we are for ourselfs and not in somebody's opinion.Honestly saying, I don't do that often. Though I think I should...

Last night I had a telephone conversation with a friend, and while we were mulling over one subject after another, I mentioned how cool it would be if only I could win the lottery. I remember stating that I wouldn't even mind sharing the jackpot with a few other people, as long as a couple of millions were left hanging for me. My friend asked me what I would change about my life if I was wealthy, and that's when it hit me: Nothing really. The only difference would be that I would not have to be concerned about paying the monthly bills anymore, and maybe that I would purchase a nice house in the hills, but the actual contents of my life and the way I have furnished it so far would not undergo any significant transformation. This discovery intrigued me. In fact it got me mulling over it long after the conversation with my friend was over! I started wondering if the universal measure of success should not be: the degree to which a person manages to be satisfied with the general contents of his or her routine. Just think about it for a moment: there are many wealthy people who would give away half or all of their assets if only they could obtain contentment. And there are many people balancing on the edge of poverty, but with peace in their heart, faces that smile a lot, and a set of activities that they would not want to change for the world. Now, which category of these people is really successful? My conclusion is, that success has just as many faces as any other possible theme, depending on the society in which it is measured, and the character of the person who measures it. Wrongfully, many people confuse success with wealth: they assume that a person's triumph can be concluded from the expensiveness of his or her watch, car, or house. They envy those in their circle of acquaintances who can financially afford more than they can. They keep comparing themselves with the Joneses and allow their happiness to depend on the level to which they can equal these people's lifestyles. And they forget to just do the simplest thing in the world: turn inside and analyze what it is that they really like. I think success should be more synonymous with happiness than with affluence. For it's only when you find satisfaction with what you're doing and don't dread facing every new day when your task has to be embarked upon, that you are really successful. When you can move in an environment that pleases you, and when you feel at ease with the ones you deal with on a daily base; when you feel loved, cared for, understood, and valued in what you do, and you don't have to switch personalities from one location to another: that's when you've really attained success. When you see that you make a difference, if only in one person's life; when you are confronted with gratitude, not only from others toward you, but from your outer-self to your inner-self: that's when you are a real winner. Success, therefore, cannot be measured by what radiates from a person's purse or material cover, but from what exudes from his or her personality. You can feel it in one's touch, you can hear it in one's voice: in the way one speaks, and you can see it in one's eyes. Successful people are self-assured, know what they want, and go for it. And what they want, they simply determine with feeling, and not with what others dictate them. So, are you successful?

by Joan Marques

"Don't worry" city

Well, finally I have time for a short or a long (I never know actually:)post here about my adventures in Naples last week! If I try to sum it up in few words, I’ll have to say just 3: “It was amazing”. Despite the fact I was worried, scared, prejudiced and angry because of flight delay, so far it was one of the best experiences in Italy so far.
Naples is definitely is a place to visit not only because of long history and sightseeing opportunities but mostly because of the most hospitable people I’ve ever met!
I’ve done a lot of things, can’t remember now all of them, but will try to….
…. I’ve seen “Attenzione!Be aware” announcement with a picture of thief stealing wallets in a bus and in a split of a second I saw Dante turning from a chat with me to another side of the bus, shouting and kicking out of the bus a man that was trying to steal his mobile.
… I’ve seen office of Napoli Parthenope situated near the sea right next to old huge castle on the coast of Bay of Naples.
…. I thought it’s always difficult to come first time somewhere, especially to LC visit in foreign country when you almost don’t know anything about people! But after few time spent in the office I had a nice feeling of being in a very nice place, it didn’t feel like being at my home LC. Dnipropetrovs’k was always different. But there was something, cozy, you know in these environment, people, and attitude! It’s been quite challenging because of punctuality (imagine we were always late with sessions even tough I considered myself to be a person that is able to organize everything on time), a bit difficult with language (but, believe me, now I know what does it mean to speak slow:)), but everything else went almost the way I planned.
….All those days I felt like a Princess thanks to attention and care that was given to me there by everyone – AIESECers, their relatives and even random people on the streets. I could never imagine that somebody’s parents can take care of me so much, deeply caring of what I eat and drink, what I like, dislike, prefer etc. I tried best pizza and best mozzarella in Italy. Yaaamii! And also lots of other things which names I don’t remember!
…. I felt very smart:) when they were telling to everyone how cool I’m to have Masters at 21.
…. I’ve learned a new philosophy of not worrying and being relaxed
…. I saw LC who has great relations with University starting from cleaners and ending with headmaster, at recruitment event I saw alumni who founded AIESEC in Napoli Parthenope telling how exchange was made when there still was Berlin wall
….. I’ve waited to enter to a trattoria for 30 minutes in a line (imagine a cafe like that now in Ukraine. Not our first McD in 1995:)), where waiters ask people to eat faster and leave right after they finish because other people are waiting to get in (they do have great food there), I got used to eat pasta as appetizer (like salads in Ukraine) and then 3 courses after it.
…. I got to know what Sunday family lunch means:)
…. I didn’t do that much sightseeing because of terrible weather, but what I managed to see was great. I didn’t go to see The Pope, but I went to a big Museum to see huge cribs and a great view on Bay of Naples, Vesuvius (Europe’s largest active volcano) and Naples itself.
…. I had a ride on scooter first time in my life:)
…. I didn’t get to understand all the habits and traditions of Neapolitans, but some of it really made me learn and understand a lot about cultural differences and differences in people’s behaviors. Judemao, I still have in mind one story about paying coffee…
… I definitely felt in love with people, not somebody in particular unfortunately:) Thank you very much Angela, Giancarlo, Judemao, Dante and Alessandro for being great hosts! I really appreciated a lot your efforts and the time spent together:) Looking forward my next visit..:)

My pictures are at Facebook as usually! Link is here.

P.S. Don't worry !!!!!!!!:)

Bbbrrrrr....

Всем, кто считает меня организованным человеком с хорошими навыками тайм менеджмента посвящается...

Значит так, на часах 22.41, Маша прибежала с итальянского, сидит в офисе угрюмо листая туда - сюда 2 страницы ежедневника забитые списком дел, которые нужно сделать.

Какие уж тут недельные приоритеты, какие схемы "важно - не важно, срочно - не срочно" и т.п. все горит! и что самое интересное на это все у меня есть 1 ночь и около 2 часов рабочего дня завтра потому что послезавтра я лечу в Неаполь на ЛС визит, которым меня пугают уже целую неделю, и которого я в общем-то сама боюсь и без запугиваний...

Завтра у меня встреча на все утро, Айсек день в Милано Боккони, сбор вещей на 5 дней на все случаи жизни, подготовка к визиту из серии "хочу то, не знаю что. и расскажи про это, учитывая вот то и логично связывая с вот тем вот", десяток дел, которые надо доделать, около 10 (утром будет около 20 писем) на которые надо ответить. да, я еще чер ХКБ, и они тоже требуют внимания. Еще и пломба вылетела опять. Привет турецим стоматологам. И когда бы еще визит к дантисту вписать на завтра?

Теперь внимание вопрос.. Как это все называется? Стресс? Депрессия? Проблемы с тайм менеджментом? Или тот, кто не работает на выходных, работает по ночам?:)

Так это я все к чему написала в этой безумной спешке: во-первых, чтобы выплеснуть злость на саму себя. Выплеснула. Во-вторых, чтобы почувствовать, что я хоть что-то могу нормально структурировать. Почувствовала. В - третьих, чтобы доказать самой себе, что я еще способна писать на русском (не знаю, с ошибами ли, но смысл наверно понятен:)). Доказала. В - четвертых, чтобы хоть напротив одного дела в ежедневнике поставить галочку. Ставлю. Ну вот, вроде ничего не забыла, готова идти писать письмо турецкому султану ака Данте ака ЛСП Неаполя куда я еду через день:)

La bella figura

I was about to write this post few days ago, exactly the second day I started to read the book, but managed today only. Well, in any case, you should read it.

So, few days ago I started a book by Beppe Severgnini, columnist for the Corriere della Sera - one of the biggest Italian newspapers. The book is called "La bella figura" meaning literally 'the beautiful figure', but really 'a good image' is hilarious guide into Italian mentality and mind. So I thought that there is no better way to share some of my observations about Italians then sharing some extracts from this book.

.... First of all, let's get one thing straight. Your Italy and our Italia are not the same thing.

....Yet Italy is far from hellish. It's got too much style. Neither is it heaven, of course, because it's too unruly. Let's just say Italy is an offbeat purgatory, full of proud, tormented souls each of whom is convinced he or she has a hotline to the boss.

....It takes an outstanding director to govern the Italians.

....Obedience is boring. We want to think about it. We want to decide whether a particular law applies to our specific case. In that place, at that time.

.... Do you see that red light? It looks the same as any other red light anywhere in the world, but it's an Italian invention. It's not an order, as you may naivly think. Nor is it a warming, as a superficial glance might suggest. It's actually an opportunity to reflect....In Italy, red lights come in many varieties. A rare few actually mean stop. Others, to the Italian driver, suggest different interpretations. At a pedestrian crossing at 7 a.m., with no pedestrians around, it is a “negotiable red,” more like a weak orange. At a traffic intersection, red could mean what the Florentines call rosso pieno, or full red, but it might, with no cars coming, be more of a suggestion than a command. It all depends.

... It's one in the afternoon. In Milan, this is time for la colazione which means breakfast in Rome but is the same thing as lunch in New York. The midday meal in Rome is il pranzo, which for many people in Milan means the evening meal that everyone in Naples calls la cena.

... Consider the humble cappuccino. After 10 o'clock ib the morning it's unethical and possibly even unlawful to order one. You wouldn't have one in the afternoon unless the weather was very cold. Needless to say, sipping a cappuccino after a meal is something only non-Italians do. Pizzas at midday are for schoolkids. Rice with meat is perfect, but pasta with meat is embarassing unless it's cooked in the sauce. Having a started after your pasta raises no eyebrows, but eating a main neat or fish dish instead of a starter looks greedy. Grating Parmesan over clams is an offense against religion...

.... You chose creamed vegetables, but the menu said vellutata di verdure di stagione al profumo di finocheietto selvatico, servita coi crostini e olio extravergine d'oliva d'Abruzzo, which is one way to charge extra 10 euros for it.

I hope you had fun:) I continue reading...:)

Queen of the Adriatic

Continuing stories about my Italian travels, I'm here to tell you about "Queen of the Adriatic", "City of Water", "City of Bridges" and "City of Light" or simply about Venice - one of the most famous cities in the world.

As I wrote a bit before EBC conference was in Lignano - Sabbiadoro which is around 1 hour to go from Venice, so obviously I couldn't miss a chance to see the place I've heard so much about... and, I didn't regret it I must say:)

Venice is built on three hundred and seventeen small islands, and holds one hundred and fifty canals, connected by an amazing four hundred and nine bridges, of which only three cross the main canal. The area it covers is a mere 458 kilometres. Although the city appears small, it is really quite extensive for its size. While most tour guides don’t recommend getting lost in the majority of cities, Venice is the place to get hopelessly lost for a day which is actually a very easy thing to do. Venice is a labirint of the most narrow and short streets that I've ever seen, which all are so similar and diverse at the same time. I don't really know how much time on should live in Venice not to feel a complete idiot in city orientation:)

The population is roughly 63, 000 people, but there is belief that Venice will, over time, lose most of its population and become merely a large theme park, purely for the entertainment of tourists and I actually quite belive it since I obviously have seen more toursts then locals in Venice, don't ask me how do I distinguish them, but it's really easy to do.

What I got to know is that Venice is Venice is the world's only pedestrian city, is beautifully walkable, and the absence of cars makes it a particularly pleasant experience but very exausting indeed due to hundreds of bridges that you have to pass each 3 minutes:)

Venice today remains the same as centuries ago, but I'd never say that this is a place where you feel the pressure of history. And it's no wonder - apart from San Marco and Doge's Palace there are almost no huge buildings - it's not possible to imagine neither a huge gothic church nor a skyscraper among all these miniature bridges, small streest and 2 floor old houses.

You know, I'm a photo freak and I always take a lot of pictures, everywhere, but in Venice I simply couldn't help to stop myself from taking pictures of streets, channels and houses again and again even tough I know I already have many:) well, in the end I have around 200 pictures, some of them are available here.
My acquaintance with Venice this time was rather visual and haptic - I didn't get to know a lot of history, didn't visit any museum, didn't go inside San Marco or Doge's Palace. Venice is the city that you should discover step by step and I'm sure our acquaintance with this magic city is to be continued soon...

Going deeper into Italian culture

That's going to be a long one since I have lots of news to share after this week! That was one of the most challenging and rewarding weeks in past months.

It was a week of creating and breaking stereotypes, week of bananas (this is how we call urgent problems in MC) and great successes. So what was that? My first Italian conference!!!!!!!!!

Firstly about the conference - executive board conference is quite a typical conference that is happening all around the world for EBs after IC. Apart from EB track we also had track for Project managers, who are leading PBoXes in LCs.

The conference was organized by LC Trieste in a very beautiful and peaceful place on Ardiatic sea Lignano - Sabbiadoro (golden sands) in quite good hotel with very good food (NO PASTA for 5 days!:))

During my transition in June I was constanly told that Italian conferences are challenge both in professional and personal aspects, few weeks ago in Pisa, I was speaking to Cisco and he kind of reminded me once again all the "horrors" that I should be prepared for. So, try to imagine my attitude before going there:)

The conference was a good time to understand better the culture, both Italian in general and AIESEC in Italy in particular. Some of the things seemed to be very good for me, some very absurd, some things were very difficult like language issue for example, some things were easier then I expected - the attitude and warmth that plenary showed to us. In any ways, I was definitely very well prepared for conference, so things like formal dress (guys taking off trousers and staying only in pants), baptizing, songs about putane and zoccole didn't shock me soo much:) Italians don't really have a lot of LC shouts - I only remember "Noi non siamo Napoletane. Vot non siete Napoletabe" (my favourite actually) and "Torino, Torino celano piccolino( not sure about spelling:)) and "Comitato Nazionale, Comitato Nazionale..." But what Italians indeed have are the songs that they have for almost each situation. I loved some, but definitely don't remember the words:)

I mostly have good memories about sessions. That was the first time for Italians to have evening plenaries, which were a success. Everything was quite good apart from timing (sometimes my fault) and reflection that totally didn't work. All the dances, videos, shouts and crazy plenary with underwear worked well:)

My biggest concern about this conference - half day session about PBoXes worked very well, I think even connection with Kill Bill was good!

My greatest satisfaction of conference - Exchange functional track! That was actually the first time I met my VPs and I was pleased and amazed by the day we spent together with them! Exchange rocks:)

And the official dinner was amazing - in a way official dinner at EBC was better then the one at IC this year:) Congratulations to my crazy Napoli Parthenope for winning PwC award:)

During this conference I actually realized that the facts that we were discussing with girls in Ukraine about how a year abroad in particular country may change us were so true.I feel like becoming integrated, moreover, I feel like becoming more open, more flexible a bit more crazy - becoming Italian. I know that my visit to Napoli in 1,5 week will definitely change me even more:) I already wrote some time before that I enjoyed being here, but now I came to a conclusion that this is the right place, the right time, the right position for me. You know, I feel like doing exactly what I'm meant to do at specific point of time! And that's an amazing feeling!

What else.. aaa, a thing that I've noticed - in Ukraine and in general in international conferences we pass trough a process of firstly getting first visual impression of people and then getting to know them better in other aspects. Here in Italy, I passed trough totally opposite process - I firstly got to know people virtually and only after 3,5 months in Italy I get the change to connect what I knew about people with their faces. At one point of time I was thinking about the way how our consciousness works - and that it's much easier to create stereotypes from first visual impression rather then from first impression that you got trough communicating with people virtually.

And the last, but not the least - it was great to meet LCs that I'm coaching - Roma che? Roma TRE! Trieste, Napoli Parthenope and Milano Bocconi! They all are so different, but so great!:) I'm going to visit them in October - November! Yoooohooo:)

So, coming to the end of thing looong post, there are few main conclusions that I'd like to share.

Italians are very much like we (foreigners) imagine them: totally crazy, emotional and extraverted, hospitable and warm. At the same time I must say that we have to many stereotypes about Italian men - they are not soo- soo hot as we imagine them abroad, actually the "hottest" guys that I've seen at conference were mostly not Italians. Hm, well maybe I still need to attend more conferences:)
There are quite a lot of differences between North and South in Italy and what I've noticed is that when a person is introducing himself he'll always say I'm .... (napoletan, sicilian, sardenian etc.) rather then I'm Italian:). There are even some names that are given to people from south and north (terrone and polentone) but they way they use it here never sound offensive like using similar names in Ukraine (москалі, кацапи, бандеровцы) between East and West and this respect to people from other regions is something that Ukrainians are still to learn. why not from Italians:)

That's the end of my report from EBC. stay tuned for another story about Venice...:)

P.S. my pictures from EBC are here

Persistence

For already few days I go crazy preparing our national conference, brains boiling, eyes hurt, back and ass as well:) today I was finalizing one of my sessions with quite an experimental approach to explaning PBoXes:) I was looking for a picture illustrating persistence and the one I've found, literally made my day. Decided to share...

You chose your attitude

Jerry is the manager of a restaurant. He is always in a good mood.
When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would always reply,“If I were any better, I would be twins!”Many of the waiters at his restaurant quit their jobs when he changed jobs,so they could follow him around from restaurant to restaurant
Why?Because Jerry was a natural motivator.
If an employee was having a bad day, Jerry was always there, telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation.Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up to Jerry and asked him“I don’t get it! No one can be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?”
Jerry replied, “Each morning I wake up and say to myself, I have two choices today. I can choose to be in a good mood or I can choose to be in a bad mood.I always choose to be in a good mood.
Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be victim or I can choose to learn from it. I always choose to learn from it.Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or I can point out the positive side of life. I always choose the positive side of life.”“But it’s not always that easy,“ I protested.“Yes it is,” Jerry said.
“Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the junk every situation is a choice.
You choose how you react to situations.You choose how people will affect your mood.You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood.It’s your choice how you live your life.”Several years later,
I heard that Jerry accidentally did something you are never supposed to do in the restaurant business.He left the back door of his restaurant open
And then ???In the morning, he was robbed by three armed men.
While Jerry trying to open the safe box, his hand, shaking from nervousness, slipped off the combination. The robbers panicked and shot him.Luckily, Jerry was found quickly and rushed to the hospital.
After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, Jerry was released from the hospital with fragments of the bullets still in his body.…I saw Jerry about six months after the accident.
When I asked him how he was,he replied, “If I were any better, I’d be twins. Want to see my scars?”
I declined to see his wounds, but did ask him what had gone through his mind as the robbery took place.“The first thing that went through my mind was that I should have locked the back door,” Jerry replied.“Then, after they shot me, as I lay on the floor, I remembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live or could choose to die. I chose to live.”
“Weren’t you scared“ I asked?
Jerry continued, “The paramedics were great. They kept telling me I was going to be fine.But when they wheeled me into the Emergency Room and I saw the expression on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared.
In their eyes, I read ‘He’s a dead man.’ I knew I needed to take action.”“What did you do?” I asked.
“Well, there was a big nurse shouting questions at me,” said Jerry. “She asked if I was allergic to anything.”
‘Yes,’ I replied.
The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply. I took a deep breathand yelled, ‘Bullets!’
Over their laughter, I told them,‘I am choosing to live. Please operate on me as if I am alive, not dead’.“Jerry lived thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude.
I learned from him that every day you have the choice to either enjoy your life or to hate it.
The only thing that is truly yours — that no one can control or take from you-is your attitude, so if you can take care of that, everything else in life becomes much easier.

My cooking success!

Since I decided to reward myself for even small successes, I need to share my latest cooking success and receive a bit of appreciation:)

So, today I had a good mood that was supported by my responsibility to cook lunch for everyone, so I cooked potato pancakes (deruny, draniki in Russian). I spent about 1,5 hours but the result was quite good! Actually not even me, but also Italians liked it:) Yes, first Ukrainian dish that they liked. I consider it as a great breaktrough! I'm open to accept congratulations:))))

Pisa trip!

Ciao tutti! Masha impara l'italiano ogni giorno (Masha learns Italian everyday) - I needed to share it in the begining since that is the phraze that is describing my life for already few weeks:)My progress is visible! Yuuuupiii!

Blogger Masha is back with couple of new stories! So, for those who is trying to follow my Italian discoveries, I have a new story to tell:) This weekend was amazing - I travelled to Pisa!

Initially we were planning to go to Florence, but on Thursday me and Annare were invited to Pisa by Tugce and Simo - 2 international EB members in Pisa!4,5 hours travel and we came to Pisa - one of the most beautiful cities in Tuscany (region in central Italy) near Ligurian sea. The city itself is very small, only 185 square kms, so you can cross it in maximum 1 hour. Population of pisa is not more then 100,000 people. But each year Pisa welcomes thousands of tourists that are coming to see Piazza dei Miracoli that is recognized as one of the main centers for medieval art in the world. Partly paved and partly grassed, it is dominated by four great religious edifices: the Duomo, the Leaning Tower, the Baptistery and the Camposanto. Piazza dei Miracoli with its Leaning Tower of Pisa (Torre pendente di Pisa) stirs imagination of everyone from the old to the young!

The construction of this imposing mass was started in the year 1174 by Bonanno Pisano. When the tower had reached its third storey the works ceased because it had started sinking into the ground. The tower remained thus for 90 years. It was completed by Giovanni di Simone. The top of the Leaning Tower can be reached by mounting the 294 steps which rise in the form of a spiral on the inner side of the tower walls. The tower leans at an angle of 5.5 degrees. This means that the top of the tower is 4.5 meters from where it would stand if the tower was perfectly vertical. The total height of Tower is more then 55 meters. Amazing view on city of Pisa opens in front of you as soon as you are reaching the top. It's believed that Galileo Galilei to have dropped two cannon balls of different masses from the tower to demonstrate that their descending speed was independent of their mass. In 1934 Benito Mussolini ordered that the tower be returned to a vertical position, so concrete was poured into its foundation. However, the result was that the tower actually sank further into the soil. You can learn more about Leaning Tower of Pisa here.

Even without statistics and history, Piazza dei Miracoli is just a fascinating place to see and to be. Lying on the grass in few meters from 800years old building that are believed to be one of the best places in the world brings you inexpressible emotions!

Apart from sightseeing we spent a lot of time together with Simo and Tugce, which was great! They are so nice and so caring! I felt like at home, having somebody cooking breafast for me and not making jokes about my attitude to pasta;) Thank you girls for being so hospitable and tacking care of us:) In the night (yes, in the night - at 23.30) we went to a cafe with quite a strange name "Pick a flower" to meet with LC Pisa. We actually didn't met so many people, but those we met were really nice! I was glad to see Cisco (MCP Italy 2006-07) there, it brought me a lot of memories of my first month in Italy, when we lived all together at Via Andora!

Walking for 7 hours of the first day and for 3 hours on the second day was kind of tiresome:) so on our way back to Milan we were almost dead. But travel in Italian train will never let u die, not even fall asleep. Since all the people in vagoon (and believe me, there are quite a lot of them:)) believe that speaking on the edge of their vocal potential is absolutely necessary:)
What else..Enjoy my pictures at Facebook here and come to visit me in Milan and maybe we can travel another day to Pisa;)

Lake Como trip

Today was very good! Almost my first trip outside Milan! Only in 40mins drive from Milan one can find beautiful and very romantic place - Lago di Como (lake of Como) surrounded by few small towns.

Como lake is third largest lake in Italy after lake Garda and lake Maggiore and one of the deepest in Europe!
Lake itself is quite big, shaped like letter "Y", which can only been seen from sky:) There are quite few towns around lake: Como, Lecco, Bellagio, Menaggio and Varena! These small towns are widely known for attractive and extermly expensive villas. It's widely known that a lot of celebreties have villas there, I haven't seen any, but actually I think it's quite true.

Como is a nice small town with beautiful Duomo di Como (Catherdral of Como) which suprised me, thousands of tourists, few museums, lovely narrow streets, expensive hotels and quite few book stores! The atmoshpere was so relaxing and peaceful, so I couldn't really believe that I'm just 30 mins away from Milan! There are actually not so many things you can do there, so we came back to Milan in the afternoon. Pictures of this trip you can find in Facebook album!

Few ideas that came to my mind were : I need to come back there one day with somebody very special for vacation or something like that, one need to work hard to be able to afford buying villa there. I wonder what is more difficult. But why not to try, right?:)

Being on my own

Yesterday, I read at Ira's blog about feeling safe and happy at UK. I didn't have any thoughts about at that moment. But just couple of hours later I was exposed to some thoughts around the topic.

I'll not tell the whole story how happened that I was in the middle of nowhere in Milan at 23.15 at night, not knowing where I am, not knowing how to get back home because the metro station was closed, being not able to ask for help of Italians around, not knowing any taxi number and being pretty confused in general.

I was walking along the street trying to find out solutions how to call taxi or get to city center and I saw a bus coming to the bus stop right next to me. Accidentally, that was the only bus number I knew in Milan and I knew that theoretically it's supposed to pass trough piazzale Lotto, which is relatively close to Via Andora. So I jumped in.

I was the only girl in the whole bus and the person one who had a ticket. I was never prejeduced towards people of any nationality or social status. But the way those men at the buswere staring at me, made me think that the way people behave is not influenced by nationality but by social environment and lifestyle. Basically, one exposed to certain environment will unconciously become a true reflection of the environment regardless his origin and most probably regardless his previous experiences. My thoughts on that subject should be a topic of a separate post.

30 mins in that I've spent in the bus trying not to put attention men winking to me, commenting me and trying to get to know me better etc., were the worst in few past months. On the other hand, maybe you've noticed already, I got used to practice "positive thinking" to most of situations happening and also taking some learnings from whatever happens to me. That helped:) I went out on my bus stop, one of those nice men went out with me, waited for few minutes near me and left since I was to staying close to people that still were on the steets. I run, yes, almost run back home. On my way back at Via Diomede, I saw some prostitues, typical view of night Milan:) Curiousity - they are alone on the street at night, waiting for I don't know how long, what are they thinking about while waiting for clients. They could have soo much time for thoughts and reflection, but do they ever do it..I guess it's rather a rhetorical question...

In any way, I was happy, really happy to come back home, close the door, see people, drink tea, eat cake and feel SECURE (well, opportunity to see big Wagner's polecat is not a big danger after all:)).

I shared my adventure with Fede and Anna. I didn't call them since I didn't want to bother them and didn't really believe that they will be willing to help. A good thing to know was that I was wrong:) they care! Then I talked to Alba, some of her words made me think again.

The bus I took is considered to be the most dangerous bus in Milan at night, it's called "immigrants bus" since it goes to North of Milan to disctricts where only were poor immigrants live (I never actually knew about this disctricts), that's why you can't see any Italians there at night. And I was kind of lucky to get out safe without anything stolen.

That all made me think about choices that people make - I could have went to Toastmasters instead of party, I could have went to night club, I could have stayed at home after all. But I've made a choice and got what I was supposed to get. Now I know what feeling unsecure really is, what does it mean that you are on your own and there is almost nobody in the whole city, who will be willing to go to help you. You'll be surprised, but yesterday I re-discovered what does it mean to take responsibility for your choices and actions. And actually confirmed to myself that life is a succession of lessons that must be lived to be understood. There is no other way.

P.S. if you think I'm depressed or sad, I'm not:) I know I still need to learn not only to think positive, but also to express myself positive! But I'm on the right way I'm sure:)

Random from today

I had the intention to write a post few days ago, everything seemed to be sooo bad at work! I even wrote on a paper all that happened to me during Thursday and Friday, it was soo negative that I decided to trash it and forget it;)

Today was a better day, maybe because it's Saturday?:) I woke up quite late, cleaned some parts of house (unfortunately my room is still a huge mess:) hopefully I can solve it tomorrow), then went to meet Milano Bocconi EB. These guys have great potential:)
Then I came back home with again strong intention to work, but Federica persuaded me to go out with them for demonstration! I had no idea what was that about, but my curiosity made me go there. It actually didn't impress me a lot, just few snapshots are worth mentioning. It was not a demonstration in fact but an event to collect signatures to support initiative about passing new law to Parliament. The whole initiative was called "Vaffanculo day" which in English means "Fuck off day". Actually, they managed to gather 500,000 signatures and even more. So despite all Italian bureaucracy, democratic mechanisms seem to be working. Yes, more info about V-day here. After they got news that there are 500,00 signatures collected people went crazy- they were dancing, singing songs etc. Everything looked quite strange:)
Then walking down Via Dante we got go see few interesting things.
First was the Indian procession, I still have got no idea what exactly was that about, but we saw a lot of people in Indian clothes (not actually indians themselfs) pulling huge robe with kind of a platrom (like the ones you can see at carnivals with girls:)) with people and some Indian stuff on it! It looked quite surrealistic in the center of Milan:)
Later, we saw an Asian man doing different kinds of figures - flowers, parrots and something else. It was wonderful how a simple beetroot (barba bietola) can become a beautiful rose and a random carrot is turning into a parrot! Simply amazing!
Then another new books, tasty Italian gelato:) Delicious dinner!!!!!Thank you Alba!

Nice evening conversation, a quote stuck in my head "Gravitation can not be held responsible for people falling in love" Albert Einstein.
Positive attitude matters! Life is beautiful!

Self discovery day

As promised, I dedicated some time to personal discovery! Today I'm spending my day on getting to know myself better then before?! Sounds quite funny! Actually i'm passing trough a bit random (can you believe I don't have structure for the process?:)) But surely I'll for the next time). In any way, after I finish everything I'll share the output here if there are people interested in that!

But now I'd like to ask you to take 5 mins of your time and fill in Johari and Nohari window for me! Funny thing is that I've done that before, but when I opened my previous test (it was around 2,5 years ago) the characteristics I'm giving to myself changed!

So, even if you did it before for me, please do it again:) Links are here

http://kevan.org/johari?name=Dekabrinka

http://kevan.org/nohari?name=Dekabrinka

P.S. if you are interested in tests that I've taken for yourself, let me know, I can share:)

My latest Milan discoveries

For those who is following my "Discover Milano" trips - museums, churches and other places of interest:)

Today me and Irene went to very nice place - Gian Giacomo Poldi Pezzoli house museum. Actually, I planned to go to Santa Maria della Gracie church where "Last supper" is but only yesterday we found out that we need to book our visit 1 month! before! Then visit to Brera didn't work as well, so we decided to go to this small museum!

It's house museum and unless you are looking for it, you'll never put attention to it - just a random house, one of thousands you can find in Milan! Collections there are impressive - painitings, arms, caprets, jewellery, glass, clocks and watches, porcelain, furniture etc.

If you are interested to find out more, have a look here. Very good thing about it was free entrance with student ID (God bless that Saturday that I've spent to issue ISIC and Euro26. At least 4 hours and 55 grn are definitely not wasted:))

We were very close to Via Montenapoleone, the street I wanted to visit for a long time. It's believed (and actually is) the most expensive street in Milan - all brand boutique are there! You can find there more then 100 shops of the world most popular brands

Honestly saying I expected to be impressed by the outlook of the street - but in fact it's nothing more then a small, narrow street with lots of shops, expensive cars and celebrities. Prices also are not so high as I expected it to be, for sure comparable to prices in Mandarin Plaza in Kiev! The only one discovery was that on such streets you can find special boutique hotels:)

Then we had panzerotti on our favourite place in city center, had a lot of fun trying to order a monthly transportation ticket. You should know that system is different from what we have in Ukraine. I had to fill in application, go to make picture, have student ID, passport, copies of fiscal code and residence permit and now I have to wait for 15 days for ATM (Milan transportation agency) to issue me this monthly ticket (and actually they still have the right not to issue that). If I'm lucky, I'll be able to spend only 18 euros for metro each month (not comparable to 0,5o grn in Kiev, ha?:)).

Being at home (hm, I Via Andora home already?!) is cool. I missed it! Yes, Irene moved here, Alba is coming tomorrow! Hectic times of Autumn are coming...:)

Friends

Today I received a “ C U soon” email email from Legka! I regret that I couldn’t answer her before she left, but anyways I started to write. By the time I finished tears were running down my cheeks, but I was smiling. Maybe it’s what is called tears of happiness.
I’m happy and sad at the same time – so many people whom I met last year or even longer time ago are now starting (or started recently) new stage of their lifes, moving to other places, cities and countries, continuing their AIESEC career, starting internships, studying, adjusting to new environments, meeting new people, establishing new friendships.
Verily, you can never imagine where life will send you and your friends and how will it change their lifes.
I remembered myself about all my lovely friends that are moving now and now I have a nice picture of them and places they go:)

My essence??!! confused!

As you most probably know, right now I'm at IC. Everything goes cool so far, apart from my "identity crisis" connected to a simple question " where are you from?". Subconciously I'm answering that I'm from Ukraine, then realizing that most probably I have to say Italy and then get confused:) but anyways this post is not about it but about few things I've discovered(or just reminded myself about) about myself.

There were actually 2 "events" that exposed me to these kind of thoughts. First, is our chats with Federica that we have from time to time. 2 things I got to know about myself from her is that I'm a "chickie" cold girl. That actually made me think a lot as I've never considered myself to be chickie, not at all. Cold also no, maybe calm, but not cold.

The other thing is the Belbin test that we were doing today during DLD - I can remember at least 2 times I was doing it before. Today not so many things were changed - I definitely scored the most in "action oriented" types, in "Implementer" and "Shaper" particularly. That was not new. What was actually new is that I've noticed that I got scores below zero in "people oriented" types. Which made me quite disappointed - I don't know if it means that I'm totaly not a good person to work and communicate with...

Additionally to that I started to think about other characteristics of me that I've heard from other people, feedbacks that I've received - well organized, too structured, not sharing dreams and emotions.

So I the image of me that came to my mind was quite strange. Then the evening came and I talked to an old friend of mine, who told that it's not possible to catch me and talk during IC because I'm always busy with meetings, working groups and other chats.
Then night came and I came back after party to read email and accidentally found my favourite quote website, so I decided to have a look at "My quotes". What I've noticied there is that there only 3 of them related to love and relationship and other relate more to achievments, accomplishments, excellence and changes.

All of that created some sort of complications with conclusions:

1. I know what kind of value can I bring to work I'm doing (professionally). Without being shy I can say that I'm a good achiever. And that makes me confident of my career and my future.

2. But does that all mean that I'm not so good in intrapersonal relations and it's really very difficult to communicate with me? I didn't really find answer for this question, furthermore, I haven't come up with any kind of solution on how to improve that. Or is it something of my core, my essence that I don't realize? In fact it seems to me that I can be a good friend, and a good person to talk to and in general not so cold, structured and chickie. what is also funny is that it seems that being chickie and structured and cold totally contradicts to each other...

Should I use Johari window again or are there any better tools to evaluate yourself and see how otehrs see u?

In any way, I'm confused.. I'd be glad I guess to read some of your thoughts here?
I wonder if a person can realize himself fully in his life? or whether the life is continious self - discovery?

Would the life be fun if you could know everything about yourself and tell it to others? Would be live there in a perfect world of in a world of manipulators?

and the last question - why people are not as easy as 1,2,3?:) maybe our life wouldn't be so funny then?:)

I'm kind of feeling the need to have a meaningful conversation about that issue, maybe somebody knows the answer. I wonder who could that be...

P.S. I don't know why I reminded myself of Fedor Mikhailovich Dostoevskiy and his Raskolnikov in "Crime and punishment". Maybe I should read it again since this is the book which I from time to time refer to in my discoveries:)

Czech Republic

This is the first time for last 2 or 3 years when I officially have holidays:) It feels great to know that you have 10 days to rest, do nothing (or do something important but not connected to my work). So first thing I want to tell is that I FEEL GREAT:) Today in Sunday and I still have 4 days of holidays ahead, but now it's time to tell about first week that I spent in Czech.Rep with my parents!
I was looking for it a lot for this trip since I haven't seen my parents for a 1,5 already, well, I know that the more is to come later. So I was counting days till 4th of August:)

I had my plane quite early, at 9.35 which means I had to leave Via Andora at 6 am. Everything went fine in the begining - taxi arrived on time, I got to Malpensa bus station safely, got into the bus, but then adventures started:)
Bus arrived to Malpensa airport (biggest out of 3 airports in Milan) and people started to get off. So did I. I entered building of the airport and started to look for my check in desk, but I couldn't find it. Then I found a note that I'm in Terminal 2 and my flight is from Terminal 1. It wasn't mentioned anyhow in my ticket. I had no idea where to look for Terminal 1, I decided to walkt there but then I realized I got is that it's quite far from the one I was in. I was about to take a taxi, but then I saw bus going there. Driver was a nice old man and he agreed to take me there for free. Indeed it was quite far from T2 - about 10 mins by bus.
I saw a lot of airports in my life, but I've never seen such mess as I saw in Malpensa - there were thousands of people, huge lines for check in desks(check in desks were also quite strange - all operated by Alitalia (have got no idea why), with one huge line for 5 check ins. I regret that I don't have a picture, but I was in the line with I guess more then 300-400 people and I spent 65 mins in line for check in. I was almost sure that I'm going to miss my flight. During check in I cross checked whether everything is correct and I have my trip Milan-Prague, Prague-Brno, my luggage was sent to Brno, so everything seemed to be quite ok. In plane I met a guy from US and we had very nice conversation. So even that flight was delayed for 1 hour I wasn't angy with that.
Flight was good as well, it was first time I saw plane passing trough soo many clouds - it felt like dashing trough snow mountains, shaking a lot, but very nice! I don't know why I never noticed it during my previous flights:)
When I arrived to Prague I started to look for my second flight but I couldn't find it in schedule, so I started to look for help. It took me 20 mins to get info that in fact I have not a flight but a bus to Brno, and they made a mistake in Malpensa sending my luggage to Brno. I spent terrible hour trying to get my luggage and I must say that I succeded:) 30 mins more changing Terminals, checking in for bus, 2,5 hours trip and I was in Brno:)
On my way in bus I was thinking about this strange habit to have challenges during all my travels:)dunno why it happens. But in the end, I have soooo many funny stories to tell about my travels:)
Time in Czech needs additional post maybe. I visited almost all big cities in CZ - Brno, Ostrava, Olomouc, Prague:) We stayed at our place in Roznov pod Radhostem - amazing small (22,000 people) town with beautiful nature, amazing view from my window at home and the oldest in Central Europe museum in open air. Rožnov is a sort of miniature Wallachia, at least as far as it concerns the history of its settlement:)
So about the museum, it's called Valasske Museum v Prirode, it includes 3 big parts: Little wooden town, The water mill valley and the Wallachian village. The Little Wooden Town is the oldest part of the museum. The setting roughly imitates the Rožnov square which boasted a number of local burghers’ timbered houses up to the second half of the nineteenth century. The Water Mill Valley is an area composed of technical buildings that have been located on the piece of land around the original millrace since 1982 – the Water Mill, the Woollen Mill for making cloth out of the wool yarn, the Saw Mill for sawing planks, the Oil Crusher and the Hammer Mill. The Wallachian Village occupies the largest area of the museum which consists of a lot of dwelling-houses and farmhouses that are showing life of a lot of generations of Moravian people.
I wrote before maybe that I get this feeling of touching history in all museums, but in this one especially since you have the chance to see real houses, real way of life of people. By the way, the funniest thing I've noticed is the fact that Czechs were really short and small - beds in houses were very small (как диван-малютка):) Even I with being quite small would seem to be giant for that people:)
I didn't spend a lot of time in other cities so I don't have a lot of stories to tell. Maybe only about Olomouc. A lot of memories connected to this city - I wanted to enter Uni there, I was there for my first Presidents meeting during my CEED in CZ, I got lost thousands of times there! Beautiful city:)
One of the most important places I've visited this time was famous place of battle between Russian and Frech troops in 1805 - Austerliz. Honestly saying, I never knew that this famous place of battle of three Emperors is in CZ. In fact it's:) Since CZ territory was part of Austriab empire in that times. Now the place is called Slavkov and there is a momument called Mohyla miru and museum of famous Austerliz battle with multimedia exposition!

There are cities that makes you feel like staying there, Prague is one of such cities for me:)
I've been there 3 times already but never with good guide to get to know everything about the place. So I promised myself to come back next time for a real sightseeing! I wonder only when will it happen:)
Yesterday night I came back to Milan, of course with some challenges...:) But not very difficult - it's only about my luggage which was 34 kgs (shopping is not easy for me, you know:)) and since I didn't know how to call taxi and I didn't want to bother anyone on holidays I had to take metro.. On my way from Centrale to QT8(station near my home) I was cursing myself for being so shopoholic and so spoiled by taking taxis and using help of males with bags:) But nevertheless I arrived successfully to Via Andora, feeling extermly proud of being able to manage everything:)
Now I'm having completely lazy day, reading emails, unpacking and washing.. and planning the rest 3 days of my holidays... More will come soon!

Animal stories 2007-08

Today is a crazy day, definitely...:) It all started with the news about Matteo and by evening I found out that I have to share more stories about my team! Let's call it "Animal stories"...

Apparently, we found out that all members in our team have sisters and brothers from world of wild nature (not always wild in fact to be honest):)

Definitely all of you (especially VPXs 06-07) think that you know what kind of animal am I! But I have to disappoint you - I changed my image totally and now I'm (sorry, Lara, I know it'll hurt you:) what Italians call piccolo criceto (small hamster). It appeared after our nice adventure with furetto (polecat, хорек) that visited us one day! I'm too small and too nice to be furetto:) and this is the way how hamster assosiation was born:)you have the unique chance to compare:)

The next one would be our lovely TM girl Anabella or Annare how we call her! You can never imagine who this small blond nice girl can be...But the truth is that somewhere deep in the soul she is white (I'm not sure they are existing) monkey! See yourself...

Fedorka (no, sorry, Federica Rosi) apparently came our to be hyena! Till I went through couple of pictures while I was trying to find suitable for blog I found out that you can find some similarities:). But it's still unclear for me how this decision was taken about nominating Federica to be such a nice wild animal!

Dany is very nice, very soft and positive! Just not yet pink enough to be like his animal brother pig. We wind more connections with pork (but in Italy it has rather negative meaning, not connected to Dany).

The last but not the least of our lovely MCP. It took us quite some time to find out his essense:) The process was quite hard since he used to be grande furetto (big polecat), he himself wanted to be a bear once. But after long and tough discussion we found out his animal brother - skunk (скунс)

And I'm grateful to my team for these nice stories that we have together and experience that we pass trough:)

I'll be missing you during holidays, my lovely animal friends:)