MC mails management

I know time management is a big issue in AIESEC but this one is more a professional than general problem. It's about checking the mails upon which I'm asking you guys for advice or how you do/did it.
The case is the following: Yesterday we had MC Meeting (which generally last the whole day (7hours)). So in that time you aren't able to work nor do your mails and the day after you have them all... Afterwards I've just sent 3 very important e-mails and read a few. Then I did personal stuff because it was right another long working for @ day.
Since I arrived 3 hours ago I'm just checking my mails - and you know what, I'm fkn damn not even done with all of them yet!!
Now as Alfredo would say I just think: GIMME A BREAK
and I do this post which I hope will help me to improve on that issue in the future.
Fact is that there is hell a lot of work to be done today, this week, always... and I cannot spend 3 hours every second day just reading and replying to mails. Just to make it very clear here, I'm talking about AIESEC mails, the once I receive from members, comunities and so on and not about personal mails (that's another topic).
3 hours is just too much I guess and the time that remains for doing other stuff becomes too little because of that. And I'm not even reading stuff about global initiatives, which would honestly really interest me but I just don't have the time to do so and follow a discussion. I'm only doing the important stuff!

So I'm asking you experienced guys out there what can I do about it?
What have you done to manage your work beside being done with your mails??


Not reading them cannot be a solution. Because you might miss some important points about what's going on in your country, in a LC or in personal manners of your VPs or members as well as MC team mates... Or when a topic comes up and you haven't read the bloody mail you're kind of out of the discussion and people go: what, you haven't read the mail?! - well sorry, but blabla...
Not replying isn't a solution either, otherwise people get pissed off if you don't do so.

Of course it takes me a bit longer to read mails cause the majority of them are in spanish and I'm not really fast in reading spanish but still that's not the biggest prob.

Well, I'd be very glad to hear some ideas from your side. How you've managed.
Or to finish off in the AIESEC languague: Please send me your GCP (good case practises)
Thanx already now
I appretiate a lot

no surprise

After my last post I realized this morning that it's actually not surprising that I can't get myself out of bed in the morning. Because yesterday I've worked about 10 hours. After the usual getting up fight in the morning I caught the bus at 9 and started working at 10 a.m. Together with the other MC members I've left the computer lab at 8.45 p.m. In order to balance work and life it was clear to me that I will go to the despedida (good bye party of Risho) in the flat of the trainees. We arrived there at about 10 p.m., went for a pizza on the street and left the place at about 0.30 a.m. (which is damn early for normal conditions). When I closed my eyes it was about 1.30 a.m.

Considering that I don't have to ask myself why it's so hard for me getting up in the morning...

The MC just works way too much... Why do I realize that just yet?! ;-)

And the bad thing about is that we can't even change a thing on that... It's our passion, we know why we do it and that's why we love doing so...!

I'm coming out of the MC meeting now and my tareas (to does) for the next week are just not managable within the normal working hours. I know that but I've given this to does to me myself.

Never mind, like that I assure two different things:
1. I will never get bored

2. I really make a change in @Ecuador

and furthermore I just guess that it makes me happy. Although I might be stressed from time to time. But you know me - I kind of need that - always challenging myself!

Therefore I beg you sorry for not replying to mails on time and neglecting you a bit with the contact I have with you. But you remember my opinion about friendship and I know it's the same for you and I hope that you never forget that

I LOVE YOU MY FRIENDS OUT THERE

-

NO MATTER WHAT

Big city life

Just quickly, cause I have lots of things on my to-do list today.
But that's exactely about this post. Cause it takes me 1 hour to get to work. And what I thought this morning is that back home it was the same. But within this time I went from Bern to Zurich. Managed the way between to big cities in Switzerland...
Here after one hour bus ride I'm still in Guayaquil...
and obviously the day becomes kind of shorter if you spend 2 hours just in the bus everyday...
I guess it's kind of the same for you guys out there in Thailand, Singapour, Dehli, Lima, Caracas and so on... But I'm still Swiss and not really used to such long going to work times.
A big difference in my big city life here is that under no conditions I managed to get up early. In the morning I'm always bloody tired and can't get my ass moved out of bed... So I'm just living my preferred cycle, get up a bit later and go to bed very late - usually 1 or 2 hours after midnight...
I always knew that I'm more a night owl that a early bird ;-)
And now everybody, get back to work and enjoy your big city life!!

caught by work

I guess yesterday I had the cheapest day ever in my life. I spent exactely 50 cents!! How I managed?! I caught the bus in the morning to the office, worked all day long, for lunch I ate my banana which I brought from home and caught bus nr. 14 back to my house in the south. A bus ride costs 25 cents, multiplied by 2 makes half a $ ;-)

In the evening I kept on working, fixed my stuff with the external hard-disk, washed my cloths, had a friend over to borrow my suite, a one hour phonecall about fixing everything for the upcoming conference on the weekend and tried to solve the problems that I face with my contact lenses.

So what do I say... working all day long and keeping myself busy with all the stuff I have to do keeps my living costs really low, true and cool.

But please not every day like that... When are we finally going to the funpark there is during July?! The month is almost over and my agenda full till IC.

But hey, don't worry guys - I'm still the same old busy man that I was at home, that you know. Trying to manage my work-life balance and bringing everything there is under one hut. And I must say I'm happy with how I'm doing!

TQM mi vida

Creating the Local Plan in Cuenca

After a though and really intense weekend I arrived this morning back in Guayaquil. And I'm actually really happy about it - and that has just one reason - the climate!
Due to my role as LC Coach of Cuenca it's the second time now that I've been in this wonderful city. And with it the second time I've been freezing my butt off all weekend long. Cause in Cuenca it's bloody cold - around 13 degrees!! :-) which is a huge shock for my body that is used now to daily degrees between 30 - 40ºC.

But beside that I really love being in Cuenca. The people are just awesome and I'd like to say a special thank to 'la casa Solis' which always offers me the warmest hospitality! I feel so much home there - it's wonderful!
Except some challenges with managing the agenda which is a result of the well known time issues such as being late, starting late and doing breaks longer then planned we achieved with the LC Plan a great output! We managed to work hard - extremly hard and play hard as well!!! And that really impressed and delighted me! You did great! And it's always a big pleasure to me being in Cuenca and working with you guys!

Thanks for the wonderful weekend.
I'll be back soon :-)

VIVA ITALIA

What a match, what a thriller till the ITALIANS finally made it!!
And we got a really nice party with the two Italians over here, Luigi y Tommaso!
Muchas felizitaciones, estoy muy feliz por italia tambien!
cause as you know, I still have some italian blood in my veins...! :-)
Sure I have to say that you've represented the pasion of the italian victory very well!! Which I would like to underline with this picture here that sais more than words could ever do!!

small small world

As I wrote in my last post the fluctuation of internationals here in Guayaquil is really high. So yesterday a person who is going to do a CEED in Cuenca for 3 month arrived, right. She is from the Netherlands and guess what - I know her! I've met her at the New Years Eve event in Slovakia. It's soooo damn cool to randomly catch up with people again...

Incredible isn't it, that when you travel the world you find out how small it is!!
To me these are two really special things that I love above everything - travelling and catching up with people!
Entonces, SEE YOU SOON SOMEWHERE ON THIS SMALL WORLD!

Sobre cumpleaños, bienvenidas y despedidas

Primero feliz cumpleaño Carlitos y todo el mejor para ti y tu futoro. Eres un muy gran chico!

Here we are in the Frutabar celebrating Carlo's birthday - well yes, surprising to me as well that he wanted to go to a bar where there are only fruit cocktails and no booz.
But we went afterwards to Manatial, where we could cheer to our friend with some alcohol... never mind.

But what I'm actually want to tell you is more about the celebrations that happen here all the time. First of all we are a pritty huge "family" and that's why we always have to celebrate a birthday. The Sunday coming up is the birthday of guapa Tania which we gonna celebrate on Saturday of course.
Then we have welcomes and farewell parties all the time as well. I guess in the last three month here I've been more at the airport picking people up and saying catch u later then at all my time being involved in AIESEC back home.
For example last week was the arrivel of Mabel (MCVP F) on Monday and the good-bye party of two CEEDers on Tuesday. This Friday another Trainee arrives and next week another Swiss will land in Guayaquil.

Just one thing I want to remind you guys out there about how important integration is. How cool it is if there are a lot of people waiting for you at the airport with banners and posters.
How cool it is to have your welcome party and get even a present - here only Trainees and CEEDers do, the MC not ;-(

Think about it and make everything to feel the people welcome and home!


In that respect a huge thank you to LC Guayaquil and to all my friends here in Ecuador that make my time here just wonderful. It's great to have a family!!
Let's celebrate :-))

MC Ecuador completo

Hearty welcome Mabel in the Team,
finally MC Ecuador is complete and happy to have the first MCVP Finance in Ecuador ever!
















from left to right:

• Mabel (Bolivia) Vice Presidente Finance
• Priscila(Ecuador) Vice President Learning Project
• Dalal (Canada/Algeria) Vice President Exhange
• Giovanni (Suizo) Vice President People Development
• Franchesca (Ecuador/Rusia) Presidente
• Carlos (Ecuador) VP External Relation
• Luigi (Italia/Napoles) Vice Presidente Corporate Development

we are such a great team! LET'S ROCK THE PLACE!!

Living with animals

Yesterday happened a really funny thing that makes me writing about a great topic. It's all about animals and living with them ;-)

So, yesterday we were watching television at a friends house when we suddenly saw a rat running around on the ceiling inside the house. Everyone stayed pretty relaxed and went on watching the movie until the moment that we saw the rat coming down into the house. So I went to see where it was hiding. Weaponed with a stick in one hand and a cup that I wanted to use catching it in the other hand Tania and me went to the kitchen. It was actually inside the oven and when I opened it the rat run off so quickly that neither I nor Tania could catch it - but the girls (Roxana and Tania) screemed loud enough to wake Tatiana and Luigi up. And they were right, cause this rat was bloody HUGE! Seriously, a damn big and ugly thing!!!
Now it was under the fridge and when we finally found it the rat run away again. And Luigi instead of catching it with his pot was screeming like a girl, jumping up and down pissing his pants.... Hihihi, you should have seen the guys... was too damn funny....
well however in the end we didn't catch the rat and the dogs couldn't really help us either.
But it was just really really funny and gave us a lot to joke about afterwards. For instance that the cup we wanted to catch it was way too small cause it was hell of a thing and well... Situationskomik - u huere loschtig xi :-))

There is more about animals.
There are a lot of cockroaches (cucaracha, Kakerlacke) in Sabanilla (the place we went last weekend) for instance. And the room was full of moskitos. This bloody bugs bit me so much I couldn't stop scratching the day after. Since it was really hot in Sabanilla I wore shorts and sandals so that I put my shoes in my bag, went home on Sunday and unpacked my luggage.
On Monday morning when I wanted to slip in my right shoe there was this noise and somehow not enought space in the front of my shoe... I suddenly realized that this must be a fkn cockroach in my shoe and got off it with quite a shock as you can imagine...
It's great living with animals - they make you laugh...

But there are also some disgusting stories with animals. I'm just saying having bugs in your glass when you wanna drink or that the dogs in your house piss on the ground in the kitchen and shit in the backyard of the house so that you have to watch out where you step everytime you're hanging your washing up...
That's just to complete the funny part of living with animals.

there's always a good and a bad part - Ying and Yang
don't forget to wash your dogs and cuddle them from me - miss you STRIZZI


...going to the pictures now...