Mi Trabajo

So, I meant to do this in the last post, but sometimes I just get so carried away with myself. The job I will be doing in Colombia is for a program called Plan Desarme (literally: Plan to disarm) which was created by the United Nations. I will be working for ten weeks going into elementary schools and neighborhood centers to give presentations to students about how multiculturalism can be a tool for nonviolent conflict resolution. The nerve-wracking part is that these presentations need to be completed in Spanish! Luckily for me, I have a partner from the AIESEC EIA committee(The AIESEC from the area in Colombia where I will be living) named Andrea who I will be doing all of the presentations with, she also worked for Plan Desarme previously. Apparently Plan Desarme is very integrated into their LC and sponsors a lot of their events, which is awesome!

Tip for future AIESEC bloggers: start blogging before you start the job--start during the process where you're looking for a traineeship match. The process is usually not very fun, at least it wasn't for me, but a few funny stories came out of that time in my life. It starts when you read the traineeship postings in the AIESEC database that are sometimes posted in mixed-up english (now, I am not complaining, their english skillz are more advanced than any of my second language skillz) One job was: "Looking for: female aiesecer to shack up with," and further down the job description, "Bachelor: required." As I read this to my roommate Alex she yells, "Molly, what type of messed up sex scandal are you getting yourself into?"
Me: Well I think by the first part they just meant they only have housing available for a female, so they need a female to apply
Alex: Yeah, I got that, but why is a bachelor required?!
Me: a bachelor's...degree
Alex: hahahaha

Funny story 2 involved me having a small breakdown when I received emails that seemed to imply I needed to be, and was, fluent in Spanish for the job. One email said: "no more english, hahahahaaaa" direct quote, imagine the last part in a really evil cackle. Now, I wasn't trying to be a baby, I just didn't want everyone to be pissed when I got there and I wasn't fluent, and I didn't want my employer to be expecting someone different. I frantically emailed back saying, "I am not anywhere near being fluent, the job said it only required good Spanish, blah, blah, eeeeek." I soon received another email saying: "Could you put together a quick video of yourself talking about the Weapon Plan for the foundation and what you think you will be able to contribute to it." Spanish no longer was my priority as the freak out moved from minor to major and I yelled things like, "I am neither qualified NOR interested in creating weapon plans for them, weapon plan, WEAPON PLAN!? Seriously?!" to Alex (Since the furthest away we could get from each other in our dorm room was approximately 4 feet 8 inches she had the joy of experiencing all of these things with me). After sending another frantic email, this time to Sarah, all of the problems were fixed, because Sarah has magical powers: I was going to have someone with me who can speak Spanish and English which will help bridge any language gaps, and I didn't need to make the video since it was my exam time, and if I would have had to make the video it would have been talking about the UN-weapon plan, which is something that Plan Desarme talks about in their presentations. (the "un" part was kind of key to that email, whoops!)

so just to recap for myself and for others:
-I will be helping to teach nonviolence
-there are no weapons involved
-They don't think I'm fluent, only "good"
-I will be speaking mainly in Spanish
-I am not "shacking up" per se, with anyone
-I am a bachelor(ette), but it is not required for the job

my traineeship rocketship

My traineeship rocketship, as Sara Sadek so affectionately and correctly called them, I'm not sure if that's like an AIESEC thing, but I'm just going to go ahead and credit this one to Sara...ok so perhaps not entirely accurate, I don't think there are going to be rocketships involved anywhere (although I wish there was), but there will definitely be jet planes.

I will be departing for Medellin, Colombia (yes yes I know there is an accent on the I in Medellin, but this html freaks out at nothing, so I don't want to overload it's system) on approximately June 13th...I'm still finalizing plane tickets. The cOlOmbia that I'm going to in fact has 2 O's, and no u's. When asked about my summer plans I got lots of blank stares, and after a few seconds people would say, "The college?" -"No, kohl-ohm-be-a," I'd respond as I mustered my very best Spanish accent, which mind you is not very good, but fingers crossed will be stellar by the end of the summer!

So, I started this blog to record my adventure, and so all of my faithful fans (al pal, dad, and CB, haha) can stalk me. I hope there will be more than the current members between the parentheses by the time I'm finished...and when you see me when I get back make sure you reference my blog in our conversations often and always...it will make me feel better about my current existence which consists of a HECK of a lot of stalking of others via facebook, AIM, photo sites...I mean really anything I can get my hands on. I titled my blog, "Not lost in translation," for lots of metaphorical reasons that I will let you interpret yourself, AND because I hope I will be able to accurately convey my personality, sarcasm, humor, etc who I am, while overcoming a language barrier. Especially because I like to talk so much, as you can tell, which leads me to my next point of: (I think we're on fun fact #3:) I generally apologize a lot. But it would just be unrealistic for me to be interjecting all of these apologies into my blog where I thought necessary, so consider this a blanket apology for the entire thing: STOP READING NOW if you think this is any of the following: stupid, annoying, offensive, etc. and so on and so forth...I can't guarantee that it's going to get any better from here on out.

Cheers!

Information Station

I guess at some point I just need to include a whole lot of information about who I am and what I'm doing so that way when people like my grandma read this they will be in the know.

My name is Molly, I'm nineteen years old, and I just finished my first year of school at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I am a recently declared Community Leadership and Development major which I'm really excited about. That major is housed in the school of human ecology and it's kind of underground for those madisonians reading this thinking, "Wha? I've never heard of that major before." I hope to do work in the non-profit sector after I graduate. With this major you are required to pick out 15 credits to help you specialize, or get on track to the career you want...I'm planning on having some sort of urban issues or inter-group relations specialization. Then again, life is crazy and [I'm still deciding whether or not] I'm indecisive, so who knows where I will really end up.

While at school I joined a fabulous student organization called AIESEC, and if I were to meet all brand management guidelines I would say that AIESEC is:

Pronounced "eye-sek," was founded in Europe in 1948 and has grown to over 80 countries with over 50,000 volunteer members on 700+ university campuses.

Together, we pursue our mission: To contribute to the development of our countries and their people with an overriding commitment to international understanding and cooperation.
In pursuit of this mission, AIESEC facilitates work abroad exchange programs between its member countries. AIESEC in the U.S. sends students from the U.S. to gain practical work experience abroad and receives individuals from around the world to undergo training with companies in the U.S. (http://www.aiesecus.org/about.aspx)

Now, what does that really mean? I guess the answer to that question is just: A LOT. It means we do a lot, which is why I'm still trying to figure it all out. The reason I am so concerned about brand management: haha I'm not actually that concerned but I am a member of the AIESEC Madison Marketing: Brand Management team, and also a new member of the Salaam Team!

Truthfully, I made a slight change to the "standard paragraph" (aka the orange one), for some reason they had the quotations around eye-sek inside the comma! I'm not sure what that was all about, fun fact #1: I HATE incorrect quotation punctuation, rule of thumb: quotes ALMOST always go the farthest outside they possibly can, aka after periods, commas, etc. And if we're being completely honest, fun fact #2: grammar isn't really one of my strengths, so if I am wrong about all of this--don't tell me. I've always been under the impression that it was this way, and I don't want that to change. (Like when John Fink got to college and found out that the 2nd weekday was in fact spelled TUESDAY, not tuseday, damn)

voy a colombia

It's really late, but I have successfully created my blog, so I'm pumped.

I'm leaving for Medellin, Colombia approximately June 13th, I will include more information soon, but it's 3:00 in the morning right now.

I am so excited always; intermittently nervous. But when I read articles that end like this it makes me happy:

Statistics alone don't capture the sense of rebirth here. Atop the slum, in the shadow of ascending gondolas and a new computer lab, the city's poorest children think they're kings of the hill. They chase after me, tugging at my jacket, 30 or 40 at once. It's not my money that they want, it's pictures of themselves and their friends. As I sit down to catch my breath, a runty seven-year-old boy with a precocious understanding of digital photography suddenly climbs out from under the bench. "I don't have e-mail yet," he says. "So print it for me for when you come back, O.K.?" (http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_22/b4036001.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_top+story)

I can't wait!