Nobel Peace Prize Winner is an AIESEC Alumnus!!

The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded its 2008 peace prize on Friday to Martti Ahtisaari, the former Finnish president who has been associated over decades with peace efforts and quiet, cautious diplomacy from Asia to Africa and Europe.

Out of 197 people nominated for the annual prize, the committee said, Mr. Ahtisaari had been chosen for his important efforts in several continents and over three decades to resolve international conflicts.

To outsiders, Mr. Ahtisaari, 71, has often seemed an undemonstrative and aloof figure. But some people who worked with him praised what Gareth Evans, the head of the nongovernmental International Crisis Group in Brussels called charm and humor in dealing with his various negotiating partners.

He has played a central role in ending conflicts that took root in the late 20th century and threatened the early 21st century with conflagrations in many places, some of them remote and all of them complex, presenting mediators with tangles of ethnic, religious or racial passions.

Specifically, the committee mentioned his work in ending South African domination of Namibia, the former South-West Africa, from the 1970s to the late 1990s , and peace efforts in the Indonesian province of Aceh, Kosovo, Northern Ireland, Central Asia, the Horn of Africa and, most recently, in Iraq.

- from the New York Times

Martti Ahtisaari was an AIESECer from Finland. How cool is that? Not only are we the only student organization with a seat in the United Nations, we have a Nobel laureate among us. Congratulations Mr. Ahtisaari!

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The Name Game!

What Shubhangi Means

You are the total package - suave, sexy, smart, and strong. You have the whole world under your spell, and you can influence almost everyone you know. You don't always resist your urges to crush the weak. Just remember, they don't have as much going for them as you do. You are truly an original person. You have amazing ideas, and the power to carry them out. Success comes rather easily for you... especially in business and academia. Some people find you to be selfish and a bit overbearing. You're a strong person. You are a very lucky person. Things just always seem to go your way. And because you're so lucky, you don't really have a lot of worries. You just hope for the best in life. You're sometimes a little guilty of being greedy. Spread your luck around a little to people who need it. You are full of energy. You are spirited and boisterous. You are bold and daring. You are willing to do some pretty outrageous things. Your high energy sometimes gets you in trouble. You can have a pretty bad temper at times. You are usually the best at everything ... you strive for perfection. You are confident, authoritative, and aggressive. You have the classic “Type A” personality. You are very intuitive and wise. You understand the world better than most people. You also have a very active imagination. You often get carried away with your thoughts. You are prone to a little paranoia and jealousy. You sometimes go overboard in interpreting signals. You are deeply philosophical and thoughtful. You tend to analyze every aspect of your life. You are intuitive, brilliant, and quite introverted. You value your time alone. Often times, you are grumpy with other people. You don't appreciate them trying to interfere in your affairs. You tend to be pretty tightly wound. It's easy to get you excited... which can be a good or bad thing. You have a lot of enthusiasm, but it fades rather quickly. You don't stick with any one thing for very long. You have the drive to accomplish a lot in a short amount of time. Your biggest problem is making sure you finish the projects you start.

What's Your Name's Hidden Meaning?

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Keeping the inner child alive!

So, finally after having a week of emotional roller coaster, I have a reason to be happy all over again :).. For a lot of you, this post might have been from a 2 years old (if they knew how to blog) rather than a 20 years old, but as they say : always keep the inner child alive :D

So, do you remember this song : 'Tan ki shakti, mann ki shakti'
Yes, I am definitely talking about our good old Bournvita. Do you remember that morning glass of milk with Bournvita before you went to school, and the one which you drank in the evening before going out to play some random game with your colony's baccha party, and definitely the one which you drank after a tiring day just before going to bed? Oh and forgot to ask, the bournvita you nicked out of the kitchen when no one was watching! Hmmm... now u remember all those moments :P

Well, I have always been an outright bournvita lover. I can drink it all the time. Life was difficult to imagine without bournvita. But then I came to Singapore. Whoosh, we were separated and I found replacements. But then if your love is true, you realize it sooner or later. So, after 2 years of separation, I am back with bournvita! Though, it doesn't come in a jar here and can only be found at Mustafa, I just can't express my happiness when I drank the first glass of bournvita in Singapore this morning. It was like heaven :) I guess, sometimes you can't live without some things!

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A different Dimension!!

While talking to Udit Bhaiya, I realized how different the dimension was from which I was feeling the pain of my Nanu Passing away! I still have my exams, lab reports, assignments, meetings, classes.. Its not like it would have been in India, where I could have stopped my life for some days and cried with my family. Life is going with as fast a pace here. Nothing has changed here, even giving me the delusion that I am seeing some bad dream which will end soon. Its difficult to talk to the people back home, the way they are talking to me.

But I have got good friends who understand me well and hardly leave me alone. So, I am living a routine life. Its also bad in some respect, because there is something stuck in there which is not going out of my system. I get distracted while working and then get myself to concentrate coz I know the deadline is approaching. Nanu wanted me to do well in my studies, in my career and travel around the world. And thats what I should concentrate on doing now. Thats what will keep my Nanu happy and thats what I should devote my energy into.

Had a talk with Maa and Nani today. The strongest females I know of. Gave me a lot of strength and energy :)

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I love you Nanu!!

Dear Nanu,

Just came to know that you have started your journey to heaven sometime back. I really regret not being able to talk to you before you went so far far away. Actually, I am really trying my best not to shed tears when you begin a new life, but then I realized that these tears are not because you left us, You are now free of all the pain of being human. These tears are because I didn't fulfill some of my promises to you, because I know you really wanted to see somethings, because now I have no one to say 'Desh bada gambhir hai' every 5-10 mins!

I know how much you wanted to come to Singapore and I promised that once I graduate, Nani and you can permanently shift to Singapore. All the passport issues which happened, when you applied for the passport after hearing this promise, they just show how much you wanted to see my life here. I am sorry that I can't fulfill that promise now.

I know how much you were waiting for me to go to US next year. That you have already announced to the whole Kosi about this, and I was so embarrassed when people were talking about it all the time. How you have shown anyone who is interested to, all the newspaper articles, all my cuttings, writings and anything at all. How happy you used to become when I got even a simple thing right! I used to get embarrassed when you used to tell everyone about it, but later I realized its just your way of showing how much you love me and are proud of all the little things I am doing.

I have heard and seen how great a father you are! And I realized that when mummy just couldn't talk today and passed the phone to Gudiya Mausi. You will be really missed Nanu, your pampering all your grandchildren will also be missed a lot. Ani-Apoorva, and Anu-Avi still have their Nanaji and Dadu with them, but Saloni and I have lost the 2 people who used to pamper us the most (Dadu and you).

And I just realized that I never thought that you will leave us, so I never told you that I love you!

Yours,
Shubhi

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I am happy!!

Just came across happiness after a long time! So,

Happiness is sitting with your previous MC team on one of the benches outside Gourmet cafe and laughing at the prospects of having either one of them as a Chair for an upcoming conference!
Happiness is also meeting all the wonderful AIESEC alumni who have done so much for the organization and are willing to do more so in the future.
Happiness is cracking random jokes with your Boss in the previous team and sharing all your workload of the current team!
Happiness is also finding a mentor in someone you give a call early morning and discuss your self doubts with her. And she listens to you and motivates you to a great extent to believe in yourself.
Happiness is getting a call from a company of your choice for an interview in about 5 hours time.
Happiness is having a good and meaningful chat with your interviewer.
Happiness is getting confirmation of your selection in that company withing an hour of the interview.
Happiness is hearing your dad say, "I told your mum that you will get through :)"
Happiness is getting a call from your mum in an AIESEC event being worried why you gave her 13 missed calls and then revealing that you got through the company you so dearly wanted.
Happiness is sitting with some of the team members and sharing with them about totally random things.
Happiness is getting the feeling of being competent again.
Happiness is sharing your happiness with a friend sitting in Finland :D

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In the Name of God!

I finally watched he movie, 'Khuda Ke Liye' (In the name of God!). My interest in the movie actually came from my deep love in Pakistan and Afghanistan, which in itself comes from the great interest I have in Islam as a religion.

To be frank, the movie can be watched from 2 perspectives - one which might consider Islam as a very austere and rigid religion, the other which expresses that Islam is a religion, and what shape it takes in your life depends entirely on how you perceive it, how you practise it! I chose the latter perspective.

The movie makes you see the perspective of those people as well who might do anything In the name of God! Thats how Jehad can take so many different forms. The belief of these people is so strong in whatever they are doing that all logic leaves them. They are as keen to kill as they are to die. And its extremely difficult to make them see what impact that creates on the world.

But at the same time, it doesn't mean that all the followers of Islam are like that. Its just a matter of how the same religion can influence different people in so many different ways. How it can have so many different dimensions! The final objective of all this is to come close to God.

The movie also shows the Male Chauvinism so widely practised in Pakistan, Afghanistan and though not mentioned in the movie, I dare to say, the entire South Asia. Previously, I used to feel that Islam prefers males, by not allowing females to have more than 1 husband while men can have upto 3 legitimate wives. Then I came across the logic behind all this, and I actually started believing in it. And the male chauvinism is more of a culture thing than a religious thing.

All religions give you a way of living lives. They always have a valid logic and reason behind it which is very well explained in the holy scripts. To understand the religion with more depth and follow it, we need to understand the logic. If that logic applies in today's times, good enough, if not then we can chose to follow it or not!

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Back to where I was!

It all seems like a deja vu to me but I am back to where I was exactly 1 year back! All the catching up in academics, loads of AIESEC work, personal life screw ups and no hope of anything getting back to normal! At this time, I again see the same solution : run away from everything and go back home, if only it was possible. But the way I am taking it this year is much better than last year! I think some things are just not meant to be and workaholics like me should just study and do AIESEC work.

Yes, I have definitely grown and matured a lot in the past year. I am more accepting to let people go, more accepting to work like a machine all day long, more accepting to be an island once more, more accepting while writing this post on a Sunday night knowing that its mid sem break and probably every creature in NUS and NTU is partying!

Before coming from Brazil, I was telling Tarun how afraid I was that things might become just the way they were last year, me working all the time and paying heavily for it, and he said that I am the most stupid person in the world! Somehow, it turns that I am not (unfortunately). Lets see how things shape up in the future! :)

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Mid Sem Break!!

Yay!! The mid sem break is here... Even though my first half of the sem was mostly spent in Brazil, mid sem break is always very welcome! I think for me mid sem brings a lot of things. Here are the keyones:

• I can catch up with the studies :)
• Get to be an AIESEC machine and do loads of AIESEC work
• Meet a lot of people I am not able to meet otherwise
• Read some books
• Watch loads of movies :D
• Go for random outings
  
• Sleep till bored of sleeping
• Get to write all sorts of random blogs (this one included)

So here I go for an awesome mid sem break!

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JumpStart! 2008

Before I forget, I want to write my experience and learning down! JumpStart (JS) this year gave me a chance to view a conference from a completely new dimension. I was the "Conference Manager" and the "Agenda Manager". Today at the closing I was very emotional, and the emotions were the ones which you get only when you have achieved something much more than you expected. To be frank with myself, I have kind of forgotten this feeling since December 2006. I am not saying that I did not achieve things or am among those vain people who think that achieving those things is almost nothing! I expect a lot from myself, sometimes a bit too much and most of the times, I cannot achieve as expected or just barely reach my target. But this time, I was able to get that sense of achievement and fulfillment which somehow was only predominant in my school life! And surely, it is one of the most beautiful things :) I did not achieve all this on my own definitely, and have a long list of people to thank for it! Specially Grace!

The best thing which happened to me was that I found myself back - the energy, passion, drive, zest for meeting people, which I was losing due to some things not going quite well, were revived. I still remember my conversation with Cheryl during IC about how we should not let our identity be affected by how other people receive it, and I actually did that in JS! The delegates are a major reason for this shift!

I learned a lot from my team too. The importance of team work, enthusiasm, love and the thirst for improvement and learning. The things which we always have in the back of our heads got reinforced. And I am now more confident of my abilities than I have been for quite some time!

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