Costa Rica | Elections 2006: NeXt Sunday

NeXt Sunday, Feb 06, Costa Rica will elect its neXt President.

There are many political parties but only 5 relevant (PLN, PAC, ML, PUC, PUSC) and 1 easy to forecast as winner (PLN).

Many people are not satisfied with the political system and they are considering not to vote. They range from 30% to 40& of the citizens.

In my opinion, the democratic system gives you two real methods to manifest your preferences or dislikes:

1. Select the option you like the best by voting
2. Create your own option, present it to others and pray the vote you

No voting seems to me like a typical attitude of people that complains without proposing. I never like those in my teams... do you?

NeXt Sunday I will vote.

Proud to be Costa Rican!

Water falls into the ocean sunset...

Montezuma... GREAT!

All I have to say is that it was the first time since November 2003 that I get the chance to go to a real Reggae Night! God I missed it!

...Dancing people, beer, stuff ;) and the best music ever...

Being happy is so simple sometimes.

Pictures coming soon...

Juan

What if?

Have you ever got the "what if" speech?

That one when somebody tells you something like "If you don´t do it, then you will always ask yourself... what if?"

Well, life could be seen as a continuos set of decisions..., so everytime we make a choice we create what ifs...

I don´t think it is bad to ask yourself what if, actually it is good. It is an indicator for you to continually check if you are on the right path... or not. As often as you ask yourself what if as faster as you will realize if you made the right choice or not.

I ask myself many times what if.

What if?

Montezuma on Friday Evening!

Today, I am in a really good mood! Maybe because one of my friends had the great idea to make a trip to Montezuma, Guanacaste.

Montezuma is a really nice beach in the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica. It´s major characteristics is the feelin´in the town. It´s very relax and happy! Besides, water - falls in the ocean sunset...

In the good old times, it used to be my favorite place on Earth. Now, after many years, it is time to go back...

Also some music came back to me mind, that good old music, roots of course:

...Spap spa da dap pap spa spa...
I wanna live in your house
I wanna live in your house
To make I home
To make I home yeh
I wanna live

"Your House", Steel Pulse

Romanian Radio!

I couldn´t resist it!

I have now Romanian Radio!

The same station I used to listen after waking up, in the car to work, at work, in parties...

It makes me so happy!

The funny thing..., it is free and SIMPLE!

http://windowtoromania.org/liveradio.asp

Expro Americas!

We have Expro and the GN LDS together and we call it AXLDS...

This year it will be 2 hours from Bogotá, Colombia!

For a Costa Rican, Colombia represents two things: the most beautiful girls in the Americas (after the Costa Ricans of course) and Juan Valdez, the colombian who drinks Costa Rican Coffee ;) Jaja...

...that was "Costa Rican humour a la Cluj"...

Anyways, I am very excited about this Conference mostly because it will be the first time I will meet people from SSGN..., so far my life is more in CEE GN than here. I want to see how AIESEC works and how the fun beats... I have high eXpectations ;) I mean, do we "Basti Team" here or not?

So far, It started good. The facis seem friendly and away..., as usual :) . The Chair is something..., it is a girl! ;) AdiSor told me girls rule when Chair-ing Conferences but this will be my first eXperience, I am really looking forward to it. And she has a plus... ;)

Well, cracanatilor, sharing is scary!

Juan

CoCAS 05!

No so good looking but very smart!

Guess who?

Central America South MC Team!

Romania | SuperNPS!

Counter and photo!

Yes!

I got into the HTML Code and managed to get the counter to work and to upload a picture... Not the best but good enough for the first try ;)

Today was one of those days the will be forgotten very fast... The higlight of the day was dropping Mariss at the University for Lilli to drive her to her close future...

The rest of the day was more or less methodical... mails, thesis, aiesec... the simple life.

Looking forward for my empty bed Not for long... Apply Here! :)

From Partying to Business-ing

Palmares didn´t not change in all these years. The same Toldos (transportable clubs for about 1500 people each and several stories), the same people, the same music... I wanted more reggaeton...

The best will never change..., the nice CRicas girls :) and the pupusas (not papusilor! Pupusa is a salvadorian food!)

On the other hand, I met many old good friends and we end up talking business. I met potential partners, clients and investors. I really thing Gabi, S and me are in the right track, we just need to be patient and make it happen...

Changing the subject, PDU is talking about Trainee´s Learning... and I have had some talks with Mariss about the issue. In my opinion, if AIESEC globally wants to improve the situation with trainees some very big paradigmas should be broken... and amaXing redesign of exchange processes must happens..., just like the ones I had in mind for MC RO :)

Maybe it is not the time yet...

Ciorba de burta!

I think too much?

Lately, people have noticed me thinking too much...

It is interesting because now it is a period to make certain important decisions regarding the rest of my life. It seems natural to me that I will have to think too much to make the right decisions... The fact is that when I make me mind I commit myself 100%, that´s why I have too think too much...

Most times I see others people relations, they fail because there is not commitment, most people keep a foot in the water and the other in the land... They didn´t think too much and now they can´t swim or run...

In my personal opinion, thinking too much is ok as long as you do much more than that!

As for me, today I am going to Palmares! The Biggest National Festival in Costa Rica, as much beer consumption per person to be ranked 2nd in the World after the Río Carnivals... Ready to dress, party and drink like a Costa Rican!

Qué se venga el reggaeton!

Building the road to China!

I applied already for the position in China. Today, I officially started to look for personal sponsors.

I found a Costa Rican Board of Enterprenurs that are very interested in building commercial relations with China. Until now, Costa Rica has worked closer with Taiwan. But the business sector is upset about this relation, new opportunities can be forsee...

I am doing research about doing business in China in the commodities sector, I have the feeling the business is there. My idea is to get informed, meet this Costa Ricans guys and see what comes out of it...

On the other hand..., I miss Romania..., it is so strange, part of my heart is there...

News come and go...

Yesterday I found out the the PAI will be a Faci at AXLDS, which gives me the opportunity to work closer to him. I think it is more impressive when I think back and count only 3 years and 3 months since I joined AIESEC. As a matter of fact, only 1 year ago I was a Trainee....

On the other hand, I received the bad news that CAS did not get the UK Fund... No feedback came with the notice... I hope we will find some open doors for us to face the current situation in our beloved AIESEC CAS.

Regarding the University, today I presented the Design of our project. We got a 9 which may lead us to get a Degree with Honours... This makes me really happy and satisfied because it will prove right my decision to go in eXchange before finishing my University. We need to make the Validation wich consist of a presentation of the whole project to the University and then the Public Defense which is pretty much the same presentation but open for the public.

I am hosting a former MCP from Estonia, Mariss -or something like that-, she will work and be hosted by a NGO. I like her a lot, she behves like a little girl but big thought are in her head ;)

Take care, I will keep trying to upload pictures..., tips are welcome!

The pseudovalue... Enjoy Leadership!

The last time I posted in my blog was the day I left to Romania. Today, Jan 17th 2006, seems like a different world to me. The great eXperiences I lived during the last 43 days redefined some perspectives on my life and my future...

Definitively the last month was a "challenging my worldview" time!

I will summarize the output of this period just to inform and in the next days I will go deep in details on each issue:

My AIESEC Future

Against everything I planned I didn´t apply for the MC in the country I love as much as my CAS, Romania. It was heartbroken but I feel it was the best thing I could do.

Instead, I applied for CR Project Manager in Mainland of China (MoC). I can not belive how happy I am to be running for this position, everyday I look for some history or cultural articles on China. My excitement grows day by day... I can even visualize my MC days walking from the apartment to the MC office in Beijing....

On other departments, I will be facilitating at Expro SSGN (Spanish Speaking Growth Network, Americas) in Colombia! It is like a dream... Going to a country I always wanted to visit to Facilitate in an international conference... And now it has a date!

CAS! CoCAS overcame all my expectations! I am back in Costa Rica looking forward to start improving all our work in People Development and LNs, so many great ideas came from the guys that I can´t wait to see them happening! I got all my batteries refilled!!! Thanx USMA, UCR and TEC! Enjoy leadership!

Personal life

I missed my family and my home so much..., It was amaXing. Even that I have being abroad many times the feeling to be with the family can not be replace..

Besides, I am smoking too much, I will create the conditions too quit... again!

I came to realize something very important, maybe the most important learning point of this period... There is one important truth in life and that is that we exist here and now... So much reflexion and planning made me loose perspective on the importance of today.

I enjoyed so much an unplanned experience that made me wonder about the set of decisions I was making lately... I was very happy to smile, enjoy and live the simplicity of life and human nature, just feeling...

University
We are so close to finish that I can´t believe it. The only problem I have right now is that the teachaers are in holidays and they don´t want to meet! We expect to finish the document in February....

Well, I am going back to my physical life..., I will update this blog with more stories soon....