Thoughts from EuroCo 2011 – dealing with the unexpected

Hey AIESEC!

This is your LCP reporting live from EuroCo 2011, the international LCP conference in the Czech Republic! I’ve been here for a day and a half now, and so far it is a good experience. That being said; not everything has gone according to plan, but at big, international conferences that is pretty much the norm. However, I will say that this is the conference where most unexpected things have happened so far! But this is mainly due to my own actions than anything else.



The Old City



As you may or may not know Aarhus has the pleasure of having a rather clumsy, accident-prone LCP. And being in Prague I’m no different, so on Monday morning, when I was going from the hostel I stayed at over the weekend to the venue of the conference, I slipped on the icy ground and broke my right wrist. I did not think it was broken for all of Monday, so it wasn’t until Tuesday morning that I went to the hospital and had it looked at. Now I’m sitting in the lobby of the hotel, where EuroCo is taking place, alone because everybody else is out on a session/game around Prague that will take all day. All the other delegates went on this when I went to the hospital, so I’m missing out on the first real session of the conference.

Of course I’m not too happy about that – I wish I could have gone on that session, participated, learned and had fun. Also, I for sure was not expecting to come back from the Czech Republic with my right arm in a cast. But we have to make the best out of what the weird happenstances of life hand us; so instead of thinking about how having a broken arm during this conference will limit me, I try to think about the positive aspects of it; because that is the best way to deal with the unexpected. And there are actually positive things about this broken hand of mine. As a direct result of breaking my arm, I have the chance to speak in front of the entire plenary (250 delegates as well as facis and OC), because the chair took pity on me and/or liked the story.



Who doesn't like yellow penguins on Vltava?



Furthermore, I can make my cast into the most awesome sugar-cube ever. For those of you who do not know, sugar cubes are little notes you write after a conference to the other delegates, that meant something to you; you share how happy you were to meet them, that you liked the fun as well as the serious, good conversations you had together etc. now, I can get people from EuroCo to write on my cast, so that I for the next five weeks can look at my arm and remember all the good laughs, conversations and people of this conference.



Knedliky - the best Czech food



I like the idea of that because the conferences you go to are just much about the memories and the conference spirit as it is about the learnings and sessions. In fact I believe that the conference spirit and the amazing people surrounding you is what enable the learning and growing in AIESEC.

 I will report back to you live from EuroCo 2011 on another occasion to share more about the content of this conference – the learnings and the sessions.

Take care, AIESEC Aarhus (don’t break anything!)

Truly,

your accident-prone LCP Cæcilie