Jingle bells, jingle bells...

So after weeks of meticulous and espionage-like planning for a Christmas surprise party (aided greatly by the MC spy Emad & the LC) - we finally pulled it off a couple of days ago! The entire 'operation' was conducted in complete secrecy (imagine 3 people trying to decorate a roof while whispering so as to not let the occupants of the house hear, while a duststorm raged and Omar kept coughing, and a tree being smuggled in complete darkness, and an AI director providing strategic input into how to decorate a tree and singing 'interesting' versions of Christmas jingles) - it was worth it all to see the look on Kurt's, Joanna's and Wangari's faces =)

Happy Holidays everyone!

AI Director in the House!

YAY! Ryan, our AI Director arrived in Karachi, Pakistan today.. =D
Well, he was supposed to arrive sometime during the day..unfortunately Biman Airlines had different ideas; so we spent some quality time at the airport (about 4+ hours)

Taha discovered a new way to drink tea..



But after the seemingly endless wait, Ryan finally arrived!! Here's his flower-ful welcome..



And after a fun, noisy dinner...we went to the beach to have the ultimate Karachi experience - riding a camel! Ryan, Yao, Karim and Joanna all had the 'ride of their lives' - literally!








The infamous camel..


Karim, Saaim, Yao, Ryan & Wangari

We followed the beach visit up with a visit to Boat Basin for faluda, 'orange juice' (with a discussion on the various types of oranges) & shisha...thanks for being such a good sport, Ryan!

Looking forward to the next few days! :D

Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs - formerly known as the 'OC'

So we have a seventh new OC member - Omar Khan, who is now OCVP Communications! :)

And hence the '6 guys and a girl' theme for the OC wasn't quite right..

Anyway, the OC now has a new name..
..quite familiar to those of you who have grown up watching Disney cartoons!

Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs!



So Mikaal and I referred to a document describing the dwarfs and named the OC according to the 'competencies described in the document' :P

Presenting..

Snow White - Mansha
Dopey - Misbah
Grumpy - Khurram 'lodistix' Lodi
Doc - Omar
Happy - Saaim
Bashful - Agha 'AT'
Sneezy - Mikaal
Sleepy - Waqas

More news from the crazed OC later!

LCP Elections!

3 Generations of LCPs!
Saira Moin LCP 05-06, Saba Imtiaz LCP 06-07, Saaim Khan LCP 07-08

The lovely LCP tradition! :D

LCP Announcement!

AIESEC Karachi's LCP for 2007 - 2008 is:

*drumroll*

Saaim Khan!!!!

Congratulations! :)

Contact Saaim at saaimkhan@gmail.com and

0333 2344644

Live updates from the Q&A sessions

Apparently a female member thinks that LCP is a males job... hhmmmm...

/Joanna

Live updates from the Q&A sessions

New members are pouring with questions!!! AIESEC Karachi is ALIVE!!!

/Joanna

Live updates from the Q&A sessions

Sadaf's weakness is food so don't take her out for lunch! And apparently Khurram has a very interesting ringtone...

/Joanna

Saaim's presentation

Saaim plans to bring the change and address youth apathy...

After the second q&a

The second round of Q&A just ended and the instensity in the room is rising by the second. We have our members and MC walking the candidates to the room in MAFIA style!!! The presentations are super cool and inspiring - the decision is going to be HARD!!!!

Watch out for more updates.

Signing off and running to catch the third presentation!

Sharmeen

Omaroonie's update

I'm sitting in the lab with the returning officer and Umeedwar (candidate) No. 2 teasing one of our very cool members Khadija Ghazi. I am just happy I survived the 20 minutes of Q & A. Man those EB chicks are intense ;D

Blogging live from the LCP elections!!

The first candidate. Omar Khan, has just finished his presentation and Q&A time (which apparently was tough). As returning officer I have been sitting with the remaining two candidates, Sadaf and Saaim, talking about everything from fobias to how tired we are :)

Now it's Saaim's turn...

More updates soon!

Joanna

elections starting right now! :)

The MC visit kicked off today - with an auspicious start as the unsuspecting, innocent LCP was pelted with stones as a rite to announce the MC's arrival.

More updates later :)

An Inconvenient Truth!

A bunch of us (Sharmeen, Rabia, Naveen, Taha, Haris, Hussain, Saaim, Yao and me) went to the Karafilm Festival today to watch the screening of An Inconvenient Truth today - watching the movie in itself is an absolutely incredibly eye-opening experience. Highly recommended! :)

After the movie, we headed to Cafe Coffee Day; where Rahim and Mikaal joined us, and we found the MC team in the midst of team days. We headed to Damascus afterwards; where over fries, shwarmas and shisha, we had an extremely interesting discussion about the economic disparities in Pakistan, the role of the Government & citizens, the public service programs & individual initiatives - thankyou everyone for such a great time, and Haris for his birthday treat! :)

This Other Time....at SZABIST... (The EB Meeting Chronicles Continue!)

So, after searching for many tools to make this post look super sexy, I give up cause I can't find anything and I love my life so before the EB decides to slaughter me at the upcoming EB dinner (ohh yes we have an exciting life!) I should FINALLY post this.

After the sad realization of our term ending soon *sniff sniff* I've been carrying my camera around capturing absolutely random moments and I decided to do so for our EBM too.

Now, one should know, in the middle of exams, any EBM would NOT be sane. So it started off with our office being flooded AGAIN after the rains and everyone meeting at the 'sutta corner' (smoking corner) of SZABIST to discuss potential meeting venues. We have a small campus you see, and usually students are 'studying' everywhere this time of the year!

And like typical AIESECers we actually talk over tea/coffee about our venue prospectives....
















And being a stakeholder oriented organization we involve our internees (Wangari) in this serious discussion as well....






















Then, FINALLY there was light, thanks to LCP (Saba) of course and she announces, *drumroll* 'To the garden!' (Who cares if there's no grass anymore, let's be the only ones sitting there!)...


















Once we arrive at this new location, trying to make ourselves comfy, Rabi's suggestion of 'Let's move a bench for the LCP so she can 'lead' us', of course this idea was shortly killed by Saba's demand for a chair, such difficult times. Sigh.
Meanwhile, due to the 'size' our campus the boys on the team have a hard time finding the place:p....

















And the girls, well, they do what they're best at, THEY POSE (sesky pic there btw!)!

















And finally begins our EBM, where Taha (aka TeeDee) starts with his updates, in a rather serious tone, after all we'd already made some very important logistical decisions that day...






















No no it's NOT over yet, after another change of venue (due to sudden Dengui scare thanks to Rabia!) and long updates and discussions, we declare a competition! What's it about - the EB is now divided into 3 teams namely,

Evolve

Empower (that's an attempted E there!)
















Excel



The Purpose:















Yes, the battle is on and EB 06-07 is in full swing in it's last quarter! Watch out for more updates on this and also, Empower is winning!:p

Dinner with 3 different Nationalities

After thinking for abou 20 minutes If I should post something and spoil Saba's streak of 134 blog posts, I saw Taha's entry and I decided to go for it. This is also linked to what Taha has said in his post.

So as you might have read on Joanna's blog that I visit the MC Mansion often since two of my trainee's are there (Karim and Wangari) and Yao is a very interesting fellow himself. It's fun hanging out with these guys and see how they interact, how their mind works and what wity comments they can come up with. So here's what happened a few days ago when I escaped the confines of my room and had dinner with the MC and Trainee's.

7:30 pm: BZZZZZZ
7:31 pm: Joanna: Kaun? *sounds very desi by the way*
7:33 pm: Me: Hellooo..HeyMCP Emad, Hey Joanna

Soon afterwards: Anna arrives

Between 7:35 and 8:00 pm

Emad: I'm doing finances
Me: Coool, looks boring
Emad: Nope, it's the best part of my job *ready to rip his own hair out*
Joanna: Want a pastry? We had 2 boxes of these
Me: Sure, OOH Creek Club, thats near my house
Joanna: ooh cool
Me: Yea, I din know they made such good pastries
Emad: WE'VE SPENT CONSIDERABLY LESS THAN WE SHUD'VE!!!!
Me: Isn't that Good?
Emad: IM DOING FINANCES!
Joanna: Lets not bug him

Finally, everyone got hungry, Wangari came home and the quest for ordering Karachi Broast began

between 8:15-9:30

Emad: Hello, KB's...yar order laelain (we want to order)
KB Guy: NO Order, Call 20 minutes!
Emad: KB isnt an option...MILAANOOOO!!
Yao: AGAIN? (it was very funny the way he said it)
Emad: Karim, what do you want...Chicken Tikka with 2 Nan's
Ana: I want french fries Small
Emad: ok, French Fries for Anna, Medium
Wangari, Yao and myself : Just get me some foood!!! (I walk out for a smoke, Yao Joines)

Finally after alot of discussion and names of foods being thrown around in many different accents, the order was placed and delivered. We ate and I left.

The point I'm trying to make here is that spending time in the MC Mansion is fun and you get to know so much about so many things. Like I found out our Berlitz trainee

• Yao is Muslim, I saw him praying
• I assume Karim is veyr lazy because his room is SO ditry
• Wangari gets more phone calls in a day than I do
• Emad loves doing finances
• Joanna's feeling cold even though she says the weather here is like Swedish summers
• Karim has no issues with eating beef
• Anna's going to get me enrolled for Salsa lessons :D
• Pakistani's were still a majority!!! AOOOOO ;)

One woudl not find such a mix of nationalities and cultures anywhere else.

The Candidates for LCP 07-08..

Announcing..the supercool candidates for LCP 2007-2008!

*drumroll*


Omar Khan

Saaim Khan

Sadaf Khalid

Link to applications here! :)

As the current LCP, this is incredibly exciting..to evaluate who the next LCP will be... to reflect back on a wonderful year..and its only now I realize: I'm going to MISS being LCP! Best of luck to Omar, Saaim and Sadaf for elections - on the 16th of Dec! :)

Good times..

I have just realized that this would be my first post on AIESEC Karachi's blog! Anyway, moving on shamelessly..

These are good times for AIESEC Pakistan. So good that it makes you want to be an integral part of it all (hint). We have qualified to be Full Members, MC Applications are out.. AND.. we have 3 Trainees in the country - all at the same time! Has never happened before :)

All 3 are living at the MC House.. and apart from Conference prep times, I think there are alot of cultures trying to make pan-cakes overthere!

Karim working at Arwentech, Wangari working at Ashoka, Yao working at Berlitz, all 3 are as different as their organizational types!

Right now, even though Karim is trying to figure out a way to take some time out to rest, Wangari is preparing her research and newsletter, and Yao is finishing his translation assignment.. ALL 3 feel at home. All 3 feel comfortable here.. and all 3 are so different in their own ways.. that it feels like meeting SOO many cultures in the 30 minutes you spend at the MC House!

Wish you guys all the best for your traineeships! Karachi would soon be pouring into the house as soon as they get over with their exams, so be ready!

Looking forward to receiving more and more Trainees real soon!