Rafael - Living live a day at a time

Work and personal traveling will make the following month very
interesting, within a month and a half I should visit: Moscow, Istanbul,
Cairo and Venezuela, doesn't seem that crazy but have a look closer:

April 2-7 Moscow: 4 days of meetings, 1 and 1/2 day of hanging
around with old friends.
April 10-16 Istanbul: 7 days of meetings to work on final
development of Payroll and legal reporting for the system we are
implementing in there.
April 17-24 Brussels: Only time I have to prepare everything for
the trip to Venezuela and finalize on things from work side.
April 25-May 8 Venezuela: Wedding in the church and party with
almost 100 people attending, Baptism of Daniela, celebration of her 1st
year, showing around Venezuela to my wife's family that is coming from
Mexico.
May 8-13 Cairo: Finish up on Payroll installation and retraining
for the Egyptian team.

WOW, it's going to be a really fun and interesting month and a half!!

March just flew, it is just crazy how fast months are just moving on. Just to give an idea of March with Pictures, here are some pictures of the move, The Carnival we attended in Sart-Lez-Spa in the South of Belgium with a friend of mine, Daniela eating for the first time completely on her own and of course making a mess of it, and the meeting we had with Manto and Maria Virginia, 2 good friends from my home town (Barquisimeto-Venezuela) It was indeed a good and short month (More pics to come as soon as I have internet in my place)

What do you do when you are in the middle of a day long meeting with you manager and you loose your voice? I use body language, use a flipchart, write into a computer and move on!!

What happens when next morning comes and you still cannot make sounds go out of your mouth? Well I wake up, take some lemon and honey, take some tea and go to work with the mindset that today will be a wonderful day with a lot of challenges and learning opportunities, as well as a good day for concentration!! I make a little poster that say "I am not being rude, I just lost my voice" and put in on my desk.

But what happens if after a whole working day you have French classes? Well, I get prepared to have a theoretical class, no talking, all learning grammar and writing and hopefully tomorrow my voice will be back!!

Last time I remember being like this without being able to pronounce anything was during ALDS 2001 in Mexico, it was hard as I felt that I was missing some great opportunities during the conference, but even without being able to communicate orally I had a great time so I plan on doing the same thing now.

I have been postponing this posting for already a month, it is amazing how easy I can get stuck in the day to day tasks and leave the updating of the blog for last, so let me state fast what has happened the last month:

• Workshop in Prague: from February 6-10, 4 days of a work (last day we took a city tour) in this amazing city to gather feedback about the system we are implementing. It was very interesting to see the different type of feedback each one gave.
• Travel in Prague: I got into Prague on Saturday Feb 4 and met some Venezuelan @ Alumnus living there who invited me for Venezuelan food, drinks, signing and then clubbing with some other Venezuelan friends (It was great fun). I also met Diler while in Prague and managed to do some sightseeing in this amazing city (pictures will come)
• French Classes: I started French classes in Brussels the same week I was in Prague, so far out of 5 weeks of classes I attended only 1, as 2 I was traveling and this week that I am in Brussels the teacher did not make it
• Ukraine: I had a meeting in Kiev from 21-23, so I went in on the 19th in order to walk around the city and get to know a bit of its history. I meet some amazing AIESECers and Alumni and had some great conversations over some Obolon (Beer). The meeting was a very challenging and interesting one, but from all experiences we learn, right?
• Move to Permanent Apartment: In the middle of all of these things I was also looking for a new and permanent apartment for my family and me, and finally last Friday (March 3) we moved into Woluwe-Saint-Lambert, so now you are more than welcome to visit anytime (Pics to come)
• Drinks with Pieter and Jen: After returning from Kiev we went for dinner with my good friend Pieter, Jennifer Tsuj and her boyfriend. It was great to meet her again after almost 5 years, just great to reconnect with old friends.

This was the last month in the nutshell, of course each one of those points have tons of stories to tell, so I will start doing so tomorrow. At the moment we still don't have internet at home so the update will take some time, just bear with me.