The Great Pumpkin!

When I was a kid Halloween was easily my favorite holiday hands down, but not that I’m an adult it’s one of my least favorites. Well it was until this year…

When I was little, I enjoyed dressing up in a costume that you could show your grandma, and note that this costume could hold it’s own against the unpredictable MN weather (ie. the great Halloween bizzard of 1991!), and I also liked the pumpkin carving. Oh the pumpkin carving!

While I don’t remember the very first time I carved a pumpkin, I do have many fond memories of carving sessions. I remember going to the grocery store with the family and picking out a pumpkin so big we could barely carry it. Then my sisters, brother, and I would sit on the cold basement floor with newspapers surrounding us and our “tools” (real knives, screwdriver, you name it) scattered about. I have many happy memories about Halloween. And now I will add Halloween 2010 to that list.

Most of my classmates had never carved a pumpkin before. Even one of my classmates said – I’ve only seen that on cartoons. My reply was – we actually do that! So Friday night we had a pumpkin project at school. We went to the Colyurt to buy our pumpkins – since carving isn’t common here, we had to buy pie pumpkins (one-fifth the size of the ginormous carving pumpkins in the USA). Then we went back to campus, spread out yesterday’s newspaper and started carving!

...concentrating...

pumpkin guts

even our 3-armed classmated joined in the fun and made 2 pumpkins

I really had a really great time and I think my classmates did too! I want to thank each one of them for a super fun night and I won’t ever forget their first pumpkin carving!

Vlerick pumpkin project team 2010

 See you later!

-A

P.S. Thank you to Tracy & Debby for letting me take your pics from fb!

Mechelen, Be.

As promised, I went out and explored my new home instead of posting a "normal" blog.  I went with a classmate to Mechelen - just 30 minutes from Leuven by train.  Click on the link below to see the whole album!

http://picasaweb.google.com/Annie.Marek/Oct2010Mechlen02?authkey=Gv1sRgCMy1247BuJT3hAE

See you later!
-Annie

REM (not the band)

Last weekend (1 – 3 October) was the fall REM. That’s Rotaract Europe Meeting and not the band. I haven’t been to a REM concert but the Rotaract thing is super fun!

Living in the USA, I’ve restricted my Rotaract travels to the location of the Rotary International Conventions aka. RIC (2005 Chicago, 2006 Copenhagen, 2007 Salt Lake City, 2008 Los Angeles, 2009 Birmingham UK, 2010 Montreal). I always have a great time at these celebrations – yes that’s right the Conventions are a celebration. It’s a gathering of hundreds of Rotaractors from all over the world to share ideas, partner on service projects, and to get to know each other and celebrate together our common mission. Just look at these pictures below from the Birmingham and Montreal RIC. Doesn’t it look fun?

Ok, but now I’m in Belgium and I’ll count that as Europe. So I’m going to take every chance I get to go to the Rotaract meetings over here. The first one was REM in Amsterdam – it only takes 2 hours to get to Amsterdam from Brussels. The weekend went by very quick; I arrived on Friday night and left Sunday after breakfast. The committee put on a really good show: opening session in a “not that old” church (which means built in the 1800’s), local pub crawl with host clubs, more meetings, canal tour, Heineken tour, and a fancy dress gala.

But the best part about it was it was so good seeing my friends again – some of those Rotaractors I’ve been Conventioning with since 2005 and some I just met in June in Montreal. This time in Amsterdam I met another great bunch of them from all over Europe and I’m excited to see them again in January at the next REM in Belgrade! (Click below to look at my pictures.)

http://picasaweb.google.com/Annie.Marek/REMOct2010?authkey=Gv1sRgCJ_Fj_Kkre74ugE

See you later,
Annie

FYI - Amsterdam is far too big to see it all in just 36 hours so I’ll be back sometime this year.

A year

I often think about my life a year ago: A year ago, I didn’t know I would be a full-time MBA student. A year ago, I didn’t know I was going to move away from all my family & friends and the only home I’ve ever known. A year ago, I didn’t know I was going to leave my job for a big unknown adventure.

A year ago, I wanted to experience something great that would change my world. I was not thinking about Belgium or Vlerick*, but now that I’m here I can’t imagine being anywhere else but sitting in -1.01 at Vlamingenstraat 83, 3000 Leuven. (*You can read about my crazy adventure to Vlerick in my June post.)

What a difference a year makes. This past year has flown by and I know the 2010-11 school year will go by just as fast.

We’re only 3 weeks into the MBA program and we’ve already finished 4 classes - of which 2 have papers due in mid-Oct and 1 has an essay test due in early Oct. We have 3 more classes in the works, oh and I can’t forget that we have to keep up with our CVs and the career opportunities that come our way. We will have over 20 courses, 1 in-company project, 1 study trip to China, and 1 NGO project all within 12 months. I know what you’re thinking…WOW!

And that’s exactly what I was thinking. But then I stepped back and remembered something in my handy-dandy 2010-11 Ambassadorial Scholarship Handbook from RI:

While your studies are important, they are not the foremost reason you were selected as a Rotary Scholar. Don’t spend all of your time studying. Realize that the greatest education this year will not come from a textbook or coursework. :)

Now it’s shortly after midnight here on September 23. This is a very unforgettable date for me and a group of people. If I was with you last year on this date, I am so grateful for what I learned from each and every one of you. You have impelled me to improve upon my life; my experience here will be richer because of you.

On that note, I’m going to bed.

See you later,
Annie

People and places.

I realized I haven’t yet mentioned anything about the people I’m meeting and my new city: Leuven.

My classmates. Day was day 2 of class and I’m so happy to finally meet everyone. Before class started, I only met about 30 of my classmates (out of over 80). I met the first 30 around Leuven before class began - you’ve probably seen them in my pics. It was nice meeting them on a smaller scale; I was able to talk to them individually and I had a chance to get know them. So meeting the remaining 50 was a little overwhelming - I’m so happy we’re wearing name badges! My classmates are from all over the world and I think my class is about 90% international. That’s one of the reasons I chose a European business school, the internationality of the classroom is unlike anywhere else in the world. I’ve met classmates from Singapore, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Kenya, Colombia and so many other places. We all have our reasons why we chose Vlerick, but there’s one underlying theme for all of us: to experience something new, to work with people from all over the world and to learn from them. I usually don’t put a lot of weight in first impressions but after meeting my classmates I think I can safely say that this is going to be one amazing year!

Rotarian and Rotaractors. Leuven has a Rotary Club and is home to the largest Rotaract club in the district. I attended my first Rotary meeting on Tuesday night and was able to meet and talk to many of the Rotarians there. Their meeting was held at 7pm over supper at a restaurant in a nearby town, Kessel-lo. The meeting was in Flemish, which unfortunately I don’t know, but I think I was able to understand some of it. If I listen hard enough I can pick out a few works and know what’s going on. Their presentation for the meeting was by a club member and former Rotaractor, she was talking about the results that came from a joint meeting Rotary-Rotaract brainstorming session about how to connect the 2 clubs. That’s a topic that I’m always interested in. :-)  My next Rotary event is on Sunday - a walk through part of town followed by a bbq. I’ve only met 1 Rotaractor so far, he was kind enough to pick me up from my airport hotel and take me to Leuven, hopefully on Sunday I’ll meet more of them.

Leuven. Leuven really is a small city with a big university. I get everywhere by foot. Some of my classmates rented bikes but I’m enjoying the walks. At home, I need a car. Places are far away and there is no mass transportation that takes me from home to work or home to shopping. Here in Leuven, I live near the center of the city and yes it’s a bit loud but I like the city noise. It’s also no more than a 20 minute walk to anywhere I need to go. The town has everything I need, but I need to go to many stores to get my shopping list done - I’m used to Super Target. Here in Belgium I go to the Apotheek (pharmacy), Delhaize (grocery), Hema (household), Kruidivat (drugstore…different than pharmacy), fnac (electronics), and then there’s the numerous clothing and shoe stores. I also need to make sure I get my shopping done before they close. Most stores (including grocery) close at 6pm and are not even open on Sunday. I’m used to 24/7 from the USA so this one is taking me a some time to get used, but I’m really enjoying the lazy Sundays…which I’m sure will become study Sundays as soon as school picks up.

My studio. Ok if you’ve been wondering yes, I’ve moved into my studio but it didn’t go as smoothly as I hoped. I haven’t been able to unpack because I don’t have a wardrobe and they’re finishing the renovation so every day they come in and do something and I get home and clean up after them. I just want to unpack already. They promise me on Saturday I’ll have it, but this will be their 3rd promised day…I’m not optimistic. So it’s not presentable and definitely no pics.

If you have any questions let me know and I’ll try to answer them all.

See you later!
-Annie

BRU 28 Aug 10

And now, pics from Sat afternoon and dinner in Brussels!

Leuven

Finally! Pics from Leuven, click on the pic below.