Another period of my life is starting

Current state

I have not posted anything here for a while. I had quite busy time last few months...

My life so far in terms of changing the places:

1982-1999: childhood and teenage years in small town Valga
2000-2003 August: university in Tartu (1)
2003 September-2004 January: university and work in Germany
2004 February-2005 May: university in Tartu (2)
2005 June-2005 August: internship in Germany
2005 September-2006 January: AIESEC work in Croatia
2006 February-2007 June: AIESEC and Youth in Action work in Estonia

The last period described is coming to an end. The new one is starting.

I had my birthday yesterday - 21st of June. Quite often has my birthday been during the time, when some important changes happened in my life - 1997: graduating from secondary school, 2000: graduating from high school, 2005: graduating from university.

Now another big change is happening.

I gave over my work in AIESEC in Estonia (http://www.aiesec.ee/) to my successor Marjam - the person, who has become my good friend and truly soul mate. The new leadership team of AIESEC in Estonia is very strong - I believe that we will strengthen ourselves both internally and externally as a leading youth organisation in Estonia. I am satisfied with my year. Me and my team have achieved a lot. I worked with amazing people for something I truly believe in, for something I could tremendously develop myself in.

I have also finished my work as a trainer in Youth in Action (Euroopa Noored - euroopa.noored.ee). I had chance to design and conduct professional trainings for different kind of Estonian young people of different ages. My colleagues there are amazingly dedicated people, who really CARE about youth work in Estonia.

During this year I truly lived my vision - provoking internal and external smiles in myself and people around me. There is a plenty of ways I ahve done it. I just feel peace in my mind. I am happy person, because I did something meanigful.

New period of my life

On 28th of June I am taking train from Tallinn to Moscow and from there - to Almaty, Republic of Kazakhstan. I will spend one year in this country, where I am going to lead local chapter of AIESEC, being the first leader of this organisation in the country. I will need to create the stable base for organisation to function in order to provide young people of Kazakhstan with opportunities to discover their potential and develop themselves.

Apart of that, I will be working for Koger&Partnerid (http://www.koger.ee/), Estonian real estate developing and building company. I am going to conduct marketing research for the company.

Thus, I will continue to work in NGO sector, but will also contribute to business development. That will be another step to be related to two areas of my passion: 1) connecting business and NGO sector, 2) organisational activities' expansion abroad.

Abroad in June

After the end of my term as President of AIESEC in Estonia, I went for a week to Rotterdam (AIESEC global Steering Team meeting) and to Prague (CEE regional AIESEC Presidents meeting) in June.

That kind of meetings broaden the horizons and challenge your worldview, that's for sure! You have opportunity to have in-depth discussions with smart young people from different nationalities, who share your passion. Short list of some discussion topics I have had with my colleagues from other AIESEC countries:

• Tourism industry in Tanzania
• Future of Serbia
• Need for certain kind of young people in Russia
• Political and societal challenges for modern Turkey
• Possible solutions for tensions between Baltics and Russia
• Corruption in Africa and in Europe

Besides that, I simply had great fun with some of my good friends from another countries - Ioana, Vlada, Gaspar, Evca, Nastja, Karina and others.

I am really happy that I had chance to visit one of my favourite cities in Europe again - Prague. I love this city and I really want to live there for some short period of time! Maybe I will come to make business there once...

My friends in AIESEC

Thanks to AIESEC I have got the friends for my whole life, I am sure of that. Those are the people, whom I know both in work and fun. I can always rely on them, because we have simply done so many things together... And I am sure that they will be successful people, some of the true leaders. Looking right now at the people like Siim, Priit, Marjam, Kristi, Mari, Marko, Siim, Viljo, Mairi, Kadi, Maris, Jaan, Evelyn, Kristi etc etc etc, I am simply sure that this is the generation, which will leave their footprint after them.

I really want to meet all my AIESEC friends in 5, 10, 15, 20, 30 years and see whether we have fulfilled our dreams and where are we heading.

My friends in AIESEC did amazing present for me - I got photo-camera (I lost my previous one at IPM in Egypt) at our last national conference. That was a present from all members of AIESEC in Estonia. As kind of recognition for what I have done. That was amazing feeling.

I had amazing feeling also yesterday in my 2in1 party: farewell and birthday party. So many cool people came to congratulate me! I am grateful for what kind of friends I have here.

Long trip to Kazakhstan

One of my dreams for the last few years has been to travel by Trans-Siberian train through whole Russia until the very Eastern part of Russia - Sahalin and Kamchatka. I am going to partly fulfill this dream the next week - me and and my friend Viljo are going to travel by train about four days through half of Russia and Kazakhstan. I have never been so long in the train. I have almost not been to Russia, except of my homeland Petserimaa (ex-Estonian area, which now belongs to Russia).

I am eager to see this huge country, where part of my roots is coming from.

I am very eager to have this adventurous trip.

I m very eager to start my one-year-long journey in Kazakhstan.

Future of this blog

This blog will be the main channel of my communication towards all my friends around the world and to myself after a while. I am going to update it 1-3 times a month, will also open a page for uploading the photos. Sometimes I am going to write in Estonian, because I need language practice :)