this blog has moved...

sarahrenfer.nomadlife.org is no longer updated because my nomadname has changed to sarita. this is a last reminder for everyone who still has the old link. this blog will soon be shut down.

For my next job interview:

Women’s Negotiating Strengths

*Ability to put themselves in their counterparties’ shoes
*Comprehensive, attentive and detailed communication style
*Empathy that facilitates trust-building
*Curious and attentive listening
*Less competitive attitude
*Strong sense of fairness and ability to persuade
*Proactive risk manager
*Collaborative decision-making

Source: Horacio Falcao, Cover story/May 2006, World Business, "Say It Like a Woman: Why the 21st-century negotiator will need the female touch"
(Taken from Tom Peters blog/Slides)

He also says: Women Dominate Economic Growth. Which the Economist said before.
And I hope to agree.

Gonna like Tom Peters, but someone please tell that guy that yellow on blue doesn't work on a ppt, except if you wanna promote Sweden, for me it just hurts (just like orange on neon-green...).

oh, and I love the comments he makes on the diversity of the Unilever Board of Directors, kinda rings a bell with a comment I made at this one time at an AIESEC event, about a year ago... :-D

Farm girl happiness

I’ve recently enriched my life with two essential things for a great summer in Townville:
1) a “Saisonabonnement” (entry that’s valid for the whole season, meaning the entire summer) for the public pool in Nidau which is right next to the lake and also has the usual swimming pools
2) a readers card in the public library, which is just one block away from where I work (and blocks here are small)

no more excuses for not doing sports and not reading books!
although, just read the “cheating sheet” of “leading successfully for dummies” and what does it show: a swot-analysis… please…

Another piece of happiness, Trini, a young cow giving birth without any problems. Her son is obviously called Tobago, since his mother’s name is the short version of “Trinidad”, that’s how we give names over here…
Which brings me to some other little kids who need names, anyone has an idea how to call a little black long-haired dragon-like kitten? We already have a cat like this and she’s called Nepomuk, so that name’s already taken…

back to work now... need to finish early so I can prepare the connect meeting :-D

too true...

Everybody's Gone To War - Nerina Pallot

I've got a friend, he's a pure-bred killing machine,
He says he's waited his whole damn life for this,
I knew him well when he was seventeen,
Now he's a man; he'll be dead by Christmas.

So...
Everybody's gone to war,
But we don't know what we're fighting for,
Don't tell me it's a worthy cause,
No cause could be so worthy.

If love is a drug, then I guess we're all sober,
If hope is a song then I guess it's all over,
How to have faith, when faith is a crime?
I don't want to die...
If God's on our side, then God is a joker,
Asleep on the job, his children fall over,
Out through the door and straight to the sky,
I don't want to die...!

For every man who wants to rule the world,
There'll be a man who just wants to be free,
What do we learn but what should not be learnt?
Too late to find a cure for this disease.

So...
Everybody's gone to war,
But we don't know what we're fighting for,
Don't tell me it's a worthy cause,
No cause could be so worthy.

If love is a drug, I guess we're all sober,
If hope is a song, I guess it's all over,
How to have faith, when faith is a crime?
I don't want to die...
If God's on our side, then God is a joker,
Asleep on the job, his children fall over,
Out through the door, and straight to the sky,
I don't want to die...
I-I-I-I don't want to die,
I-I don't want to die...


because war seems to be all over the place and because it's a beautiful song, somehow, and because I have waaaaaay to much internet access but wait, I don't have to justify anything, lucky me...

HAPPY WEEKEND EVERYONE! (working 8-5 helps me get my priorities right :-D)

hahaha

It all comes from here:

mumbai...

hearing about the bomb blasts in mumbai, first thought what does it help if I blabla about it but then I got more details... western railway, dadar, khar, santacruz... my trains, 1st class coach travelling every day during 3 months... and so many trainees and aiesecers who I know do the same, and how full these trains usually are during rush hour...
can't help caring, more than if I wouldn't know places and people

travel update

I love my new agenda! Such a beauty with clear overviews of each week on two pages, my favourite format :-D Unfortunately it only starts from September hahahaha so now I have to use the monthly overview until then, but what I see there makes me smile:

the weekend after next weekend:
- promoting BrainSt. at the chess festival in Biel
- japanese tourist group visiting our farm (the 2nd time this happens, we'll be a major sightseeing spot soon ;-))
- 3rd OC meeting happening at my place

July 28th to August 2nd:
TrendScouting for the IdeaFactory in DUBAI!!! (did I mention it's all expenses covered ;-)))

the weekend after:
major hiking tour planned in central Switzerland with some old but very charming chicks :-)

I have to start planning Aug/Sept, it's still so empty...

Please mark in your agendas:

the 13th/14th of April 2007, when the 2nd edition of connect will be happening!

This weekend we had the 2nd OC meeting overall, and the first one where we enjoyed the hospitality of one of our OC members. Planning and discussing together, brainstorming what the perfect connect will look like, sharing beds and feeding the horse and the ponies where some of the highlights at Regulas place in Langenthal.
It's a pity she'll be gone soon, it's great to work with that team and it makes me sad when someone's missing. We're already looking forward to when she'll be back and by then we'll hopefully have some new members on the team as well. It's really strange how much energy it gives me to be creating something with a team that's so motivated.
A lot of things we'll be clearer soon, where it will happen, what kind of speakers we want to invite and what cool special events we want to add. Topic's set, but look out for official information coming your way :-)

150%

I forgot to mention something I appreciate a lot: the flexibility of my working hours. I have to do my 42 hours and I have to finish my projects on the deadline, but apart from that I'm pretty much free of when I want to work. Even though I still start and finish on normal times I have the possibility to do other stuff besides, and there's lots to do, just like today:
7am-12pm: working on my projects, including a meeting with my boss to get some information before he leaves for holidays and a feedback for my first week.
12.30pm-4pm Casting Day at BrainStore
5pm-6.30pm Expectation setting with the new MC for connect

yay!

a great place to work

how much can you say about a company you've been working for for 3 and a half days? Not much you'd probably say, but after those 3 1/2 days of introduction and the first steps on my projects I feel like sharing some insights, and the coffee break yesterday fit perfectly into my view on things...
Let's start with the coffee break, every day at 10am one employee (we're about 20) prepares the break for everyone else, coffee, fruit juices, tea, croissants, bread and marmalade, simple things but it has a certain family feeling. And yesterday because someone else is taking some responsibilities of someone, the two prepared a real breakfast: Züpfe, different breads, Berliner, Nutella, boiled eggs, ham, different kinds of cheese, cantadou, melons, joghurts, birchermüesli, everyone around the big table and then our director and another employee were playing the piano and singing a piece from Schubert... Instead of 15mins it was a 1 hour break, but if you thought this was a cosy, relaxed working environment then I'll prove you wrong. As I didn't work this one hour, I have 3/4 of an hour less to enter into the working-time-management software, where I have to record every 1/4 I work and assign it to either a specific project I'm working on or to the adminstrative task I've been busy with. I have one main project and a 2nd smaller one, and I had to do a plan for the next three months for both of them. You know the kind of excel-sheet that we were doing our yearplans with until my LCP-term, tasks and their respective subtasks on the left, days and weeks on top. Just that this time, it's detailed up to how many hours I plan to work on which subtask in each project. Did I already mention the plan I got for the first two weeks where every hour is assigned to either introductory meetings or individual work? :-)
One aspect I appreciate a lot is that information is shared with everyone. We get the evaluations from every seminar to see wether people have been happy with the quality provided or what needs to improve, or my supervisor discussed the project proposal with me, what the budget of our proposal looks like, what external partners pay for this mandate and how much is calculated for salaries of people involved.
Everything is so organized, in place, structured and seems to be working... my experience from LC work helps a lot to understand things - well, the planning, the balanced score card, corporate design (we call it branding) etc. - but it's also disappointing to see that in an organization that's been existing for more than 50 years we never managed to introduce this level of "organizedness" but instead creative chaos reigns. Don't get me wrong, I think it's amazing that so many generations of AIESECers get the opportunity to build things from scratch, or completely change an organization, but you know that thing about not reinventing the wheel...
Right now my head is completely filled up with new information and it all needs to settle down before I can create something useful tomorrow...

Global Climate Change

So now Mr. Blair has put action against global climate change on his agenda, it's about time more global leaders would encourage concrete actions to make sure this planet we're living on will continue to be habitable.
The movie that's documenting Al Gore's campaign for more awareness around global climate change has been made into a documentary: "An Inconvenient Truth". It will even be showed at the Open Air Cinema in Geneva this summer, but I don't know yet if I'll be able to make it there. Scientist who've seen the movie say that the facts that are stated in it are correct:

Gore conveyed the science correctly; the world is getting hotter and it is a manmade catastrophe-in-the-making caused by the burning of fossil fuels. (Source)

I'm getting curious on how environmental awareness is conveyed concretely, on a day-to-day and one-to-one basis, and how a small organisation in a developed country is doing "education for sustainable development", tomorrow is my first day!

1:0 and 3:1

What???? The Netherlands just got kicked out of the worldcup??? How was that possible?
Ok, ok, I admit, I was never a big fan of football, and when I was still in exams period I didn't really like the football parties going on in and around our house, but now that I don't have to study for an exam the next morning while others are dancing samba everything's different. And I mean, I'm also proud that Switzerland has made it so far... come on, we the sailing nation aren't really the best when it comes to football, hahaha... It would actually be cool to go watch Switzerland-Ukraine tomorrow on the Plaine de Plainpalais, but I've already subrented my room in Geneva and am enjoying the simple life at my parents place... helping my dad to get full honeycombs from the beehouse, making sure I don't get stung is only one of the exciting adventures of farm life ;-)

I've also enjoyed the good news about Sheer-Khan. You remember that I had left him last Wednesday with one kitten dead and one alive to go collect my marks in Geneva. Well, when I was coming home the other day my dad told me about "the three kitten", so she had gotten two more after I left her. Cats are in labor for a long time usually so it's completely normal, but it improved her score of course :) Her three kids are doing very well for now, all tiny and eyes still closed, all of them completely black, so if you want to have a cute little cat we might give some away ;-)

Life, Death and other important things

Sheer-Khan, a little tiger-cat born last summer, gave birth to two kittens yesterday in front of our house door. One of them was alive, the other dead. An old male cat got hold of the dead one and started eating it while I was preparing a little nest for the mamma and her kid.
Now that's something to deal with at 9am right after waking up...

At 4pm, the world looked a lot friendlier, sitting with friends on the lawn at Perle du Lac with a drink in one hand and my passed history exam in the other. 3rd year is over, all exams passed, nothing to redo in autumn, weird...

Politics: good news and an interesting result

Please meet our newest federal councillor, Doris Leuthard.
She was elected this week and will be taking over the federal department of economic affairs which includes the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs as well as the Swiss Federal Office for Agriculture.
She's from the CVP (Christian Democratic People's Party) which is from the centre and rather conservative, but I'm not even too worried about her political program, just having a 43-year old woman in the Swiss Federal Council is amazing! :-)

An interesting result has been happening at the presidential elections in Peru, where Alan Garcia has been elected. I've already talked about him when I was in Peru in Feb/March, but I didn't really think that he would win the elections, knowing the desastrous situation he left after his last presidency in the 80ies. I guess people can learn from their past mistakes, but I still have my doubts... had to laugh when I read his comment on BBC:

"My desire is not to repeat any of the errors I may have made," he said recently. "Do you think I want my tombstone to read: 'He was so stupid that he made the same mistakes twice'?

Apart from politics, I'm enjoying some time without exams pressure but not yet knowing the results yet either... so it might be I'll have to study again in October, but I don't care right now. Now is the time for lying lazily in the sun, drinking french red wine called "les trois pucelles" and reading stupid love novels on the train...

I'll have to enjoy it as long as it lasts, as on June 30th I'll start working here:

The line reads "education for sustainable development" and I'll be working on expanding their offer of training courses to neighbouring countries as well as some more concrete projects like developing "mobility concepts" - don't ask me more about it, I'll know it soon ;-)

Looking forward to a great summer...

"E*"

Am Afang ds Orcheschter
Am Schluss är alei
U d`Sprüch, die vo geschter
Aber hüt wott är hei

U jetz no ne Zuegab
Är lächlet. är winkt
Zieht ds Lybli u d`Show ab
Är schwitzt, glänzt u stinkt

När steit är ir Lääri
U d`Liechter göh us
Im Ranze e Schwäri
Im Härz in der Blues


Är isch e Star
Är isch so bsunder
Bsunderbar
Är isch e Rose
Wo hie blüeit
Är isch e Stärn
Wo lüchtet, glüeit
Är isch e Mönsch
Wie du und i
Är singt sis Lied
U geit verbi

Ar Bar chli verhange
E Whisky im Sta
Okay, si mir gange
Isch ds Taxi scho da ?

Chumm, schnäll no eis kiffe
Du, ds Taxi ! Ga z`Fuess
Gsehsch nid, s`chunnt cho schiffe
Tschou Giele ! E Gruess

När louft är dür d`Lääri
U steit vor ihrem Huus
Im Ranze e Schwääri
Im Härz in der Blues

Är isch e Star
Är isch so bsunder
Bsunderbar
Är isch e Rose
Wo hie blüeit
Är isch e Stärn
Wo lüchtet, glüeit
Är isch e Mönsch
Wie du und i
Är singt sis Lied
U geit verbi

Ds Ching schlaft hing im Zimmer
D’Frou ligt no im Bad
Im Chaschte es Gflimmer
Ir Schüssle Salat

Är hänkt siner Socke
A Ofe, wärmt Znacht
Und isst Suure Mocke
Wo d’Muetter het bracht

När sitzt är ir Lääri
U d’Liechter gö us
Im Ranze e Schwääri
Im Härz in der Blues

Är isch e Star
Är isch so bsunder
Bsunderbar
Är isch e Rose
Wo hie blüeit
Är isch e Stärn
Wo lüchtet, glüeit
Är isch e Mönsch
Wie du und i
Är singt sis Lied
U geit verbi

Stephan Eicher,
rediscovering an artist I love, the perfect soundtrack for a weekend in St. André de Rocquepertuis, relaxing at the river, soaking in the sunrays and enjoying the wine, the food, the company, why can't a weekend go on forever?

killing mood

I hope you're happy with half a month's contraception pills, old cinema tickets, my boyfriend's picture and the money that was in my wallet you f%#!ing bastard!!!

and may you burn in hell as well, or freeze tonight...

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

raaahhh....

Monroe Doctrine, Roosevelt-Corrolary, Good Neighbour Policy, Truman Doctrine, Eisenhower Doctrine... this world will soon see the Sarita Doctrine hahahahaha

oh, and Good Morning Julia! already at Dufour? ;-)

and Happy Birthday Joan!

looking forward to Sushi...

procrastinating #2

courtesy of hugh

procrastination #1

remember the beautiful sony-ad, bouncing colored balls down the streets of San Francisco? Someone liked the idea and let tons of fruit bounce down the streets of some other town... for a fruit drink commercial...
but maybe it's just a hoax, if it's not, shame on whoever is wasting food!
video here