Monday, July 31, 2006

LISTEN TO THE WHISPER OR WAIT FOR THE BRICK


A young and successful executive was traveling down a neighborhood street, going a bit too fast in his new Jaguar. He was watching for kids darting out from between parked cars and slowed down when he thought he saw something.

As his car passed, no children appeared. Instead, a brick smashed into the Jag's side door! He slammed on the brakes and drove the Jag back to the spot where the brick had been thrown. The angry driver then jumped out of the car, grabbed the nearest kid and pushed him up against a parked car shouting, "What was that all about and who are you? Just what the heck are you doing? That's a new car and that brick you threw is going to cost a lot of money. Why did you do it?"

The young boy was apologetic. "Please mister... please, I'm sorry... I didn't know what else to do," he pleaded. "I threw the brick because no one else would stop..." With tears dripping down his face and off his chin, the youth pointed to a spot just around a parked car. "It's my brother," he said. "He rolled off the curb and fell out of his wheelchair and I can't lift him up." Now sobbing, the boy asked the stunned executive, "Would you please help me get him back into his wheelchair? He's hurt and he's too heavy for me."

Moved beyond words, the driver tried to swallow the rapidly swelling lump in his throat. He hurriedly lifted the handi-capped boy back into the wheelchair, then took out his fancy handkerchief and dabbed at the fresh scrapes and cuts. A quick look told him everything was going to be okay.

"Thank you and May God bless you," the grateful child told the stranger.

Too shook up for words, the man simply watched the little boy push his wheelchair-bound brother down the sidewalk toward their home.

It was a long, slow walk back to the Jaguar. The damage was very noticeable, but the driver never bothered to repair the dented side door. He kept the dent there to remind him of this message: Don't go through life so fast that someone has to throw a brick at you to get your attention!

God whispers in our souls and speaks to our hearts. Sometimes when we don't have time to listen, He has to throw a brick at us. It's our choice.

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

I’m Telling for the Last Time!

Props to the author and to my coleague Alex for sending me this hilarious text...

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I’m Telling for the Last Time!
Jerry Seinfeld


I’m not married. I’m a single guy, there are no other guys attached to me. I’ve always been just the one guy.

Men and women will never understand each other. My advice to you is to just stop thinking about it, you’re not gonna figure it out. Just forget it. I know I’m not gonna understand women. I will never understand how you can take boiling hot wax, pour it onto your upper thigh, rip the hair out by the root, and still be afraid of a spider!?!?!?! I’m not wasting any more time thinking about it. Cause I’m not getting anywhere…

And I know women are curious about men. Women wanna know what men are thinking. I know women are looking at me, right now, and you’re wondering: “I wonder what’s going on in that little brain of his?” I can tell you the truth if you would like to know what men are really thinking. Would like to know? I will tell you: Nothing… We’re not thinking anything. We’re just walking around, looking around. This is the only natural inclination of men. We like women, we want women but that’s pretty much as far as we thought. That’s why we’re honking car horns, yelling from construction sites… These are the best ideas we’ve had so far! We’re working on some new programs but it’s not easy when your mind is a blank.

Why do men do these things? Why are they acting in these ways? Why are men rude, obnoxious, getting drunk, screaming out, peeling out rubber, make kissing noises, why? Telling awful jokes, why? Why do men behave so badly? I know what you ladies are thinking, “No, no, not my guy, I’m working with him, he’s coming along.” No, he’s not! He’s tricking you! Men are not developing. We’re not improving! We men know that no matter how poorly we behave, it seems we somehow end up with women anyway. Look around this room, look at all the men you see. Beautiful women, men are with them. You think these are special men? Gifted, highly unusual, one of a kind men? These are the same jerks and idiots I’m talking about! We’re doing fine!

Men as an organization are getting more women than any other group working anywhere in the world today. Wherever women are, we have men looking into the situation right now. We explored the earth looking for women, event went to the moon just to see if there were any women there.

Here’s the thing on men, alright? I’m gonna give it to you now: All men think of themselves as kind of low-level superheroes in their own environment. When men are growing up reading about batman, spiderman, superman, these aren’t fantasies. These are options! This is the way men really look at their own lives. I’m not even supposed to be telling you this.

I’ll give you a perfect example of what I’m talking about. Ever seen a guy, moving a mattress tied to the roof of his car? He’s out on the highway with this thing. He’s always got the arm out the window holding the mattress, too, right? Whatever he’s rigged up there, he’s always helping along with the arm! This is classic male idiot superhero thinking. This moron actually believes that if the wind catches this huge rectangle at 70 miles an hour, “I got it, I got it. Don’t worry about it. I’m using my arm!”

Nino the Bellydancer :)



Photos from Cappadocia Tour are at http://photos.yahoo.com/fadil_jusufi

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

We`re back!


Serbia & Montenegro Win U20 Title

They went silently to Turkey with noone expecting any results from them... We all thought that golden era of Serbian basketball is finished, that there is no hope for recovery... And even worse - they all played for the non-existing country.
And then they got into the finals without a single lost game... And there was Turkey, the hosting country with thousands of its loud and aggresive fans...
But just before the match started, the coach read the following speech of legendary Mayor Dragutin Gavrilovic (he read this to soldiers that were defending Belgrade from Austrians in October 1915 - click here for more)...

"At three o'clock sharp, the enemy must be crushed by your mighty charge, torn to pieces by your grenades and bayonets. The honour of Belgrade must be spotless.
Soldiers!
Heroes!
The supreme command has erased our regiment from its records. Our regiment has been sacrificed for the honor of Belgrade and the Motherland. You no longer have to worry for your lives for they do not exist anymore. So, forward to glory! For King and Homeland! Long live the king! Long live Belgrade!"

No way anyone could beat these kids after that speech...

And the team spirit of our National team is back... One thing that we missed in last couple of years with our teams full of NBA players which don`t really care about the team... I truly hope that these kids wil continue to make miracles and soon enough we will be dominating the basketball world again...

Thursday, July 20, 2006

CSR Traineeship in Pakistan

If you happen to know someone with strong AIESEC experience that might be interested in long-term CSR traineeship in Microsoft Pakistan, with good employment opportunity after the traineeship, please let me know (b-nikolj(@)microsoft.com or nikola.jovanovic(@)gmail.com)...

Cheers from Istanbul!

Europe`s tallest and largest building to be built in Belgrade!

Check this out... Besix, the construction company that stands behind Burj El Arab in Dubai and similar big projects all around the world, wants to build the tallest and largest building of Europe in Belgrade! It will be 333m high and itwill be built in Novi Beograd... City government is supposed to decide on this proposal really soon.. Awesome!



Monday, July 17, 2006

travel plans

I simply love my traineeship... Just when you think it can`t get any better then this, you receive a funny call and an invitation to travel to Egypt :D
Anyways, these are my travel plans for the near future:

Next weekend - Cappadocia Tour (http://www.aiesec.org.tr/cappadociatour)
Next week - Cairo, Egypt
beginning of August - Belgrade, Home
end of August - International Congress in Poland and maybe Yasmin Hammamet, Tunisia

Did I say already how much I love my traineeship? :)

Sunday, July 16, 2006

Tolga



Tolga the Goofy in action :P

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Sandra in Istanbul


Bosphorus Tour
Originally uploaded by PeckoPivo.
5 days of pure love...
Already counting days to my vacation in Belgrade...

Friday, July 7, 2006

Fifth Annual Glocalization Conference: "Meeting of Civilizations"


100_1132
Originally uploaded by PeckoPivo.
A great new NGO that I discovered while working for Microsoft... They are connecting Glocals - local players in global field. You can find more at www.glocalforum.com.

I attended their 5th Annual Glocalization Conference which took place in Ankara this year. And it was a great experience indeed...
Meeting people from various NGOs and international organizations such are UNESCO, Taking It Global, ILO etc, as well as many Mayors of cities from all over the world (Kikinda presented Serbia) and having an opportunity to discuss different world issues with them is a great thing already... Imagine talking about peace with the Mayor of Freetown! Quite cool and inspiring... Or meeting Gent from Prishtina and talking with him about the situation in Kosovo and our visions on what may happen...
At the same time, Glocal Youth Parliament had it`s conference in another hotel and I had an opportunity to meet some really cool people and enjoy one morning on an aiesec-like conference... There were present members from 50 countries, 16-23 years old... A great group of nice people... They don`t have our network or experience, but their passion and commitment to a better future is something that connects them to AIESEC and I wish these two organizations start working together... On the photo, I`m with (from left to right) a delegate from US, then Aleksandra from BCYF, Amila from Bosnia and Nikola from Serbia. I hope I will be able to attend their Global Youth Summit...

Cagri Han


100_1027
Originally uploaded by PeckoPivo.
The one and only Cagri Han :)
We met in Istanbul after more the 2 years... First we met in Tunisia in February 2003 and then he was a CC member at IC 2003 in Serbia (well, Yugoslavia at the time)... A famous organizer of even more famous "Friday night parties" and introducer of "Woman, go to kitchen" concept in the CC... :)
Even if it was the worst organization of the world, AIESEC is good because you have an opportunity to meet such cool people from all over the world...