A visit to Belgrade and ISWiB

In the summer of 2012, I, a curious ISFiT representative, travelled by train as a true environmentalist to Serbia. My destination was Belgrade and the International Student Week, ISWiB (www.iswib.org). I had my ISFiT-glasses on, and was expecting both to learn a lot and have a lot of fun. After a two day's train ride I arrived at the Belgrade train station where ISWiB representatives met me and took me to the dormitories where we were staying. Most of the other participants were already in place, and I was put in a room with three beautiful girls. The place was also swarming with ISWiB volunteers in yellow t-shirts.

The first day was kicked off with some games to get to know each other, and as we were creating a map of Europe with everyone standing in their home country it became quite clear that most of the participants were from the Balkans.

My workshop was called “Business and Marketing Kindergarten”, and was led by students from the marketing institute at the University in Belgrade. As a part of the Information Section in ISFiT I was hoping to learn some new tricks to bring back with me, but I mostly learned about Balkan culture, and especially drinking culture.

My workshop went on several excursions. We got the opportunity to go sightseeing in Belgrade, we visited the stadium of one of Belgrade's football teams – FK Partizan – where we talked to their PR manager, and we visited the National Bank.

In the middle of the week we had a day with something called a Country Fair, where all the participants had their own stand with flags, food and drinks from the different countries. This was definitely my favourite day at ISWiB, and in the scorching heat I got to taste exotic sweets, and there was also a broad diversity of liquors from all over Europe at the Fair. The Norwegian brown cheese was surprisingly enough very well received, and people kept coming back for more.

Being a vegetarian in Belgrade was not an easy task. We were served the same fried vegetables for every single meal, and on the one night we were out to a restaurant to experience traditional Serbian food we were served fried eggs and french fries, because “what else can you eat if you don't eat meat?” I expect that ISFiT will take the challenge and serve some proper vegetarian food.

During the week we really got to experience the summer night life, Belgrade style. On the river that runs through the city, every night club with some self-respect have a party boat during the summer. With boats reserved for ISWiB, we got to party and dance, and some even got to know each other quite a lot better on those hot summer nights.

I left Belgrade one day early, and unfortunately missed the closing ceremony and the flag parade through the city. I had a really fun week, met several great people and got to know Balkan in an entirely different way than I'm used to from the news we get here in Norway. So if you don't know what you are doing next summer and you are curious about Belgrade, then ISWiB is definitely worth a look!

Katrine

Leader of the Information Section

ISFiT 2013

Attention, please!

This week has been all about the art of grabbing attention. In a little less than two weeks, ISFiT will welcome about one hundred new volunteers (yay!), and the past couple of weeks have seen everyone doing their utmost to get the best possible candidates to apply. How did we do it?

First,we lured them in with the one thing any student in their right mind can't refuse: free coffee.

Capturing their attention was really the easiest part, because all we had to do then was talk about what a great thing ISFiT is, and that's easy. After ten minutes, we'd managed to convince quite a lot of people to apply.

The next step in our evil brilliant plan was to get as many people as possible to come to our info meeting. Quite a lot of people showed up.

Not to question anyone's motives, but this time we bribed them with free cake.

Hopefully, most of them turned up because they wanted to learn more about ISFiT, but the cake probably didn't hurt.

On the day of the appliaction deadline, we pulled out all the stops and recruited our very own superheroes to do some last-minute work.

Okay, maybe they're not actual superheroes, but they wear lycra and they have capes, and that's as close to the definition of superhero you can get without actual, you know, superpowers. And even if they don't have x-ray vision or the ability to fly, they did a brilliant job of dancing all over campus to promote ISFiT.

And now we wait. The applications are in, and soon we'll have a bunch of newly recruited volunteers ready to make ISFiT 2013 the best festival yet. Spoiler alert: we're very excited!

Sweat, sweat and tears

 Once upon a time, ISFiT decided to do some good and raise travel money for their participants. After putting together a successful charity concert, they decided to arrange a fitness class where the money again went to the Travel Support Fund. Everyone agreed that it was a great idea—including me. That is, until I was told that I had to attend the class myself.

Around 20 of ISFiT’s fittest volunteers showed up Wednesday evening, ready for a class created specifically for the occasion by Jakob and Silje, who are gym instructors and possibly two of the most energetic people south of the Arctic Circle. We were off to a great start, if you choose to ignore the fact that some people struggled to separate left from right.

For those of you who’ve never set a foot inside a gym, I am now able to inform you that the weird-looking boomerang is, in fact, something called a corebar, which supposedly helps with…stuff. A corebar class demands muscular strength in your arms, good coordination and willpower, which happens to be three qualities I do not possess. But everyone else did really well.

And no, it’s just not possible to take photos of people exercising with a corebar without them ending up looking a little weird. But that’s what you get for allowing a person with a camera to roam free inside a gym.

Half an hour into the class, I was convinced of two things: the instructors had to be in possession of some secret superpowers, and ISFiT has to be the fittest student organization in the whole wide world. At one point, I observed several people doing one-legged squats, which I had previously believed to be nothing more than film tricks. I haven’t felt so physically inferior since I spent five hours watching gymnastics during the London Olympics this summer.

But in all seriousness, there are worse ways to spend your Wednesday, and how often do you get the chance to get a little fitter while doing something for a good cause? Not often enough.

A Day at the Movies

FADE IN:

EXT. CAMPUS GLØSHAUGEN, SATURDAY MORNING.

A crisp, clear autumn day in Trondheim: A shivering group of STUDENTS dressed in winter clothing are fiddling with sophisticated camera equipment.

They are part of ISFiT’s FILM GROUP, and today is a big day for them—they’re shooting a brand new PROMO FILM. For that to happen, however, they need EXTRAS, and while we wait for them to show up, the BLOGGER and a few others are sent to the office to make some POSTERS.

If there should be any doubt as to whether the guys in the film group are well prepared, the following evidence is presented:

The posters came out really nice, by the way.

After about an hour, a small army of volunteers from the WORKSHOP GROUP arrive on the scene. They’re here to play the parts of ANGRY MOB and ANNOYING JOURNALISTS. They receive instructions from the CREW, and the shooting starts.

ANGRY MOB

(shouting)

We want peace! No more war!

Suddenly, two ARMY HUNKS appear out of nowhere. They line up on the stairs outside the main building, looking very… army-like.   

A huge LIMOUSINE comes rolling around the corner. A MAN steps out of it and is immediately surrounded by grim-looking SECURITY GUARDS.

SINDRE (director)

Cut!

The entire production seems so professional that everyone involved appears to have forgotten for a moment that they are not at a real set. That is, until the extras start freezing and remember that there is no heated room available with a comfy couch to relax on. They settle for the next best thing.

The atmosphere is exceptionally good inside the DISCO LIMOUSINE. The extras are enjoying looking through the windows at the poor souls still having to work outside in the cold.

Unfortunately it all comes to an end the moment a CAMERA OPERATOR pops his head inside to announce that they have to start shooting the next scene.

EXTRAS

Sob.

After four cold hours, the movie group is satisfied with the day’s efforts. And if you’re wondering what on earth an angry mob, journalists, army hunks, security guards, and a beast of a limousine have to do with each other, you'll have no choice but to pay close attention to isfit.org in the coming weeks.

THE END.

Read, read, read!

Have you heard the story of the student who was super excited about travelling to Russia to attend ISFiT?

The Participant Group has, and last weekend they sacrificed blood, sweat and tears (or, you know, plenty of hours, for the less dramatically inclined) to start the monumental task of reading through every single application received for ISFiT 2013. Although we cannot reveal the exact number, we are dealing with something between the amount of rainy days in Trondheim (which is a lot) and the number of supporters attending an average football match (which is even more.) Or thereabouts (Fine, it’s several thousand. But that’s all we can say).

We asked this wonderful group of people about their expectations for the coming weekend, but as the saying goes, a picture says more than a thousand words, so we told them to reply using body language.

«How excited are you to start the reading?»

«And how do you think you’ll feel on Sunday evening?»

True to the spirit of ISFiT, they then proceeded to play a few games before getting to work.

Installed under the refreshing fluorescent lights of the computer room, they sat down in front of the screens, ready to begin. The mood was uplifting.

If you are imagining a peaceful, tranquil reading session; think again. Most people were not able to sit still at their desks for long before they started wandering around the room. Good applications and fascinating stories had to be shared with others, and groups of three or four gathered around a single screen to discuss an application in detail. Being solely responsible for the fate of an applicant can be daunting, and what’s better than a second (or even a third) opinion? Yay teamwork! Of course, it wasn’t just the many quality applications that gained attention. Some things did appear within applications that were simply too funny, weird or plain absurd to be ignored. Gems include selected quotes from Whitney Houston, a paragraph about frogs (?) and someone comparing the national economy to diarrhea.

And food. So much talk about food. So much, in fact, that we became hungry just reading it.

After more than an hour of reading, they’d still only read about one percent of the applications, so things weren’t looking good for the ones that had hoped to get home before  day turned to night. Luckily for these guys, some applications were much easier to discard than others, if not they’d probably still be there. Some ended up in the no-pile simply because of poor English skills. And while some had poured their heart and soul into a well-written essay, others got straight to the point — like the applicant who simply said he just wanted a free trip to Trondheim. While we appreciate the honesty, that’s never going to happen.

When we left Friday evening, a lot of work still remained before the invitations go out on the 1^st of November. Rumor has it that they didn’t stop reading until Tuesday, and apparently the mood was a lot more cheerful than anticipated. Two thumbs up for these guys!