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Eurovision: Azerbaijan, winner of Eurovision 2011

Actual impressions: Delegates express their enthousiasm

6th National Selection Conference European Youth Parliament Spain

madExperience y Passion

official magazine

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Content/ Editorial

Studying abroad

Keep in touch

World around us

Eurovision

Nervous ?

EYP‘s impact on our health

The ultimate fight

Session impressions

What we are

Future involvement

Partners and sponsors

Content EditorialDear Readership,

As all good things, this session comes now to an end. We are not going to lose words on how valuable this first EYP experience must have been, but rather emphasise on your future involve-ment of this unique organisation.

On your way back and during the upcoming days you should find the time to reflect on what you just lived in Madrid and judge if it was worthwhile to sacrifice 4 days of your student life to attend to this session. You might not understand the whole dimension of EYP, but trust us, it is a very bright one. You can-not imagine how much EYP brought us and how much we grew while attending its sessions. What we are trying to say is that we encourage you to embrace the challenge and keep on engaging yourself in the future.

As a final point we have to thank certain individuals. Even though you all contributed to this unique atmosphere in Madrid and made our work extremely enjoyable we have to point out Mr. Chris Hall, who motivated and supported us at all times; as well as Mr. Josep Roca i Camps and Mr. Aniol Quer Casa-coberta, who satisfied all the crazy demands we had. Finally, we cannot end this editorial without naming our journos; thank you Ali, Anna, Carmen, Clara, Lara, Luis, Teresa and Susie. You are outstanding personalities and we will remain forever thankful for your dedication to this Press Team.

Alex Narayanin & Max Karpf

- Editors -

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EYP opens our mind to different countries, lan-guages and cultures and leads us to wonde-ring how it would be to live in other countries.

Most of the delegates of the EMPL I commit-tee agreed that it must be incredible and they all think they will try to study abroad, although for some of them it may be difficult. “The only thing that is keeping me here right now is my friends and my own city”- says Maria, while some other delegates were nodding- “but actually I love travelling because of the new people I meet and new cities I get to see”. Everyone started laughing, showing their agreement with her interesting point of view.

Studying abroad is a great experience and everyone agrees with that, but it’s also hard to adapt to the country you are going to live in. As some of you have said, the first two months are the worse ones because “you arrive in the USA, for instance, with the idea of the great American Dream and what you get is a huge disappointment”. You may find that a comple-tely different educational system is not as easy to study as in your home country, focused on practice instead of theory, but don’t panic, you will get over it!

Advice on how to adapt:

First of all you have to get rid of your first idea of the country. Stereotypes are the enemy of reason.

You shouldn’t be afraid to talk to your teachers or headmasters to get informed about possi-bilities to study abroad. Remember, there is nothing wrong with asking for something; and you shouldn’t be embarrassed in case you are one of the few who are willing to study abroad.

Bear in mind that your best friend will probably be in the same situation as you. Nora, one of the delegates from ECON helped us explain this with her own experience: “I arrived in this country and I was like a vase. It was a miracle that I had two Ukrainian and Russian girls as roommates and together, we could become more confident”.

In any case, if something goes wrong and you don’t have a good time, don’t ever do what a sincere delegate told me with a really scary face: “Yeah, I would come back, but this time they would know who I really am”. < C.G. & L.A.

Studying abroadCarmen Guzman & Luis Algeciras

Beware of stereotypes while studying in another country.

Keep in touch !Lara Lindlahr

> The 6th NSC of EYPE is coming to an end. Delegates are excited to attend the GA and present their achievements. Not only two days of hard work are lying behind us but there will follow some more tough days after the session. Participants will have to face their Post EYP Depression, also known as PED, and are going to miss all the great people they have met. Let’s face it: Innovation and Technology are the core of the modern world, but nobody has invented something against the most painful sickness yet.Doing loads of research and having expe-rienced being sick of PED a couple of times we are finally coming to a solution. It is up to you to fight PED by keeping in touch with your fellow delegates, officials and other lunatics. Due to social networks in the Internet, email and skype, communication within different countries has been simplified.

Among young people, facebook is the most popular way to communicate. Harvard-alumni Mark Zuckerberg invented the social network

in 2004. From then on the numbers of users multiplied. People express their opinions about almost everything and share their gossip with people from all over the world. Therefore, it will be very easy to find out what kind of events are happening in someone’s life right now, while they are actually living hundreds of kilometres away from you. However, facebook is a much faster way to communicate than with emails, for instance. It doesn’t even take you a minute to like someone’s comment or comment on a post yourself. But why are people really interested in sharing their private life in the Internet? You could argue that you only share private infor-mation with friends, but have you ever met all of your 2032 friends on facebook?

Overall, it was of great fun to take loads of pic-tures, make videos and capturing moments of your EYP experience. We hope you will enjoy every single second you have left and you will add us on facebook to become our 2033rd friend. < L.L.

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To stick to that vicious circle of gossip

we would like to encourage

you to add our «PRESS ROOM»

on facebook. This facebook page was

designed by our dear editors to share

all our work and achievements with you.

There are already several albums with pic-

tures from teambuilding and Committee

Work, where you can see at your happy

faces playing silly games and debating on

current issues, trying to look serious

and important. As well, the 3 issues

of the mad magazine and the

videos are linked to this facebook page.

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The nuclear disaster of Fukushima reached a new dimension. Finally, the Japanese government conceded that the nuclear accident in Fukushima is classified as a “Mayor Accident” (Level 7) and no longer as an “Accident with wider consequences“ (Le-vel 5) on the INES-scale. The government only confirmed that which was feared for a long time, the worst-case scenario. An exclusion zone of 20 km was established around the plant as well as a 30 km voluntary evacuation zone after the accident happened in March 2011. Still, vo-lunteers are working hard to fix the leaking and overheated plant reactors in Fukushima I. To-day, the Japanese press announced that about 90 senior citizens volunteered to work in the danger zone to relieve younger workers. Until the end of May, the government, TEPCO and a Commission on insurance have to submit a plan that will decide upon the mission of retirees in the wrecked nuclear power station.

World around usnUpdate on Fukushima

The EU proposal of reforming the Schen-gen agreement is creating a heated debate between all the European countries. Italy and France proposed to abolish the agreement in order to avoid massive immigration followed by the immediate negative reaction of Spain. Schengen allows European citizens to move freely all over Europe and its abolition would mean more problems when traveling abroad. Brussels proposed to establish a new mecha-nism to control those countries, which fail in their migration obligations.

We are again in May and of for a new edi-tion of the Cannes Film Festival, which takes place in the luxurious city of Cannes. The city is preparing to greet artists and professionals from around the world, such as Penelope Cruz or Jude Law.The 11th of May, the new film of Woody Allen called ‘Midnight in Paris’ inaugurated the 64th Cannes Film Festival which will last until the 22nd of the same month. Du-ring these days, 49 films will be competing in order to win the ‘Palme d’Or’, among them a new movie of Almodóvar.Stay tuned for more information about Cannes!

What about Schengen?

Woody Allen‘s new movie in Cannes

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Eurovision

Azerbaijan, winner of Eurovision 2011 to the German editor’s disbelieve.

Carmen Guzman & Clara Otín

> Every year Europe gatheres to attend the biggest song contest in the world: the Eurovision. It lets us feel the impor-tance of the colours of our European flag; it leads to a better knowledge of the different European cul-tures. Each year there‘s something that makes us remember the 12 - stars flag: the Eurovision Song Contest.

For instance, last year du-ring the Spanish perfor-mance, a man appeared on stage and started dancing with the Spanish contestant. I can still re-member the poker face of Daniel Digés when this man walked right bet-ween him and the came-ras, making it impossible for people to see him.

Every artist calls for the attention of the viewers to assure their victory, but some of them are too radi-cal, such as T.A.T.U. The polemic they brought with their promise to get mar-

ried if they would have won was in every newspa-per. Unfortunately for them, though they came in in a quite good posi-tion, they didn‘t win and consequently didn’t get married. In the end, they even confessed that they lied to get popular.

But doing special ad-vertisements sometimes works; the best example for it would be Lordi, the Finnish monsters. A dif-ferent style, which repre-sented Finland very well, their costumes and of course the incredible qua-lity of their performance brought them directly to the first position.In this 56th Eurovision Song Contest, we have been incredibly surprised with performances like the Austrian one with their black female voice; the French one and their audacity in an opera man-ner; the Ukrainian one with an amazing effect of a woman drawing in the sand and even the Itali-

an one, which is actually made the second place performing a great jazz fu-sion. Overall, the contest was a success and every-one enjoyed watching it.

Despite the presence of-plenty good singers and bands, there was one that convinced the audience more: Azerbaijan. They brought the glory to their country. Congratulations! < C.G. & C.O.

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Nervous ?Ali Kerem Araboglu & Anna Borrell

Delivering a speech during GA ist handable.

> Today the unavoidable day has arrived: the ulti-mate GA day! Since hea-ring the words ‘Gene-ral Assembly’ might be enough to scare you, we have some advice for you to handle the GA in the best possible way.

Make the best of the cof-fee breaks! Feel free to prepare some questions or attack speeches. However, you also should consider that talking to one of your best friends helps you to relax, as well. After being refreshed with the conver-sation that you have had with your friends, consu-med a remarkable amount of caffeine and any food improving the functioning of your body; it is easier to keep your concentration levels high.

When it comes to the open debate, you can be crea-tive when you speak. It helps you to be remem-bered after the session is over. For example, once a guy in a Turkish NSC

said, “Our population is 70.000.000 people. If eve-rybody contributes to the budget of the country by giving 1 Lira, every single problem can be solved”. Try to be spontaneous so that the debate doesn’t get boring. The same Turkish delegate replied to q ques-tion concerning people’s interest in a potential EU TV channel, saying, “My grandfather would be ex-tremely interested in that.” Guess what happened then? He became the hero of the session!

You can try to be crea-tive while conquering the board’s heart, as well. Just a “We love you Chris” on a paper might not be enough. It is also not re-commended to commit bribery, by holding hun-dreds of Euros with your placard in the air!

If you get very nervous while delivering a speech, there are some techniques that you could use. The most popular one is pictu-

ring your audience sitting naked in their seats, but keep in mind that if you do this you should not start laughing. It is important that you don’t shiver, just place your papers on the lectern and use your hands to express yourself through body language, not only by holding the speech. It is always much better if you look at the audience instead of your papers, so that you can communicate better with them.

Keep in mind that even the most embarrassing mo-ments you have during the GA are always remembe-red positively, afterwards. So if you make a mistake don’t get too nervous, just smile at the audience and continue your speech.

We all have a strong belief that you can do it perfectly! Beyond all of these pieces of advice, remember that the most important thing is to be confident and believe in yourselves. < A.K.A. & A.B.

EYP’s impact on our healthAnna Borrellrz

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> EYP sessions have a great deal of positive as-pects but are they good for your health? You will have the answer by the time you get home and realize that you cannot even move a leg and you just want to hibernate for a whole month. Just so that you know what is ahead of you, here are some explanations about the so-called “EYPitis”.

You will notice that you have this very harm-ful disease when you take off your shoes - the ones that you have been using all day long to run around the park for teambuilding, or the hate-ful high heels. The girls know what I am talking about, you feel that the colours change and the world becomes a better place when you take of those shoes. By the time you get home, you will look at your feet and you will notice that you have blisters everywhere.

Another common symptom is the loss of voice after singing the amazing “Banana song” too many times, or – let’s be honest, we hear you every night – after partying quite a lot. EYPitis is characterised by your arms, legs, elbows, neck and more broadly every single part of your body being so stiff that you cannot even move to go to

the bathroom. For more, ask Ventura and he will tell you how he pulled a muscle in his leg – orga-nisers work very hard.

I don’t want to be partial, but we have to reco-gnise that girls are the ones that suffer the most: the awful rings under the eyes that we try to cover with a maybe too much make up on the GA day and dry lips are some of the worst things that happen to us.

But a symptom that we all suffer from is the shaky hands and nervous breakdowns caused by the incredible amount of coffee that we drink during the day and our greatest friend: Red Bull, which is possibly the best sponsor that an EYP session can ever have.

When it comes to food I will not go into details: we all know the impact of diets based on cheese and ham sandwiches, fishy cookies and coke on our bodies for a whole week. Even if your body will be happy that the session is over, I think a little damage to your health is a worth enduring for these amazing days in Madrid. < A.B.

Comparing EYP‘s health benefits with the actual experience EYP offers.

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The ultimate fightAli Kerem Araboglu & Luis Algeciras

> ‘As every session comes to an end, a terrible feeling remains that every EYP fears: PED.‘PED, Post EYP Depression, is a bittersweet feeling that the ones who really enjoy the session suffer from after the end of the session. It usually starts between the president’s speech and the moment we sing ‘Imagine’ all together. It actually depends on the person but generally it lasts at least one week and at most until the time you attend another session. < A.K.A. & L.A.

These are the main symptoms of PED:

• Accent changes.• Loss of voice.• As Silvia Susach would say: “You cry your a** off”.• You’re stuck on facebook until your eyes become raisins.• Tons of dirty clothes.• Millions of euros spent on your mobile phone talking with that “special delegate”.• A deep desire to play energizers.• Freak quantities of time spent petting your pet.• The need for sleep that lasts almost forever.

There are many ways to avoid or soothe PED, you can:

• Try hard to go back to your regular life by trying to adapt yourself to the boredom of routine. But there’s another side to this: adapting doesn’t mean forgetting. Don’t let your lively EYP spirit go away.• Another good way is to add your fellow delegates on facebook, tuenti, skype or just send emails every day.• Remain involved in EYP! Just apply for every session that you are able to attend.

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Lara Lindlahr

> The question about participants’ satisfaction at this session remains unanswered. Most of-ficials and delegates could not wait for this ses-sion to finally begin and now it is almost about to end. It was great fun to evaluate how much everyone has actually gained during the session and what kind of experiences people have had.

Overall, delegates are very satisfied with their teambuilding as well as with the first day of Committee Work. According to the delega-tes, they were having a lot of fun and were enjoying being with their committee. Some of them not only expressed their amazement about getting involved with different people so quickly, but also were convinced about the benefits of Teambuilding for Committee Work. According to the delegates, one of the most po-pular games was the human knot. Most of them thought that it was quite challenging, but solving this problem was also “one of the most enjoyable parts of the session”. Another favourite challen-ge was to perform a dance blindfolded. However, participants were also satisfied with the results they came up with as a team and are looking forward to completing their resolutions during

the following day. So far, first concerns about teambuilding, Committee Work and the sessi-on in general have been eliminated. Delegates became friends, improved their language skills and gained confidence throughout the session.

Even though expectations for teambuilding and Committee Work have been met so far, the delegates are excited to experience more. Most of them are expecting the GA to be great. They are looking forward to de-batable resolutions and heated discussions.

Besides asking delegates about their expectations I was also wondering what was the most memo-rable experience whilst participating at this ses-sion. No doubt – everyone is going to remember the great people they have gotten to know here. “I was surprised that people were so open-min-ded and nice” - said Jorge. Most of them beca-me true teams and had fun during teambuilding. Last but not least, our delegates were impressed by our god‘s speech during Opening Ceremo-ny, as he dropped some catchy quotes. < L.L.

Delegates reveal the fulfillment of their expectations and share their best moments of the session.

Session impressions

They are looking forward

to debatable resolutions

and heated discussions.

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What we areSusannah Karatzia

The core of our EYP existence in short and noteworthy points.

You Know you’re an EYPer when…

• You have free accommodation in any European country because you have at least one friend that lives there.• You go on bear hunts with a backpack and you cross rivers and mountains all the time.• You insert the word “sustainability” in at least once in your daily sentences even if you don’t know what it means because it is used in every resolution you come across.• You know how to curse in at least 10 European languages.• The “train of love“ dance makes sense to you.• You can pass oranges/coins/pears without using your hands.

You know you’re a Spanish EYPer when…

• You go home and only eat Fishy biscuits and ham/cheese sandwiches because after EYP that’s all your body accepts.• You automatically wake up at 7.30am, imagining some lunatic is banging on your door.• At 12pm sharp you have the urge to eat because Max the German said its Lunch Time.• You find Luis the Journo snoring on the floor next to you in the morning.• It becomes normal to eat raw bacon and sausages as demonstrated by the British table during Eurovillage.• You go to a restaurant and accidently ask for Tap Aqua.• When you look at an organiser you imagine them being suspended from a tree with a squirrel dangling off of them.

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Future involvementCarmen Guzman

Did you enjoy this new experience? Do you want to stay involved? Then take note of the following opportunities and don’t miss your chance to go further in EYP.

> After this National Session experience, I’m sure each of you is curious to know how to fight against PED. Besides all the advice Luis and Ali can give you, there is something that makes it possible for us to recover from PED: future ses-sions.

Some of you may think that from now on, you will only get the chance to keep on doing EYP at International Sessions but there are as many possibilities as there are different sessions. Here is a list of the upcoming sessions you can attend:

Iberian Forum: held in Girona and organised by two of our officials (Lluis Solervicens and Geor-gina Alvarez). The Iberian Forum 2011 promises to be one of the best sessions of the EYP year. It will get more than 160 young people from all over Europe together during 8 sunny summer days from 4th to 11th August. If you want to know how it will be like, ask someone who was at the last Iberian Forum and you will probably get the same answer: “the best session I’ve ever been to!”

International Sessions: if these sessions are as great as the last ones it will just be amazing! Sha-ring a room with people from other countries, tal-

king English until you forget how to speak your mother tongue and dancing all night are the basic things you will find in these sessions that will surely change the meaning of your life.

National Selection Conferences: you sometimes get the chance to go to another country and help out at a National Session just as officials have done here. Asking Ali, our journo, about his opi-nion of his first National Session he answered smiling, as always: “I was quite worried in the beginning but as time passed, I started enjoying every moment of the session. I will return to Turkey with fantastic memories”.

Regional Sessions: as many of you know, it consists of a GA and chairs, organisers and board members are needed. If you have the chance to participate to one of them as an official, just do it because you will probably meet people you haven’t seen in a long time and get to meet new International people. < C.G.

Sponsors

Partners

Special thanks to the Head - Organisers of the 6th National Selection Madrid 2011

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