Future President

Last night I had the chance to have dinner with some of our former student ambassadors. It was great to catch up with them since it's interesting to see what the students eventually do after they finish our program. One was already working for a dev company and the other is graduating soon. Our conversation though revolved around culture differences, family, their plans, population issues (some serious conversation!) and many other things.

Since we were talking about future plans my ultimate dream for my students popped in my mind. I told them that it is my uttermost wish to eventually have a country president from one of them. Their jaws dropped and they looked at me in shock. They probably thought I was loony.

We go through gazillions of applications for the program and one of the things that we look for is the ability to make a huge impact and instil change. The youth today is after all our future leaders so I cannot help but wonder if there's one among the hundreds of students I've had the chance to work who would eventually become a country president. I know it is far-fetched, but who knows?

Last weekend one of our students had the privilege of speaking for the youth to Pope Francis. When I met him in person I took note at the back of my mind that he had the qualities that may fulfill my dream someday. He's not the only one, there's a few more I've met in the last few years that have that potential so I'm really hopeful.

Pope Francis said to keep on dreaming so this will stay as one of my dreams and hopefully one of my children will take it on in the future :)

Happy, Happy Week with New GSAs!

I am so hung over from the #gsasea summit! I couldn't stop looking at the posts the students are making on G+ and I couldn't help but smile at the auto-awesomed photos.

The last week has been the result of months of hard work we put in to ensure that we are able to provide the best experience to students who have been accepted into the program. Besides the best that we can do is equip the students and catapult them into super stardom.

After rigorous sessions the best part of the summit was the cultural night where the students treated us to traditional and modern dances from their countries. I loved all the performances and ended up dancing everytime a group went up. It's what probably got my sniffles to go away.

The Indonesian GSAs opened the performances which got everyone to stand up and dance.

Here's the hataw number of the Sri Lankan GSAs -

And the mind-blowing performance of the Pakistani GSAs -

Being the host country, the Filipino GSAs treated the audience to several sets of local dances and got everyone to dance to "Pinoy Ako". It was a fitting finale that brought a lot of good vibes.

The last week was made successful with my awesome support system - my boss, my team, my colleagues who took time out to help in the summit, the agency, and my family who made sure I was almost always up and about (have to make sure my one year old heart always works!). And, of course, thank you Papa God for answering our prayers for good weather!

A sincere thank you to everyone who came and supported the summit!