It is one day before my departure to US. I have mixed feeling about my departure to US for my fellowship. Nervous and excited. Afraid yet optimistic about it. The past week had been crazy, had to juggled between my works, life and preparation for YSEALI Fellowship. The hardest thing was work related tasks. Almost overwhelmed with office duties, it flowed to me like it would not never end. Had to managed multiple meetings and reports, and most importantly I had to delegate all the works and planning to my team before my departure. The Pre Departure Module (PDM) on time management really come in handy to sort out and prioritised my work tasks. Gratitude Dr. Comb!
While for the fellowship, I feel like never had enough time to prepare for the fellowship which made me nervous. The long period waiting time from fellowship announcement in January to the departure in April made me felt like a bit lost with the fellowship. But once again, the PDM saved the day. All of the videos and readings brought back my motivation again on why I decided to applied the fellowship. Similarly, communicating with Mark and Amy in Oak Ridge as well as with fellows alumni really helped me to keep my spirit up and excited to follow through this fellowship journey. Another thing that motivated me was the possibilities to networking with new people and experience different set of culture and system in my host community. Now D-Day minus one, I feel nervous and very excited and Afraid yet optimistic about my fellowship journey.