I'm going to Nepal... I'm going to Nepal...

I'm going to Nepal in February.

Yup, that's right. Unless something bad or something very good happens that will prevent me from doing the trip (LOL!), I will be hopping on a plane some time in late February to go to Kathmandu and stay there for a few days.

Around the first or second week of October, an email was sent out to all employees in Asia about a chance to go to Nepal to visit the a children's center that the company has been supporting for about three years now.

According to our VP, the center would like to have a few employees go to Nepal to see how the company has been helping lives in Nepal.

In this regard, an essay-writing competition of sorts was held for employees to join and win a chance to represent the company in a trip to the center in Nepal. The task was simple yet challenging. In 250 words, write why one should be selected to go and what one can do for the children under the care of the center.

Sounds easy, right? However, the word count limitation made it quite a challenge to provide a meaningful and substantial answer on why I have to be selected.

I thought about what I could write and how I should write it. I wanted to share about my experience on how my Singapore dream became a reality. Hopefully, it would serve as an inspiration to the children to work in achieving their dreams, too.  That was the main message of my essay.

I came up with a draft. I left it for a day or two. I read it again and made some changes, and afterwards I submitted my entry.

That was it. All I knew was the winners would be announced on 15th November.

Come 15 Nov, I was eagerly waiting for the email announcing the people selected to go to Nepal.

I was not sure about my chances of winning, but I must say I felt good about my entry. Hehe! At 2:17PM, the email from Corporate Communications arrived.

As soon as I saw the first few sentences of the email, I wanted to get up from my seat and shout for joy! I made it! My entry won! Pretty soon, I was getting messages from close colleagues congratulating me for being selected. I was so, so happy but I had to contain myself because I dun want my colleagues to think I'm crazy. Hehe! I messaged PG Boy immediately and told him the good news. He thought for a while that I was joking. Later on in the evening, I explained it to him. Hehe!

I read the message from the children's center director that came with the announcement of winners and I was really happy about her feedback regarding my entry. The center director was one of the judges for the contest who had to go through 30 entries from China, Japan, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Philippines, Taiwan, and of course, Singapore.

In addition to winning, I also had a small feature in the online newsletter of the company. Hehe! Having been the one who's always doing writeups and featuring other people/groups (I used to do Public Relations/CorpComm), it was a bit strange seeing an article (lead story! LOL!) with me. My two minutes of fame. Hehe!

So there, that's the story of how I got an opportunity to be able to visit Nepal next year.

Really excited!!!

2013 hasn't even begun, and already I have a feeling it's going to be a good one! Yay