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Pacific Islands Leadership Program - My 2 Cents

Thank goodness for fast internet connection so I can actually update my blog.  So.....

I arrived on Honolulu on August 12, two days before my 28th birthday supposedly to start the Pacific Islands Leadership Program. I know it sounds very ambiguous, and believe me it still is ambiguous to me, a month later. But that's for another conversation, or it may very well pop up sometime in this post. Haha. Anyway, little did I know that I was arriving 2 weeks prior to the actual start of the program.  The first 2 weeks was spent participating in the Community Building Institute (CBI), this 2-week long thing where all the participants of any East-West Center program are to attend to get to know more about Hawaii, their programs, the center, and to mingle and network with each other.  So that was alright for the first week, and then the second week came along and it became more apparent that CBI had overstayed its welcome.  Assignments that could have been completed within one week dragged on to the next and I was getting overwhelmed with a packed schedule whilst still adjusting to the time difference.  Needless to say, I was pretty excited to finally finish CBI and looked forward to starting my own program.  Although I must say, CBI was successful as I met a lot of cool people and made friends with some that were just awesome.  Here are some of them during the various activities during CBI. 
This is Sayaka from Japan, HanQing from China, Emily from Wisconsin, and Joe from San Francisco making what would end up being Argentinian vegetarian lasagna. 

 This is Stanly Ng of APLP and I during the PILP opening ceremony
This is Hanqing and I on the last day of CBI. I'm totally sporting Olah's necklace from Niue.


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