We Are the Change

I literally have no idea what to put as first entry in my blog. I have few write-ups ready but they are a bit technical and need some editing if I want to post it here. I also want to start my blog with a bang and posting about issues would be boring. With my thoughts flying, a brilliant idea came across my mind – my graduation speech! (I know, so narcissist lol)

I recently acquired my double Master of Public Health (MPH) degrees from The University of Sheffield in the UK and École des Hautes Études en Santé Publique in France. I was selected by my dear Europubhealth (the name of our programme) cohort to do the graduation speech in behalf of them. To be honest, making a graduation speech is challenging especially when your friends wanted you to make them cry (yes, they told me that). It's also a dilemma whether you're going to stand there as an individual talking about your personal achievements or as a representative talking about the group, which is the harder one between the two.

Anyway, I chose the latter and managed to make a speech on time that was entitled "We are the change." I focussed on this topic since it has become the motto of our cohort throughout our two years of education (and looking back, I think I was the one who started saying this to them lol). The speech revolves around some key elements that we should always consider in the field of public health. I was really nervous because I was not sure how my cohort will receive this speech and I really felt unprepared (with the speech itself and my delivery). I can still remember the one and only practice I had was after our graduation dinner (you can just imagine how many glasses of wine I had that night) at around 3AM-ish, less than 6 hours before our graduation! I honestly didn't have enough time since we also had our last module going on plus our thesis defence at the same time. But the thing that worried me the most was that I will look like a zombie on our graduation day! Luckily after few hours of sleep, I was feeling and looking okay (not 100% of course). And the time came. I followed the speech of our Guest of Honour. And as expected, it was not a perfect delivery: I forgot my lines twice, grammar slips, bad pronunciation, my voice was not well modulated all throughout the speech, you name it. But just like in life, I stumbled, rose up, and conquered! To my surprise, there was an overwhelming reception of my speech! My Europubhealth cohort cried, our family felt proud, the audience laughed at my jokes, and our professors agreed on the things I said. Like literally spell O-V-E-R-W-H-E-L-M-I-N-G lol. There's even one professor who told me I should be a politician! How crazy is that. To be honest, I was so relieved not so much because of the warm congratulations I received but because I managed to make my Europubhealth friends cry (not all, though!), which was my only goal. #GoalAchieved

And so without further ado, here is my message to them, and our message to the world!

PS: There were a couple of grammar slips in my speech. I was so nervous that time...so grammar nazis, back off!