strategic planning from afar

Brief but necessary catch-up, 11 months since my last post: I’ve graduated! I’ve leaving on July 2 for one year in Uganda! I’m continuing my Green Chemistry research in Uganda on a fellowship. I’ll be a Masters student in Chemistry at Makerere University. and I’ll be MC-VP-Projects of AIESEC Uganda (i.e. I’m coordinating Issue-Based Projects at the national level). Life is wild and amazing now.

AIESEC Uganda National Planning Conference is this weekend, and I'm really disappointed that I won't be there to attend and facilitate. I was just reviewing the agenda outline that Frankie (MCP) just sent out. It's brilliantly based on training materials passed down from IPM, the highest-level AIESEC conference each year.

Then on the third day, the agenda starts out with "bonking game." I burst out laughing and got a surge of nostalgia and gratification. If I'm not mistaken, this is the game I made up spontaneously last year when running a transition workshop for the new @MUK executive board. I based on the favorite word of the local tabloid Red Pepper as a tongue-in-cheek adaptation to Ugandan culture. I'm thrilled to see it stuck as a way to learn AIESEC terminology.

As I'm planning for my year in Uganda, it's overwhelming to think about the impact I'd like to make with such limited time. But moments like this remind me that spontaneous creativity can sometimes trump meticulous planning.