Bouncing back to reality

Waking up from the Taiwanese dream, what awaited me was a huge stack of workload, most of which was way overdue. After the most dynamic three-week-long stay in Taiwan, I spent (quite busy) days catching up with what I should’ve been doing during my vacation. No matter how busy I may be though, it never seems to be able to block me from the aftereffects of an IVSA Symposium.

Regardless of what I do, the memories continue to haunt me and I can’t help daydreaming once in a while. In my suffering, though, I can confidently say that I’m almost fully adapted back to reality now, after ten days of normalcy. Apart from being all fun and fantastic, what Taiwan had done was to boost the efficiency and morale of what IVSA had been working on, by reuniting the members scattered all over the globe.

Also exciting to me were the progresses made during the General Assemblies. Probably one of the best things for me was that the Officials – after half a year of working online – finally met and could actually discuss matters by talking face to face. Of course online live meetings are held about once a month, but we quickly learn that however fast the internet may be, talking online can always lead to misunderstandings.

Being together 24 hours a day, we could always discuss even the most minor things and set detailed plans for future projects. Moreover with the delegates around, we could ask them for favors and also get feedback or answer their questions right away.

For example, the MOD team had been working on a handful of projects – VetStage, the E-mail project, Wake-up Calls, the Calendar project, the Cultural diversity project, 10-frequently-asked questions, Ask-Me-Anything, and evaluation surveys – and during the Symposium, we probably made more progress than we had in the few months prior to it!

I, in particular, am in charge of the Calendar project, which is about gathering the periods available for group exchanges together in one calendar, so that the MOs can easily figure out when to do whatever they have to. This project requires cooperation from every Member Organization, and the Symposium was the perfect place to start this project up, as you actually have someone there from most MOs to ask for it! Thanks to their help, we now have responses from about two-thirds of the total MOs.

Witnessing the progress and having blueprints of what we should be working on for the next few months, was a great harvest from the Symposium. But way better and way more important than that though, is the closer bond of friendship/comradeship formed among the Officials after the Symposium.

All these indeed became the driving force for me to enjoy whatever I do, even up to today. Thank you Taiwan. Thank you everyone who were there, and big, big hugs to the other Officials (and special kisses to the MOD team) who are figuratively (and literally for some!) burning candles to make IVSA better!

With love,

Lana Lee

Secretary 2015-2016