Gawad Youth 2010: My Application

I know I haven't told many people about me participating in the competition. I had kept it very close to heart until the awarding ceremonies. So now that the results are known, I thought I might share my experiences during the competition.

Each year, the Anilag Festival recognises residents in Laguna who have excelled in their chosen fields. This year, Ate Madie and Ginny (my cousins) convinced me to join, effectively nominated me into the competition. Nominees were given a week to organise a portfolio of their achievements, obtain letters of recommendation and clearances from the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), and provide an executive summary of their achievements. Here's the catch: everything needed to catch the Selection Committee's attention should be fitted into 20 pages, max.

I thought these things would be easy enough to gather. However, as I was gathering my documents, I realised that it wasn't as easy as I thought it was. My papers were in disarray; getting a letter from my supervisor, Melissa, was kind of tricky because deadlines of reports at work were spaced too close to each other; making the portfolio appear extremely professional - and not just a hodgepodge of scanned images - was challenging too. On the last day before the deadline, I had forgotten to have a picture of me taken. I just had one of my photos (the profile pic, actually; thanks to Ate Maddie) blown up, converted to greyscale, and printed on a bond paper. Then, I got confused about the portfolio being notarised - on the last day for submission no less (turned out that the portfolio need NOT be notarised)!! In the end, I eventually finished all the preparations at 11am on deadline day. I had to drive fast and furious from Calamba to Sta Cruz (took me less than my normal driving duration to Sta Cruz) because getting the clearances took more time than I expected.

That was why being able to submit the portfolio and the relevant documents on time was quite a feat, at least for me.

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