Cavan lass lights up times square

Jenny McGovern

Not many people can claim their face has lit up the night sky but thanks to ambition, quick thinking and thrifty tweeting, Cavan lady Anahid Basmajian’s face has appeared on the NASDAQ Tower in New York’s Times Square.
It came about as a result of Women’s Global Initiative tweeting about sharing their ambitions with NASDAQ on Twitter, the best of which would be picked to ignite the NASDAQ Tower in Times Square. Carrickfern native, Anahid, daughter of Margaret Basmajian, told The Anglo-Celt of her surprise at seeing her ambition being chosen and her face adorning a screen in Times Square.
“I was thinking about what I wanted to achieve in 2015 and so I checked out the #igniteyourambition hashtag on twitter. There were many inspiring stories such as people wanting to eradicate inequality but there were also some simple and meaningful ambitions such as one man who wanted to spend more time with his Dad in 2015, which I thought was great,” Anahid told the Celt.
“My main ambition for 2015 is to get a place on a Masters course in Media Psychology in the University of Salford and to learn more than ever before. The course is phenomenal as it’s a very new area where you apply psychology to understand, develop and predict people’s interactions with the media. It’s the only Masters degree of its kind in Europe focusing on both academic and professional perspectives. Plus it’s based at MediaCityUK, which is the home of ITV & BBC so there are some great opportunities to make a name there. The opportunities are endless with the course and I hope that if I get accepted I’ll be able to diversify my career from a Global Marketing Director to a Psychological Consultant in the media industry,” she continued of her resolution.
Anahid then shared her ambition on twitter. It read: “My ambition for 2015 is to learn more than ever before and qualify for media psychology.” She admits that she didn’t give the tweet much thought. “I didn’t think for a second my ambition would be chosen to light up the NASDAQ Tower in Times Square. On Monday morning as I was getting up for work my twitter feed was going crazy. I had lots of new followers and tweets of congratulations,” she explained.
After reading through the mountain of tweets, Anahid discovered that NASDAQ had tweeted to her that her ambition had been chosen to ignite their tower in Times Square.
The picture above shows Anahid’s face and her tweet lighting up the tower in full view of thousands of people. She exclaims: “I actually couldn’t believe it. It was pretty surreal. You see me towering above Tony Bennett, Lady Gaga as we light up Times Square. You couldn’t imagine it would happen. It didn’t only make my day. It made my year so I naturally told NASDAQ who have since congratulated me on my ambition and wish me every success in 2015. Everyone is very excited so it’s made me even more determined it achieve my ambition in 2015.”