Another semester gone..

It's been half year since my last post. This semester ended very fast and four days later the exam will start. I am supposed to study now but before that I want to share a news that I read today. The link is here: http://hk.news.yahoo.com/article/101204/4/lljy.html

I have the same feeling with the author -- Maybe I am the best student in my class or from an elite school, but I am just a frog in a well. I really admire her because even though she didn't like her classmate and her school, she tried her best to adapt to the new atmosphere. Next semester I will go to US for my study. The university I will attend is also a famous one. Therefore, I think I will have the same experience as the author had too and I hope I can be like that author to get over this challenge.

I have set up three goals for this upcoming memorable experience: 1. Improve my English skill. 2. Build up my self-confident. 3. Build up international perspective. HONR301 had provided me a chance to learn topics about culture and to understand my own culture which will not be taught in my faculty - FST. With the knowledge from HONR301 I believe I can achieve these goals and enjoy the wonderful time there.

End of my 1st year life in HC..

My first year life in HC ended with a challenge. It was the last Honours Forum Dialogue Series in this semester. And I was asked to be the MC of this forum. As that was my first time to be a MC and needed to stand there on behalf of the HC students, I had to take a great responsibility and so I felt a bit nervous before that. Fortunately, the encouragements of my HC family relaxed me and the forum was held successfully. Without their encouragements, I would not be such confident and I think I would perform badly and gave a poor speech. I remember in the last semester, I mentioned to my teaching fellow that I wanted to improve my English presentation skill and self-confidence, and eventually before this semester ended, I seized the valuable chance and reached my goal. Thanks all the HC staff, Dr. Udani and all of my HC fellows, especially James for giving me this chance and Vicky for helping me correct my script.

In this year I have changed a lot and learnt many things from my HC family. If you were someone who knew me very well before, you would know that I was a very lazy guy and always did nothing during my spare time. It's because I used to think that life is too short; too short that we could not learn everything so we just need to do something that we want to do. However, after I have entered HC, I was completely influenced by my classmates. Comparing with me, they are very active and hardworking. Learning from them, I started to realize that although life is short, we should enrich our life rather than do nothing at all. And the idea that we cannot save time but we can use time in a better way really impressed me a lot. I knew that I have wasted much time before, and I don't want to regret of having done nothing in my life anymore. Therefore, I started to participant in many activities in my spare time and tried to enrich my life. You know, when you were doing something that you were not supposed to do, you were changing. And I think I have changed into an active person.

Lastly, as I was not good at expressing my feeling in words, I just have a few words to say, that is, I LOVE YOU ALL. I feel very happy and satisfied in this year, and I am really proud of being in the class of 2012 in HC! I can't tell how dull my life would be if I haven't entered HC, but I can say that I have no regret of having entered HC. I believe all of you would have the same feeling with me too. Besides, as exam is coming soon, let's prepare well and work hard for that.

Happiest week in HC

I shall call last week the happiest week. Not because we had the last formal HONR202 lecture, but we could gather together for more than three times in this week. You know, being with all the HC classmate is the happiest time I have ever enjoyed, and I wish we could always be together at anytime, anywhere.

Back to the Monday, we had the last Honours Forum Lecture Series in this semester. We were glad to have Mr. LIU SiFen to be our lecturer. His topic was "How should Chinese painting face the world", which delivered us a global perspective.

From the paintings he showed, we could see the differences between Chinese and Western culture. In Chinese paintings, most of them are implicit, not showing the reality, and usually with the similar style. Quite the contrary, Western paintings are drawing how the things actually look like, and not fear to show the reality, such as wars and death. These show that the Chinese are not willing to show the truth and believe mainly in the imagination of a peaceful world, whereas the Westerns are relatively more open and believe in the actuality, no matter it is beautiful or evil. Sometimes it is necessary to compare both cultures and accept others' customs. That's why HC provides us a course of leadership from a global perspective in the next semester, and I cannot wait to learn from the course.

Let me recall my memory of the last formal lecture on Wednesday. Though it was raining and the sky was quite dull on that day, our mind still bright. In this class, we were again asked to write notes to others. We had written "encourage notes" and "thank you notes", what else should we write? That was the "sorry notes". Sometimes it is not too late to apologize for what we had done and to whom we had hurt. Dr. Udani once again gave a chance for us to take this step, and I hope all of you could forgive me for my playing tricks on you.

From the photos above, you could see the winners of ten awards.  These awards were designed and given by Dr. Udani, which recalled my memory of what Prof. Doris taught me in the last semester, that is, the power of leaders. Sometimes leaders should give rewards to their followers in order to encourage them while sometimes should be coercive so that their followers would not be too lazy to work together. The control of these two power could come into different kinds of leadership, and Dr. Udani gave us a clear idea of the power by giving rewards to us. The awards also became one of the memorable recognitions for the receivers, and I believed that they did feel satisfied and wanted to share their feeling with us. Well, I will be here waiting for your sharing...XP

This last lecture ended by Dr. Udani's short speech. I could see that Dr. Udani did have paid many efforts on us. He did change us a lot and teach us many things that were really useful for our life. His lecture always gave us surprises and always ended with meaningful reflections. Although I won't have chance to take his course again, I won't forget his memorable lectures and what he had taught me beside the lectures. With his help, I gained a lot and my mind grew up. I believe all of us would be close friends to Dr. Udani forever, and I know Dr. Udani would be proud of having shaped us, 41 metals, into gold too.

The final meeting in the week was the lunch buffet at the StarWorld Hotel. In the last lecture Dr. Udani asked what was the reason of having a gathering outside the University. And I strongly agree with Yolanda's answer, that there is sometimes no reason for a family to have a meal together. Well, So far we have changed from classmates into friends and finally into a family. I really love this HC family. The atmosphere of this family is great and that's why I am always happy around this family.

Every ending is just a new beginning...

It was probably the last HONR202 lecture for the FLL group on this past Wednesday. You know when things come to an end, human beings are not willing to leave them, especially for those that are enjoyable and memorable. For sure this year in HC is the most memorable thing for the FLL group, and I believe they will work hard for the exam so we can celebrate together after the exam with no regret.

To me, Dr. Udani is a creative teacher. He always gives out meaningful surprise in the lessons. There was no exception for this 12th lecture too. He introduced the 'HC Clap' to us. "PA PA PA BUM BUM BUM BOM BOM BOM H~C~"  Although it's a bit amusing, we enjoy it. Then we used this HC Clap to celebrate the top ten bloggers of class 2012.

I was quite surprised that I was part of the ten as I was really a lazy guy. Actually, I have subscribed all the blogs from my HC fellows, and I am not the first one to write the blog. And to tell the truth, I usually read others' blogs first before I write mine, so that if I have the same idea with them, I won't use that idea. This somehow makes my blog worth reading, but in fact it's just to complete others' blog in other ways, so I don't think I deserve to get this awards. Whatever, it was a warm encouragement from Dr. Udani, who did want us to open our windows to the world.

Then we have the longest lecture presentations by Dr. Udani. I think it's a conclusion of the whole course. It recalled all of the leadership skills we had learnt. Also, new things were also introduced, that is, leader should have intellect to determine the truth and free will to do the good and right things. Being the HC students, I think most of us already have intellect, but do we have the free will to help each others? Obviously, we are still progressing, but I believe we can reach the point soon.

In the last part of the lecture, we played the "PIK PAK BOOM". It's quite an exciting game as it required us to have both reaction and concentration. In this game, we were supposed to group with those classmates whom we seldom talk to. Well, if this game was played at the beginning of this course, I think all of my classmates could be my group mate. However, after this semester, almost all of my classmates are friend with me now, so it's hard for me to choose my group mate, and I was glad that I could have this feeling because I have gained 41 sincere friends in this semester.

At the end of the class, Dr. Udani announced that the next class would be a surprised class. I look forward to this coming class. Alvin, Rachel, Carmen and Faye, although you could not attend the next class, I would take photos for you. We would also be willing to share this surprised class with you afterwards, so don't feel upset about that, just focus on the exam and work hard!

Reflections about the Leadership Workshop

As it's near the end of this semester, it's time for the year 1 potential students to apply for our HC family. In order to let them know more about HC, we held several promotion in this week, they were the leadership workshops and the HC sharing session. I feel really satisfied about this week and congratulate to all of our HC fellows for making the workshops fruitful and successful.

I was one of the coordinators of the 'IF' workshop and I had participated in preparing the theme and games of the workshop. Inspiration and facilitation are two ways that a leader should know well to lead. And our group wanted to deliver these two ideas to our little brothers and sisters by giving them chances to experience. We wanted to let the students think more, not just to teach them theories. Thus, we had prepared a lot of activities for them. And what I found from our workshop is that, some of the potential students are somehow better than us. They thought deeply and talked confidently. In some games they used methods that we had never thought of before. Their ideas were creative, not only could solve the problems, but also inspired me. I am glad to be their facilitator and I learnt much from them.

I remember in the beginning of the 'IF' workshop, my partner, Grace Lam, asked our members how they thought about us and HC. Their responses were quite surprising me. In their mind we were the best among the university and they couldn't reach us, so they felt a bit nervous in being with us. I didn't expect others to think like that. The reason might be that we HC seldom interact with the whole university. We are just busily doing our works and almost forget that we should open our doors to the world. Therefore, I think we should provide more chances to let others know more about us. Just as Dr. Udani always says, our blogs are the windows to the world; others are watching us. We should always update our blogs so that they could know how we are and what we are doing.

Although I was from the 'IF' group, I also joined the 'CAN' workshop. To me, their theme was a bit abstract. The three elements they wanted to send out were creative, attitude and network. However, my thought was same as one of the participants in this workshop. These are not only the qualities of a leader, but also the qualities of a moral person. And a leader at least should be a moral person. The workshop also brought out many theories about leadership, which, on the contrary, was totally different to the 'IF' workshop; they let students learn from theories. Remember that we were here to complete each others, not compete with others. The 'CAN' team complement our workshop. They had put their whole effort in preparing the workshop, and consumed much more time than our group. We should appreciate to them too. That's why I was there supporting them until the end.

In fact, I have taken part in organizing several activities before, such as the EME Day and DICOFA. Nevertheless, comparing the attitude of the students from joining the EME Day and the Leadership workshops, I could see that those joining the workshops were more passionate than those from the others. I think it is properly because of the objective. Students joining the EME Day and DICOFA aimed to get the prizes, while the students joining the workshops were eager to learn things from us. Attitude always affects others, and I feel very warm and happy from their attitudes. I think they did learn things from us and I hope we could give a good impression of HC to them.

Finally, I want to say thanks to all the HC staffs for supporting us; thanks to Dr. Udani for providing us these chances; thanks to all my classmate for holding these workshops successfully; and thanks to all the participants, I do learn and gain much from all of you. It would be one of my memorable experiences, which I think I couldn't express by using only words. I wish there will also be other leader workshops held by HC in the next year. Like what Vicky said, leadership workshop, pass it on. And it's only two weeks more until the deadline of applying for HC, let's welcome our little potential brothers and sisters to join us. Promote it, share it, and let them know it.

Marshmallow Challenge

Do you believe in coincidences?

On Wednesday, when I was working at the promotion counter, Dr. Udani came over and had a chat with me. Coincidentally, Ivy passed by with Polly, and we three, who were born on 9th of July, met at the same place without any reasons. We then celebrated that by having lunch together. In this short gathering, I learnt one interesting skill from Dr. Udani. That's the "3" rule, and I think it is helpful for the TOEFL.

In the speaking part of TOEFL, usually we need to make a short presentation about the given topic. Dr. Udani taught us that we could start with stating the introduction by using the "3" rule, that is, separate the topic into three dimensions. In this way, the listeners may have the phenomenon that you know well about the topics. Also, when stating the first dimension, you will have time to think about the second dimension, and the third one, and so on. And that's a good skill in making comprehension too. Thanks to Dr. Udani for introducing this skill to me, it's really useful.

Then it came to the 11th HONR202 Lecture. In the beginning, we focused on the topic "isolation". It's really a good topic for us to brainstorm. In my opinion, isolation doesn't exactly mean to be alone, but loneliness, a step to be lonely. Everyone may have experienced this step, and I think most of you know how horrible this step is. No one wants to be lonely. Thus, we should not look down to those people who are isolating themselves, but try to help them out from the situation.

After this brainstorm, we had a short break. In this break, we were asked to write as many thank you notes as we could. Comparing to last time we were asked to write only one encouraging note, this time we could write more, but this doesn't mean that encouragement is less important than gratitude, yet for Chinese, saying thanks to others were easier than to give encouragement to others, therefore Dr. Udani let us know that we could use this simple action to help others out from isolation.

Then, we had the most interesting part of the lecture, the Marshmallow Challenge. We needed to build the tallest and strongest tower by using spaghetti and sticker only. Being an engineering student, I felt shame as I didn't actually know the best method of building the strongest and tallest tower. However, this was really a good activity for us to learn, cooperate and brainstorm. In fact, I did come out with a new idea, that is, trying to learn from the others' ideas. As I and my group mates didn't know how to build the tower, we tried to see how others' groups worked with the given materials. Then we tried to use their method to build our tower, even though finally our tower failed. We learnt that whenever we try to use others' ideas, we should not use them directly, but try to make improvements, and complement with our ideas, and creativity always come from here.

Next, we had the main lecture part, "Dealing with difficult behavior". After entering the HC, we always make discussion on the topic of "Behavior". Behavior is the key thing that would affect others' impressions, thus, we should always focus on the behavior, not people. I also have many bad behaviors need to deal with. And I would try my best to change all these bad behaviors.

Finally, we had a little celebration for Albert's birthday. Thanks Echo for always making us delicious cakes, and also Dr. Udani for providing us time to celebrate. Time passes so fast when we are having fun; our lectures always end in happy and joyful environment. I hope we could bring this great atmosphere to the coming two workshops so that others can feel how warm our HC family is.

Fruitful week..

Last week was another peaceful week. I participated in many activities, which enrich my life so much.

On Sunday, we class 2012 had a wonderful BBQ at Hac Sa Beach. I have to thank all the organizers for organizing such a great gathering party. Although I was late as I was one of the helpers for the graduation photo taking, all my classmates were willing to wait for my arrival and even left some food for me. I really felt warm but also sorry. I look forward to the next gathering, and I promise I will be punctual.

On Wednesday, I joined the News Discussion Forum Series III. In this forum we mainly discussed about the recent mine accidents in China. The style for this forum was quite interesting. We first had a role-play session. In this session, we had to act as different roles to solve the problems. It was a good chance for us to think at different sides and see things from different angles, and to improve our critical thinking.

Next, we were asked to hold a debate. I had never debated before, so it was a good experience for me. And I found from this experience that my ideas were still not strong enough to catch others' mind. Thus, I wish all of you, if you were willing to, can help me to improve in this field, so that I could be capable enough to face the TOEFL.

After finishing the discussion forum, we had the 10th HONR202 lecture. As it was already half of this semester, Dr. Udani showed us again our expectations, and let us review and make reflections. Frankly speaking, I have already forgotten what I expected, yet I have gained a lot from this course, which I thought were much more than what I would expect. Dr. Udani also taught us that there were three aspects we should make reflections - in the cognitive, affective and behavioural aspect. And since only human being have brain and heart to think and write, we should behave good and make our life better than other creatures.

Then Dr. Udani gave us some paper to write some encouragements to one of our classmates. It was another good chance for us to motivate others. I didn't expect I would receive one, because I had been encouraged by my HC classmates a lot and I thought I was already in a better side, so I thought my classmates would give encouragement to someone who really needed it. I was a little bit surprised when my classmate gave me one note and I realized that everyone needs encouragements. Therefore, here I sincerely thank who had given me encouragements before.

Near the end of the class, Dr. Udani showed us one short video. It was William Hung having the American Idol interview. And it called out my memory again of what he said, "I already gave my best, and thus I have no regrets at all." It was really an impressive sentence and thanks Udani for giving us this very meaningful encouragement. Sometime we do not succeed though we have done the best, however, we should keep in mind that no matter how difficult the challenge is, we should give all of our best to solve the problem so that we would have no regrets about that. In the coming months we are going to take the TOEFL, although it is very hard to get over 100, we should do our best. I believe, being HC students, we could breakthrough this challenge.

On Saturday, I visited an elderly home with my HC fellows. It was another volunteer activity by HCSA. I have visited many elderly home before, and I loved it because I could learn many things from the elders as they had many experiences in life.

In the beginning, I found that the elders there looked silent, so I felt a little bit shy and nervous. Later, when we were singing, I tried to motivate them by moving my hands and my body strongly, and I found that they were in fact feeling happy with us. I learnt that there always exists a wall between us and people, and so to interact with others, we should step out from the wall and open our mind to them, then we could find that they are actually willing to be friend with us.

HOME

I moved back to my home today. I do want to live in there longer but it's already the last day of the program. Life in the dormitory was really enjoyable, as I could wake up so late on school days and also interact with those boarders, who were willing to be friend with me.

I have improved myself much in these days, especially my English communication skill, since I always found myself a chance to chat with those foreign boarders. It's easy to be influenced by the surroundings, for instance, when I was to chat with a foreign speaker, I would need to push myself to speak more English, and when he knew what I was talking about, and started a conversation with me, I would then become more confident in speaking English.

I have also become more independent. I used to be a lazy student and depend on my mother so much on waking me up. When I moved to the dorm, I needed to set up an alarm clock, which I found not really useful for me after then. I learnt to wake up by myself, it's really hard though, but I am used to waking up by myself now. Moreover, I had to decide what to eat at night and that's not much choice in UMAC. And I missed my mother's cooking, fortunately I could enjoy it after I moved back.

UMAC is going to carry out the residential college trial program. I definitely would join it and it would surely be a good chance to prepare for the independent life of the exchange program. The most important thing at this moment is to get 100 in the TOEFL, or else the chance of exchange would be failed.

No rest until we are the best

I am going to tell you one good news ~~ I have overcome the busy week finally!! It feels like one of my burdens is removed!! However, it is not time to take a rest, but time to start preparing for the new challenges, because "No rest until we are the best.", which Dr. Udani reminded us on the last lesson. At this moment I am just staying in the "good" position, and I am going to work hard to be "better", and soon the "best".

Being late on last Wednesday, I have missed part of the class, included the short announcement from Dean Mok. My HC fellows told me that we need to get at least 100 in the TOEFL. I think it would be the biggest challenge I am going to face, even more difficult then entering HC. However, I heard many of my classmates keep on saying that nothing is impossible. Well, I trust all of you, and I am going to work hard together with you. Please don't feel disturbed to help me, as my english is equal to zero.

I was told by other HC fellows that there were many interesting things Udani shared with us in that lecture. In fact, I really felt a little bit upset. Fortunately, I could catch up the sharing session with Dr. Wong King Keung, and I learnt much from him. He said that we should never be over confident, but be optimistic and self-respect. He also shared us his experience about the set up of UMAC, it's really amazing and unbelievable. He mentioned that the motto of UMAC, are the inter qualities that we should build up and shared with us why we need these qualities. In addition, he shared us the culture differences between Macau and China. These suggestions and his sharing are very worth to learn.

There was one thing he mentioned impressed me a lot, that's, we should learn how to learn. Learning is one thing that we do every day. We cannot stop learning until we are dead. Even we are doing nothing in one day, we are still learning how to do nothing. Dr. Wong said that one must have a time that he will suddenly understand something which he didn't know in the previous time. That's also what we called insight learning. I strongly agree with this as when we were still babies, we knew nothing about the world; but when we grew up, we started to learn things and suddenly got known to many things. It is hard to know why these are happening, thus, I think we should find out the best way of learning, instead of finding out the reason of insight learning, and that's my thought about "learn to learn".

As I have mentioned that one of the biggest challenges is surely the TOEFL, on which I am going to put all my effort, I have another one to face. It is my new behavioral change project -- "no more dirty words in my daily life", which I really want to have this project succeeded. I have never seen a good leader use dirty words in their daily life, so to be polite, I must have this change and I hope all of you could help me and feel free to blame me when I habitually speak out a bad word.

BUSY, BUSY and BUSY!!

I can't tell how busy I am in these weeks. Although I have already finished some of my jobs, I still have 3 mid-term exams, 1 project, 2 assignments and 1 laboratory session on the next week. Thus, I have to use my time well. And after last week's impact, I realized that I need to take a rest in order to have a better condition to fight against the coming battle. That's why I choose to update my blog as to relax myself.

It's happy to see my HC fellows again after the Easter holiday. That day was also the birthday of Cathy and Shelly. Being a family, we celebrated their birthday by singing songs.  I think they must feel very warm to have such a class, aren't they?

The topic for this lecture was about team building. An old saying that "Two heads are better than one." The wisdom of the masses must exceed that of the wisest individual. Therefore, teamwork is essential for every success. Especially I am a student in the engineering field, many jobs I have to do mainly depend on teamwork. The basic things to make a team is to build trust between them and to inspire them.

In order to do that we have to be a kindness leader. Dr. Udani taught us about what kindness means. It's to SHARE and CARE. SHARE is to give out Smile, Help, Advice, Resources and Ears; and CARE is to show Concern, Acceptance, Respect and Empathy. This principle is really interested and I would apply this in my daily life. And I find out that I have learnt many things from the university, from my parents and from other people, but I just don't know how to apply them in my life. Maybe this is my weakness, so I should learn to apply this in my life, that's really much I need to learn.

Finally Dr. Udani asked us to give a 30-second presentation which needed to be an inspiring speech. I was really surprised as I was chosen to give the speech after I came back from the washroom. I hadn't thought of any idea so I just gave a poor speech. What's more was that he played a trick on us. Therefore, I felt very shy about that. However, I realized that at the beginning of this semester, Dr. Udani asked what our expectation of this class was. And most of us were saying that we wanted to have more chance to speak in front of people. That's why every lesson Dr. Udani would give us some more time to speak up. And thus, I would try my best to learn from others in this kind of presentation.

Besides, I received the message from Prof. Doris that she got a cancer. I felt very sad about this because Doris treat me very well in the last semester. She helped me to discover myself and she is the first one who impress me a lot about how to become a good leader. I really want to visit her but on the other hand it will disturb her. I suggest that our HC could provide a time to make a visit to her after she has recovered. And at this moment we should pray for her.

What is a leader?

Thanks to all who have given me comments about this blog. Originally, I want this blog to be more professional rather than an artistic one. Therefore I didn't add any background music or any fantastic pictures to my blog before. After receiving your comments, I would think about how to improve the layout of my blog in the coming days. And please don't hesitate to give me more comments for any of the changes.

It was Wednesday again, and we had the 7th HONR202 lecture. It was not only the last day of March 2010, but also the last day before our Easter holiday. Thus, every one of us were enjoying this last lecture.

Same as the previous lectures, we had some warm-up exercises at the beginning. I could see that Dr. Udani's lectures were always linked to the H.O.S.T. theories. This time when the music was playing, we were asked to say thanks to others. And I really thanked all of you for being my classmates. Meanwhile, I was asked to sing the song. I was very surprised because I actually didn't know how to sing the song, although it was a lovely song. Here is the music video of that song. I wish you would enjoy their hopeful faces.

Relative to one of the lectures before that we were asked to tell others what help we needed, Dr. Udani asked us to talk about what help we can give to the others in this lecture. This impressed a good idea that helping is not only one side: when others need help, we have to give out help as if when we need help, others would help us.

After we had shared what we could help, Dr. Udani started to talk about the topic of this class - influence. Every actions we did, every sentences we said, might already influence people surrounding us. From the A to Z tips, Dr. Udani showed us that attitude was the most important thing that we should always beware. As the theories stated: watch your attitudes, they will become your thoughts; watch your thoughts, they will become your words; watch your words, they will become your actions; watch your actions, they will become your habits; watch your habits, they will become your personality. I also found that many theories were in fact related to attitude, such as those I learned from the NLP workshop and the manners workshop. Thus, we should always keep in mind that our attitude would affect the others so much, and it is the key to succeed.

Here is one of the video that Dr. Udani shared with us. It's really inspiring.

In the last part of the lecture, after we had watched this video, we were asked to give an one-minute performance. The performance should be about 'What is a leader?' However, we were only given five minutes to prepare the performance. Some of the groups could give out a creative idea, for instance, James' group shared a Chinese Idiom - when you drink water, you should think of the origin; and Helen's group shared the LEAD theories. They were worth learning.

I remember at the end of the class, Dr. Udani asked us a question, "What did you learn from this lecture?" The most important thing that I have learnt was how others thought about LEADER and LEADERSHIP. Everyone had their own meanings and they had shown me their thoughts through the performance. For the idea I shared with my group for the performance, Tony said that it was like performing a hero but not a leader. Maybe it's because my idea of leader is not deep enough, but everyone is unique and special, we should not always follow others' ideas, whereas to learn from others' ideas. I wish at the time when we graduated, each of us could change from a metal into a gold but not remain as a metal.

What a meaningful week!

Recently, I am living in the dormitory. I really enjoy this chance! The dormitory is really a good place for me to study and work hard, but on the other hand it's a bit boring to stay in dormitory at night without a computer. Since I don't have a computer in the dormitory, I couldn't share things frequently. Nevertheless, I am going to tell you what I have learned in this week, and I hope this update will not be too long for you to read.

On last Wednesday, I have joined the News Discussion Forum Series II, which was held by HCSA. The idea for this discussion forum was to let us know more about the Macau 2010 Policy Address. At the beginning, James simply gave us a summary about the Policy Address. Then, we have a quiz competition (Q & A) about it. This type of activity was really amazing, because we would easily focus on just a few points in the policy address. With a quiz, we could know more and think more about other things in the policy address which we didn't think of before.

Fortunately, our team won the competition, but it didn't mean we knew more than the others, just because we had luck. After the competition, we had a discussion time. Most of them were talking about the $6000, but what I really interested in was the education part. We could see that our government had put their whole hearted effort on Macau education, and especially for our HC. Without their support, I guess we won't have this great opportunity to go to exchange on next year. Therefore, we should work hard on it and reward our Macau with our whole heart. This series also reminded us to pay more attentions to our Macau government, what they were doing and how Macau was developing, because we will be the future pillars of Macau.

The series was followed by the HC lecture. Actually I don't remember how many times we had the lecture by Udani, six or seven? Maybe it doesn't matter because it feels like we are a big family and have already gathered together to learn new things for many times. And as I could see all of us had enjoyed this new 'home' very much, since in this 'home', the distance between us was much shorter and we were much closer. And I would like to call the lecture class "a party". As that day was the birthday of Ray and Ida. We have enjoyed many music, video, performances, and also learned many laws about leadership.

As you can see from the photos, Udani was going to pour the water onto my head. Telling the truth, I was a little bit afraid that his magic would fail. However, I did trust Udani and allowed him to pour the water. This magic brought us an idea that we should always prepare ourselves for the class because if we dried up at the beginning of class, we would absorb nothing in the class.

Following are some of the photos and video of this lecture. There were many other things that we had enjoyed in this class, but I couldn't show all of the things to you in here.

Happy Birthday to Ida and Ray. Thanks to Echo's delicious cake.

A wonderful song by Albert.

Our year 1 potential HC students had also given a performance.

Besides, we had learnt the power policy and the irrefutable laws of leadership by John C. Maxwell. What the laws are about are just many little things which we knew they are good but we seldom apply them in our daily life. Hopefully I could remember all the 21 laws and think about them before I do anything in the future. I am also impressed by the short reading "ROSE: A lesson for life". I strongly agree that there is a huge difference between growing older and growing up. We should grow up by always finding opportunity in change, and we have to see things in a different but positive sight. Like what H.O.S.T. states, we should be happy and optimistic, so that we will have no regrets when we die!

Finally, I have something which I learned from a workshop I joined today to share with you.

We people always classify other people or things into different categories. For instance, when we first see a man with white hair, our mind will immediately think that he may be an old man. Therefore, our behavior will affect our image to the others a lot.

Our behavior can be divided into five steps: knowing, thinking, learning, skill, action. These five steps are tightly connected and are circulating. First, when we know something, we will have some ideas about it. When we think more about it, we will try to learn it. When we have learned it, we will own the skill, or power. When we have this skill, we will do it. And this action will soon become our habits and so behavior. However, when we know that our behavior is not good, we will try to change it. When we change it, we have to change our skill, so we will learn how to change the skill, and think more about this skill. Finally, we will know more about this skill. These steps then keep on circulating.

As you could see, if we want to change a behavior, we have to take many steps to change it. Thus, don't always assume that a change can be made immediately, please be patient and pay effort to change it. To be an excellent leader, we should always change our bad behavior into good. Remember that we cannot save time, but we can use our time in a better way, so we should start to change our bad behavior today. It does take some time to change, don't mind that, just pay this time on the behavior, and we could do it together!

Some reflections..

Last Friday, Jackon, Helen and I had a meeting with Udani.

I remember that at the beginning, Udani asked us how did we tell our parents about the HC. And my answer was I didn't tell them much about it. It's because they don't really care me too much since I got into the university. I know that they are very busy and they want me to be more independent. Thus, I always finish things by myself.

Other than Helen, I seldom talk too much with my parents when they come back home. However, Udani told me that I should always find some time to talk and share something with my parents. I do really want to talk with them but when I see them being very tired after their work, I just don't want to bother them too much so that they can take a rest earlier. Thus, Udani told me that I should something at night which I never do to surprise my parents. What I did in these nights was to help my mother to wash the clothes and the dishes. I seldom do houseworks before, but I think helping them to do the houseworks can reduce their load. I know it's not enough so in the coming future I will do more things for them. I don't want everytime when talking about my family, I will feel sad and say that I do nothing for them. I need and I should do more for my parents, because I do love them!

One thing Udani always reminds me is that we should always smile to everyone you meet and be positive to everything. And we should not think about the result of doing things, but to enjoy the process, because many times we cannot control the result, but we can control what we do. It's really a good idea and I will focus on what I can control in the future.

I have learnt much when talking with Udani. His sharing always impresses me. I will always keep his positive ideas in my mind and I wish we can find some other time to talk with him again so that we can learn more from him.

Finally, there is a good news. I am moving into the dormitory of UMAC tomorrow. I can't wait because I am having a chance to live independent and experience a new life with others. I hope I can meet more people in the dormitory and learn more about living with new friends so that when I am in US, I will know how to socialize better.

Another week gone by..

Time is passing without any waiting... Such a busy week passed again...

Today, one of my friends said that my blog is just like a homework. Actually, I really don't want my blog to act as my homework, but to be a memory of my growth and my steps to be a leader.

Since I am a FST student and things which I learn in FST are formulae and programs, what I can share with you are usually related to my HC class. Surely, I do have many other funny things that I want to share but most of them are not related to my leader steps.

Another reason is that I am still not very good at writing. Sometimes I just don't know how to express my feelings in words. Thus, you will find my post are more likely to be something serious. I remember something that Udani said in the class -- we shouldn't always be a serious man, yet to be humorous without hurting others. Maybe it's hard for me to be humorous at this moment, but I think I can change me and I will change me.

I wish that in the future, when I read back this post, I will smile and say that I have improved myself. ^_^

There are still some left for last week. I have a wonderful talk with Udani and my FST mates (Jackon and Helen) on last Friday and a memorable hot pot gathering with my HC fellows on last Saturday. Photos and my reflections will be shared with you soon, so don't hesitate to keep your eyes on my coming updates.

We all need help..

Yesterday we had a wonderful class again. It's true that only two hours per week is not enough for us because we have a lot of things to share. And learning from others' experiences is much better than learning from the books, so this time every of us have to share something with the others.

Music can uplift our soul. Thus, every class Udani would share us a song. This time is a song by Celine Dion, called 'The Power Of Love'. I can see that most of us were enjoying this song so much, and some of us even danced with Udani. The feeling just liked we were a big family. This also reminded me that a leader should always provide a home feeling to the others.

In this lesson, Ivy, Polly and Lay share us a proposal of providing a HC workshop for UMAC and some high school students so that they can learn more about what HC is and also invite more people to join us. I love the ideas too. There are actually many UMAC students don't know what HC is doing. Some of them may also be potential leaders but they just miss the opportunity to join us, so we need to advertise our HC to more people. And this suggestion become one of our project for HONR202. I hope this would be a good chance for us to apply what we have learnt in HC.

After the discussion of the workshop, Udani asked every of us to share what we really need at this moment. Obviously, most of us need encouragement and communication improvement. I'm sure I would help all of you and I wish all of you will help me to improve my communication skill too. Cathy also mentioned that she needed time. I guess not only her, but all of us need time as life is limit. Udani said that we cannot save time but we can use our time in a better way, so starting from today we should make a good schedule for our time so that we won't waste it.

In addition, today I read Grace's blog. She pointed out that she needed to think about what her living purpose is. However, I think life is mystery. We don't know what the true meaning of life is, but we somehow know what to do, where to go. Therefore, sometimes it is no need to think a lot, just do what we want to do and care what we should care, and our life will become fruitful and beautiful.

Be selflessness

Every time when we gather together, I have a special feeling. All of us come from different majors, different faculties, but our aims are the same - to learn how to be a excellent leader. And it just like our real world, though every one comes from different countries, when we have the same dream, we can together make the dream come true.

Yesterday we met again, it was the fourth lecture. We were happy that Udani brought us a year 3 FSH student, Carlos, who had lived in America for more that ten years, to share us his experience in America. That's cool! I really thanked to his sharing as he let me know more about the qualities between Asian and American. Well, it's true that Americans are more active and hard-working than Asian. They will try to create new things and challenge the reality to finish their dream. In opposition to Americans, Asians are more likely to behave what they are used to do and follow the old-fashioned. That's why we should have at least once to live in foreign country so that we can learn their customs and enrich our global perspective.

I also want to say thanks to Udani as his lectures are always funny and creative. This time he shared us another meaningful song. During the song playing, we had to encourage each other with our whole heart. Encouragement is really a kind of mystical power! It can help everyone to rebuild the confidence and faith.

Udani also taught us what servant leadership is. I really appreciate to those servant leaders as they could sacrifice themselves with no rewards and care others far more than themselves. Although I somehow love to help the others more than helping myself, it is still a long way for me to consider myself as a servant leader.

A servant leader is selflessness, generosity and altruism, so I think what I can do right now is to build up this concept of servant leadership in my mind and use my whole life to achieve it.

NLP Workshop

I have to admit that my communication skill is relatively bad. I know how to speak and how to listen to the others, but I just don't know how to communicate well. For this reason, I participated in a  NLP workshop today which aimed to improve our communication skill by using NLP.

NLP stands for Neuro Linguistic Programming. It is knowledge on how to use the language of the mind to consistently achieve our specific and desired outcome, with the use of five senses, language and nonverbal communication.

At the beginning of the workshop, our instructor asked us one question, "What makes you difficult to communicate?" I am sure that most of you could give out some examples for this question, such as language differences and overly hostile stereotypes. These barriers are strongly affecting our communications. Our instructor then indicated that there was a theory for communication -- communication is 7% words, 38% tonality and 55% physiology. That means we can only get 7% of the actual meaning of the others' words. Therefore, we have to depend on four factors: F (Facial Expression), A (Attitude), S (Strategy), T (Technique), to deliver our meanings to the others. And NLP gives us a good idea of how to improve these four factors.

As communication is bilateral, to communicate efficiently, first we have to understand the thinking style of people. There are mainly four key characteristics for everyone. They are visual, auditory, kinaesthetic and auditory digital. However, how can we know what the characteristic of someone we don't know is? NLP mentions that we can find it out by observing their behaviors, for instance, skin color, breathing rate, lower lip size and eyes. It does take time for us to train how to observe these behaviors, but it would be very useful in communication. Once we have enough sensory acuity, we can easily find out the characteristics of the others.

After we know others' characteristics, we have to provide a "climate of trust" with them. When people are like each  other, they like each other, so we should have a good rapport. The major elements of rapport are "Matching" and "Mirroring". We can try to match or mirror others, in this part, posture and facial expression are very important. For instance, if you are talking to one who are holding his arms, then you can try to match him by holding your arms. Although it's just a simply action, but it will unconsciously provide a comfortable environment and he will more likely to accept your talking.

Moreover, when we are facing a lot of people, we will become nervous and lose our self-confidence easily, and cannot communicate well. NLP also provides us a skill to build up our confidence, it is called circle of excellence. Imagine there is a circle on the floor in front of you. Then close your eyes and go inside the circle. In the circle, imagine a time in the past that you were at the most confident point and full of energy. After that, try to feel what it's like to be in that state, see yourself in the circle being wonderful, hear what is going on around you and overhear yourself responding wittily. Next, try to keep this state in your mind and you will be confident. Finally, when you walk out the circle, collect this circle up and next time when you lose your confidence, you can take this circle out, put it on the floor and return to this circle of excellence again.

Through this workshop, I've learned what NLP is and I will try to apply the idea of NLP to improve my communication skill. Consequently, next time when you meet me, don't be strange if I am focusing on your lips or shoulders, because I am just trying to train my sensory acuity and figuring out what your characteristics are.

Nou se mond la...

Last time, on Jan 12, 2010, Haiti was struck by a magnitude-7.0 earthquake. It is reported that more than 200,000 people had died, an estimated 300,000 injured, and an estimated 1,000,000 homeless.

It is sad and painful for every one of us. Yet life is just like that, sometimes it is strong but sometimes it is weak. People always say that we should believe in our fate. When everything is smooth going, we just enjoy ourselves and forget what's happening around us. When things go bad, we start to realize that things will not remain good all the time. However, for us, being HC students, we should change this custom, and do what Mencius reminded us - "To thrive in calamity and perish in soft living; life springs from sorrow and calamity, death comes from ease and pleasure."

This time, in Chile, on February 27, 2010, at 03:34 local time, a magnitude-8.8 earthquake occurred. It is the seventh strongest earthquake ever recorded, and far more forceful than the Haiti earthquake.

Although we are not strong enough to help them rebuild their home, we can donate and pray for them. Not only that, what we can do more is to let our surrounding people know what's happening in our world. Let them know that other places in our world are being suffered. And hence we can inspire them to always remind themselves with these painful news.

"Be the change you wish to see in the world." - Mahatma Gandhi. Let's gather into one and help to change our world.

HC Series

Today I joined two forum series. These series enrich my life so much.

One was organized by HCSA, called the "News Discussion Forum Series I". I was glad to be one of the helpers for this series as I could learn more from others and get familiar with this kind of discussion forum. The topics discussed were "General Education in UMAC" and "Macau Youth's addiction to computer".

Through this forum, we could have chance to share our opinions with each other and listen to others' ideas. It was also a good practice for our leadership skill as a good leader should have an altruistic mind to share what he has and an open heart to receive other's ideas. We HC students should have more activities like this and be a public one so that we can let other students know what we are thinking. I am sure I will be one of the participants for the next discussion forum because it does really useful to my experience.

Another one was an "Honours Forum Lecture Series", we had a sharing session with a successful local leader, Dr. Chui Sai Peng. His topic was about urban planning. Being an engineering student, I was interested in his topic and it did show me how engineering relate to leadership.

To me, the idea of urban planning is to improve our social environment. It should include the consideration of land using and residents being. And as Dr. Chui said it took time to apply because not every planning and ideas could be accepted in a short time, especially for our Macau residents. Therefore we had to be longsighted and patient. These were also essential qualities that one good leader should have. In addition, every engineering professions may involve in one planning, so how to organize them is one of the big challenge for the urban planner. This implies that a good leadership skill must be possessed, not just for the civic planner but all of the supervisors of each professions.

Moreover, Dr. Chui gave us an idea that we would act as competitors in our society in the future. Thus, we should be prepared for our future and he showed us the reality of our society where it was really different to our school life. The four main indexes affecting our social life are interpersonal relationship, creativity, knowledge, and luck. I really agree with him. Imagine you are the boss of a company, and many people ask for employment; then since everyone look like the same, how would you choose the best one to work for you? Well, these four indexes work as the employer assessment. To be a capable competitor and a good leader, I think we should try our best to obtain these indexes.

Lastly, as Dr. Chui taught us, we have been trying to reduce the amount of the usage of natural sources as they were limited, we have been trying to absorb more and more knowledges as they were unlimited, but we forget one thing - our life is also limited. We should learn from our history and be more creative. These recall my memory of a sentence from Guass -- "It's not knowledge, but the act of learning, not possession but the act of getting there, which grants the greatest enjoyment.". We should enjoy what we have and treasure our life in a better way. That's what we are going to do in the rest of our life.

Don't Give Up

Today was a beautiful day. We had the second HONR202 lecture by Udani. That was a touching lesson.

In the beginning of the lesson, Udani shared us a meaningful song -- Don't Give Up (You Are Loved).

Yes, we are all loved by our parents, our friends. We should never give up anything. There must be someone who are hearing us. Of course, to be a good leader, we should also love our surroundings, and keep on encouraging them not to give up anything easily.

Before the lesson ended, Udani had shared another two touching stories to us.

The first one was about a child's parents, who just liked to watch TV, always ignored their son. And one day the child prayed to god and asked god to make himself become a TV so that his parents would pay attention on him. It was a short but yet meaningful story.

The second one was more touching. One day, a child asked his mother to give him 25 dollars. As his mother had just come home after working for a whole day and was going to prepare the dinner, she didn't accept his son's request. However, when the mother was cooking, she felt very guilty. Thus, she went to his son and asked him why he needed that 25 dollars. The son answered, "I only need 25 dollars more and then I will have 300 dollars. With 300 dollars, I can pay you for one day..."

After Udani had finished talking the stories, my eyes got wet as I felt shame and very sorry to my mother. Even a child knows how to care his mother, but I have never say 'thank you' to my mum for giving me this colorful life. So from now on, I promise myself that I will try my best to reduce my mum's burden, and try my best to become the leader of her, and my warm family.

Finally, here is another impressive song I want to share with you. Hope you will enjoy it. =]

Retreat..

Last semester, because of my symptom of h1n1, I could not join the first HC retreat in Westin. This semester, I have this opportunity to go up on the Macau Tower and try out the Skywalk X. To me, this is my first HC retreat, and I have to say that this is the most exciting and wonderful activities I have ever enjoyed.

Although the weather was not quite good today, our mind was not disturbed, as we knew we were going to stand on the top of Macau and defeat our fragile soul. It was the first time for every one of us to have this kind of extreme activity. Of course many of us were afraid of this, but we had to breakthrough this. A leader should face every challenge and try the best to finish it.

Skywalk X, as its name suggests, we have to walk in the sky. Before we did that, Albert asked Udani, ''How does the Skywalk relate to our development of leadership?'' This was a good question which led me to some reflections -- Why does leaders always keep on trying to breakthrough extreme challenge one by one? Does this kind of challenge improve the leadership skill? Does it mean that if we cannot solve this task, we cannot become a good leader? Obviously, we have found out our own impressions through this challenge.

During the Skywalk X process, we have stood at the top of Macau, walked around with our eyes covered, and passed through the cloud. We were strong, brave and fearless. We would not be afraid of the sky anymore. We have built up our self-confidence, which is Udani's answer to Albert's question. Self-confidence is one of the most important things that a leader should have. Udani wished all of us could build up, or I should say, strengthen our self-confidence. Most of us, including me, even want to try out the Bungee Jumping, because we had the confidence and we were dare to face it.

Sport climbing was another big challenge for us. We had to climb up on the wall of Macau Tower, and tried our best to ring the bell. It was a very difficult exercise as it needed us to have both physical strength and willpower. Through this challenge, three 'spiderwoman' were born. They admitted that without our instructions and encouragements, they could not succeed in this challenge. In fact, during the process, Udani continuously asked us to cheer the challenger up. He knew that encouragement is a powerful tool, and it could help us to focus on what we are doing and increase our willpower to finish the task. That's what a leader should always do.

Today's victory, tomorrow's history... Yes, we were the victors today. We have learnt many things from Udani. We have built up our self-confidence. We have improved our english communication skill. We have enhanced our relationship with each other. Although the retreat lasted for one day only, that's not the end. Remember what Udani told us? That was just the beginning -- the beginning of the rest of our lives. And we are going to solve every new challenge together in the future. So keep going on, my HC mates. ^^

Welcome

Hey, welcome to my new online blog. Like the others, I am a lazy guy so I haven't updated my last blog for a long time. Nevertheless, I will start writing this new blog to share my thoughts and feelings.

Yesterday was the first lesson of HONR202. Our course facilitator, Udani, gave us an interesting beginning. During the lesson, we were not just sitting there listening to Udani, but we have shared our expectations and had some activities. I like this kind of interactive lecture very much as it can improve our communication skill and also we can learn from the others through the interaction.

One of the ideas that Udani taught us in this lesson quite impressed me. As I am major in engineering, I learn from the mechanic of materials that force will be concentrated at the weakest point of the material. Udani applied this theory to group working -- the weakest one in a group will thus be the most important one. This always happens when we are having group work; we always ignore the weakest one in the group. However, if this weakest one is ignored, then the chain of our group will be broken and we cannot finish our work properly. In fact, no one should be ignored in a group; everyone has his position in a group. That's what we should always imprint on our mind.

Moreover, Udani has promised that the one who is shy at the beginning will be less shy at the end of the course. Yes, I am one of the shy boy and I know I will be less shy after this course.^^