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.