Our Renewed Class, full of surprsies!!!

The HC class I had this Wednesday gave me lots of surprises! And now I do believe life is full of surprises :) The class was so different this week because first, the venue had been changed as Dr. Udani took the suggestion of Rosan's. The new classroom made everyone closer to each other and the way we formed our seats made the class more relaxed. Thanks Rosan!!

As I said the class was full of surprises, Dr. Udani gave us the first surprise by showing us a magic (of course exposing the magic secret unintentionally is the biggest surprise...). He did really light up the whole atmosphere. Another surprise was that we were actually celebrating Ida and Ray's birthday with our HC twins, Elly and Megka. They sang birthday songs with us to wish Ida and Ray a happy birthday. Echo did give us another surprise too, baking cake for the birthday guys. We were like a big family and although I was not the birthday girl, I still felt so warm for what the guys did for them. That also told me being a leader, you should know how to warm the heart by memorizing birthdays and giving surprises to the people you work with so they can feel your care.

After all the warm moments, our next HC member wannabes, Steven, Stephanie, Tiffany and Joana, told us a story about water. This water story taught us being a leader should consider about the others. Just as Dr. Udani said, a leader is never self-centered. One of our Chinese idiom says that one hand can never make a sound, while two hands can. I think if a leader only considers himself, this leader will lose followers. In the end, he is just a loner. No matter how well he can lead, it's still nothing.

The last surprise I may say is Albert's You Raise Me Up. He sang very well and that was impressive. He taught me something by singing in front of us, that is a leader can be entertaining sometimes, not being serious all the time. A leader should be able to make us feel relaxed when we are in pressure.


In short, I pretty much like this Wednesday's renewed HC class.

UM Miracle Night

This Wednesday after HC class, I went to see the magic show at UM Cultural Center. Before the show, my HC classmate Vicky, gave me two tickets and of course I had to go to support her and other UM students. Oh I think Jackon and Alvin were in it too. I was so excited about the show. And I invited one of the buddies, Steven, from the buddy program I joined.

That night, as we were waiting at the entrance, I saw the other foreign exchange students, I told them the show would be in Cantonese and no English at all. They were so surprised and one of them decided to join me and Steven. And they both were asking me to be their translator. So I said yes and hopefully I could take this chance to improve my English.

They made me sit between them so I could do the translation job better. When the show started, the MCs showed up. I recognized one of the MCs, it was Alvin! He started to talk and I started to translate. I recalled that some sentences I didn't know how to translate. So I had to draw on a piece of paper to express the idea. I think I should have improved my English by talking more ages ago!!

The funniest part of the show was that, Steven, who can only speak English, went up stage to be a volunteer. I remembered that the magician asked him if he could speak Chinese (in Chinese of course). He was so confused and he wanted my help so he said 'Janice Janice' on the stage. Maybe I was too shy to go up on the stage or I was afraid what if I couldn't translate what the magician said. I asked another Chinese guy whom I think his English is better, to help him. Unfortunately, he didn't translate at all while just standing there and watching. At that moment, I felt really sorry that I didn't go to give him a hand.

As Steven couldn't understand what the magician said, he made some jokes by exposing the magic trick unintentionally. Everyone was laughing so bad. After Steven came back to his seat, I asked him if he knew that he exposed the trick, he said 'No, I am so confused, still.' I think if i was a little bit braver, what had happened would not be even possible to happen.

From this little event, I realized that my shortcoming is I am not confident and brave enough. From now on, I should start talking to different people although it has to be in English. Because I know I will never improve if I keep being at the status quo. Anyways, the magic night was so miracle!

Not just another HC lecture

This Wednesday, as usual, I had my HC class, but at an earlier time. In the class, we had two guests. One of the guests is a three-year UM student, Carlos Pang. He is orginally from Beijing but went to the States at his 8. He told us his experience in New York City and the culture of that city. As the whole HC students will have a chance to study abroad in USA, we were so interested in what he would talk about.

One of the things he said inspired me the most, that is to challenge the professors in class. Professors will be happy to be challenged because they know their students have leanrt something from them. This is so different from our Chinese teaching method. In China, we only listen to the professors and drop down the notes without critical thinking. Love to challenge is actually a trait of leaders'. Without this trait, in another word, the leader doesn't challenge at all, he will only mark time and stop improving.

Another thing I learnt in the class, was after Carlos' speech, Dr. Udani asked all of us to stand up and say something positive and encouraging to the others. This is also another trait of leaders'. As a potential leader, we should learn how to talk positively and  be able to encourage the hearts. For example, when our team mate fails, we shouldn't just blame him and talk negative things, we should encourage him and give him support so that he can improve. Just by saying something positive can make a huge difference to people. And I am practising on it now....

Feedback from NLP Seminar

Last Saturday, I attended a seminar called NLP. I didn't know what NLP is until I attended my first NLP seminar.. NLP actually stands for Neuro-Linguistic Programming, which includes the three most influential components involved in producing human experience: neurology, language and programming. The neurological system regulates how our bodies function, language determines how we communicate with other people and programming determines the kinds of models of the world we create.

The seminar was held by a crew from Hong Kong. They illustrated the process of setting a goal and achieving it. The steps are first setting a goal, then thinking positively about the future when your goal will be achieved, and finally harvesting the fruit. I think sometimes we may set a goal but we are too afraid that the goal cannot be achieved and therefore, only think negatively. In the end, the negative really takes effect by affecting how we act , so the goal of course cannot be achieved.

Whenever we do things, we must have a postive way of thinking. For example, if we have a goal and we only have 50% of confidence to achieve it, try to think positively, then your confidence will be increased and it will push you work even harder to the goal. Undoubtedly, more effort leads to achievement of goal more easily. Also, imagining the scene you already achieved your goal will help too because the happiness and satisfaction  you gain after your goal has been achieved can boost your motive power so that you will work harder towards the goal.

These are the two key steps I learnt from the NLP seminar in terms of achievement of goal. I hope these will help me in the future. :)