McKinsey YLF 2012!

Mckinsey YLF is so fun :]
and once again the shads are everywhere haha. Will do a full post tomorrow after the conference ends, but let's just say that their office is AMAZING.

K actual post.


Let's just reiterate that it was amazing :]
Both in terms of the content and the people there, quite reminiscent of Shad times <3 (I think this is the highest compliment I can give to a program haha). It's such a small world haha, especially with shads, there's mutual friends everywhere.
The conference is organized around the concept of leadership and what consists of a good leader. The McKinsey facilitators broke it down into 3 core principles: a source of inspiration, a good idea, and an ability to motivate others to change. Activities were then organized surrounding each idea.

First was a mini design challenge surround designing a new utensil.

Brainstorming


and products. Aren't they beautiful? ;D

Following that, we got to act as actual consultants for a non profit organization. My group worked with Pathway to Education, an organization that promotes academic success in priority neighbourhoods.

Don't we look pro sitting around that conference table :]
It was very exciting working with a real case, the sense of responsibility and the weight placed on our opinions is quite exhilarating (redundant I know). We were tasked with coming up with effective ways to engage their alumni community. It's pretty cool trying to come up with ideas within their tight restrains, hopefully this is a sign that I'll enjoy engineering (damn nagging doubt about making the wrong choice about your future e_e).

Then came lunch, beautiful time ;D


Buffet style is terrible for me, always too greedy. Sigh I can't live on campus, gonna gain a ridiculous amount of weight haha.

Quick interlude about McKinsey's office, which is AMAAAAZING. Omg it's so pretty, and functional. Large windows with fantastic views, the most comfortable office chairs, whiteboards that rotate fresh board space out and prints directly what you write on it (I have a vid, but isn't allowed to post it, but trust that it is totally awesome), and

a collection of snow globes from all across the world :]

Afternoon was focused on a source of inspiration and determining your personal leadership style. A specific exercise was to create a dream swimming pool with people of the same leadership style.

It's totally not the most awesome cause it's in the shape of a clover :]

Day two involved exploring how to change the behaviour of others. A model that was used involves four approaches: Role modelling, Fostering understanding and conviction, Developing skills and Help and reward. A couple of videos were shown as examples of these approaches, these two especially stood out:



Now if the TTC can implement that ;P

Last but not least, our solutions for the non profit organizations were put into a skit and presented to the other groups. My group modeled ours after Lion King, if you squint really closely, you can spot a yellow blob of fur representing Simba xD

The balcony coincidentally worked really well as Pride Rock haha.


T'was a good two days :] I don't even feel bad for not doing any schoolwork. 

曾有的经过

Hurray for queue of songs when schoolwork takes over.

• Hamlet Content Test
• Earth and Space presentation, fact sheet, script
• Chem essay
• English Hamlet essay (whoo it's take home! Time to die over this so I can pull mark up ;D)
• Calc test, optimize whoooo
• Physics summative, should be easyyy (as long as data is good)
• Various FC work...ahahaa. 

Been neglecting my mandopop for a while, this is probably one of the sweetest songs (in terms of lyrics)

若我爱你的方式 
已不同开始 
不如我们变换下位置 
看一看原来它的样子 
我害怕那种坚持 
无声的休止 
浪漫被岁月滴水穿石 
散落却从来都没发觉 
沉默的你呀 
我们能懂得 
什么都不说

如果这生命如同一段旅程 
总要走过后才完整 
谁不曾 怀疑过 相信过 等待过 离开过 
有过都值得

多幸运有你为伴每个挫折 
纵流过眼泪又如何 
我想象 的未来 和永远 是有你 一起的 
怎么都不换 曾有的经过
怎么都不换 

outrageous fortune

Studying Hamlet would be a horrifying experience, but the writing is just so good. A few of my favourite lines:

O day and night, but this is wondrous strange!
 There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
than are dreamt of in our philosophy

The play’s the thing
Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king.

^The scene that accompanies this line is especially awesome in the movie adaption by Kenneth Branagh. (3:38)

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprise of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action

from the play within a play:

I do believe you think what now you speak,
But what we do determine oft we break.
Purpose is but the slave to memory,
Of violent birth, but poor validity:
Which now, like fruit unripe, sticks on the tree,
But fall unshaken when they mellow be.
Most necessary 'tis that we forget
To pay ourselves what to ourselves debt:
What to ourselves in passion we propose,
The passion ending, doth the purpose lose.
The violence of either grief or joy
Their own enactures with themselves destroy:
Where joy revels, grief doth most lament'
Grief joys, joy grieves, on slender accident.
This world is not for aye, nor 'tis not strange,
That even our loves should with our fortunes change,
For 'this a question left us yet to prove,
Whether love lead fortune, or else fortune love.
[...]
But, orderly to end where I begun,
Our wills and fates do so contrary run,
That our devices still are overthrown,
Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own;
So think thou wilt no second husband wed,
But die thy thoughts when thy first lord is dead. 

Sounds so awesome when spoken *u* If there is indeed an oral presentation, I better be allowed to deliver this. 

Polonius also says some really good lines for the fool he is.

congratulations

Confirmation for my immediate future has arrived in the mail.






Green highlight is of my own, yeeeeeh.
(though it's nothing compared to the scholarships of smaller universities)

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Even more amazing:

Mind blown.

p.s.s. Just finished watching A Beautiful Mind, woah that was amazing too.

alive

Bless the weather, and the early ending of school today. Had lots of fun recounting the past and being cynical with Rui ;P

but back to reality Hamlet for the remainder of the day. Must keep average up for scholarship e_e
English and chem, kill me now.

Songs from Big Bang's 5th album is on repeat to ease the suffering.

hehe they're so cute :]

break march

(link to comic, they're hilarious) 

This sums up my break nicely.
This and the amazingness of Tower of God. It's Sunday release overwhelms the dread of school starting the next day.

freeze-dried romance

Too lazy to do any work, school or not. Let this not haunt me later on.

Instead, a speech on sustainable food by Prince Charles, a song by Train:


very appropriate song to listen to as I try to work on my SES presentation.

and a list of materialistic delights I would like to obtain:

• Loafers, maybe in soft leather.
• Summery skirt.
• Well made and soft white tee. (depending on uniqlo)
• These shoes, for prom. Love them sooo much!

fish cakes

Warm weather is nice.
Catching up with friends is nice.

This song is nice too :]

boarding

So I spent the night before Blue Mountain browsing through ffxii's tag on tumblr while simultaneously praying for a HD release for the ps3.
Then I remember the ridiculous amount of hours with those goddamn treasure chests (not to mention all the bounties and optional bosses that I decided to skip)... so perhaps I'll just borrow it again and continue from my saved files.

And the morning of the departure was spent reading brainpickings.org Found a much better destination for all the times when I don't feel productive enough to do actual work but not tired enough to be a complete vegetable. This is likely going to be a concise summary of how I will spend the remainder of the break.

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...
...

Anyways, onto the actual trip. It's not terribly exciting as I stayed in the cottage the majority of the time. Got some work done, watched a lot of movies, and played a hilarious game of Cranium. Mel and I are an amazing team :]

The cottage was really nice, love the window of one of the bedrooms that is directly over the living room. It's such a convenient way to transfer objects between floors ;D


The food was also good too. As always, we brought waaay too much of it.

The top row is dinner out in the village. I've been converted from bread+butter being the best combination to bread+olive oil and vinegar, especially fruity olive oils *u* (@Rui: we need to buy a bakery together LOL). The main course was great too, the highlight being Mel's slow roasted beef brisket (the plate on the back, left).
Bottom left picture is an unexpectedly delicious bowl of instant noodles. Plural being a keyword, there was at least 4 different types in there, the original pasta from the chicken noodle soap, followed by Billy, David and mine instant noodles xD Last photo is lunch at Wild Wings. The pulled pork sandwich was topped with a really spicy slaw that gave the whole thing a nice kick.

unrelated detour: I've realized that the iPhone camera is pretty crappy in low light situations. Pictures have a lot of noise and flash...oh gosh that's atrocious e_e" Guess all the more reasons to save up for a x10.

To sign off, here's us being sleepy while waiting for the bus to come.


Also might have gotten David sucked into Triple Town XD

(V)

Back from UT civ eng applicant dinner, got unofficially accepted whoo! ;D


Was so happy for a while, then panic from English test settled in. Off to analyze quotations.
After that test I'll be freeeeee, and this entry will then contain a lot more sustenance.

English was baaad.Ugh I prepared a lot of material on existentialism as 7/10 of my quotations were pertaining to that. But nooooo, Mr. A had to choose the completely nonexistential one "orz Did absolutely terrible relating that to the theme of the novel. Plus there wasn't enough time to edit my work, so spelling/grammar mistakes galore! e_e

But you know what, it's over with. My march break can start! Many events to look forward to :]
(see, I'm better at being an optimist now)


Moving on, these two photos were from a visit to UT last week.
I was really interested in the research of Dr. Bass, from science expo, and asked if I could visit his office and learn more about the projects that he was working on. Fortunately he agreed and down I went.


The awesomeness of the alligator and paper kyuubey is overwhelming. Think I embarrassed myself a little when I walked into the office. "omg kyuubey!! [turns around] omg alligator!"



Visited UT again yesterday for the civil engineering applicant's dinner. Was a good event, (would've been better without English nagging me -o-")

Hart house has gooooood food.
Another strong point of the evening was the short and sweet speeches. I was very impressed when an alumnus, now a senior manager at the world bank, flew in from London in the morning to deliver a short address. The chair of mineral engineering also gave a hilarious speech: "I had a gathering with thirteen thousand of my closest friends this weekend [pause] at the Prospectors & Developers Association convention." I was completely unaware that Toronto is apparently the mining capital of the world, learn something new everyday eh?

In even better news, I am unofficially accepted to civil engineering ;D Got a card that said the official acceptance will arrive on the 23rd. time y u no flow faster! Actually it's fine, I'll enjoy my glorious week of break *u*

to be or not to be

In the space, in the near future of tomorrow, will have a post on TEDx and other stuff.
It's suppose to be up today, but I'm feel like a zombie, an extremely tired one.
Yeah it's only 10, and there's chem to do, but screw this. sleeeeep.


"orz

Promised kept. Key is to not put off blogging till the night. All motivation to do any sort of work evapourates by like 9 lol.

TEDx went pretty well, thanks to my amazing team :] Pulling off successful school events requires a  group of motivated people (or at least ones that you can count on getting their assigned task done) and a dedicated staff member. I felt really proud when one of the teachers who brought his class in for period one came back and asked if there was space in the afternoon blocks.
Unfortunately, I didn't get to see much of the conference. However, I managed to watch this amazing one:

Waaaannnt.

Rest of the week was devoted to acing the calc test, which fortunately I did. 98 transmission mark yehhhh. Take that UT! (I'm sad that you still haven't accepted me, please do soon D: )

And the rest of the weekend shall be devoted to English IRP quotations and chem test (need to redeem myself after a disastrous chpt 5 test).
To start things off, hilarious sketch of Hamlet featuring Rowan Atkinson and Hugh Laurie (click through, embedding disabled).

Commence attack on work, chargeeee.