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| August 2001 |
| Post-It Notes for ... |
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| Sunday, 19th Leadership is not about what you can do, but how to deal with what you cannot do. I just learned from Jacqueline that a leader needs to let go of control, trust in others accomplishment, and know how to ask others to help you. |
| Monday, 20th Tuesday, 21st Anxiously shopping, preparing for and thinking about WE Cross 01. What's gonna happen? Pretty worried about Welcoming. What if four buses arrive at the same time? What if we cannot handle the crowd? What if . . . ? |
| Wednesday, 22nd Took me 5 minutes to finally lock the door of my room and head towards the streetcar station. There was always one or two things that I forgot to bring. Streetcar - Subway - Warden Buses - Metro Square. Ambassadors arrive Bark Lake Centre around 11:30pm, firstly glared by a few flashlights, and told to keep quiet. Oh, lots waiting for us to prepare for the next day, opening of WE Cross 01: putting up Bathroom Wonders, cabin-checks, opening ceremony, details of Welcoming. . . "We Cross Clap Clap Clap (holding up the arms like a W, then crossing the arms like an X" After that, on and off, I tried to fall asleep around 3:10am on the bed at the right hand corner of Room 1 in the Tamarack Dorm at Bark Lake, wondering "What's gonna happen tomorrow and in the next three days?". |
| 23rd - 26th, Thursday - Sunday |
| 27th, Monday Walked at an easy-going pace to the Trinity Library to return two overdue books. I treasured being alone again, not feeling consciously watched by anybody. People passing by on St. George Street seemed to be burdened by the knowledge that it's Monday, but I did not feel bound by time. I saw a yellow Toyota Celica swooshed by, and felt so fortunate that I have way better things than an expensive sports car to rejoice about in life, such as a growth spurt in a young man's heart. Yet I couldn't believe that I am back in downtown Toronto again. Hoping to retain some quiet moments and relive some Bark Lake moments, I lied down on a stony branch in the David Bosanquet Garden outside the library, gazed up into the clear blue skies; soothed by the breeze on my skin, I fell asleep for an hour as the sun started to set. I couldn't believe that I was looking up into the boundless blue sky alone. Today I realized for the first time in my life, that I have fallen in love with nine young souls. |
| 28th, Tuesday I have been blowing my runny nose, piling up my desk with semi-soaked tissue and drinking Brita water all day... 'chew! Yet another summer for my sister. She's back in Connecticut again. Hope that Westover will have someone over to pick her up at the Southbury Station. |
| 29th, Wednesday What's something that's easier to remove if you go around it gently instead of pulling it real hard? Tags plugged on an old, worn and hard message board. Bumped into a new immigrant family from China hoping to visit the East Asian Studies Department for a teaching and research job. Both of us tried to speak and understand one another's language, half English and Mandarin. Then I brought them up to the C.Y.T East Asian Library first. They seemed very anxious about the surrounding and desperate to have a job there. I sort of know in my heart that it won't be as easy as they imagine at this school. Nevertheless, I tried to find someone who speaks Mandarin in the department to help them anyways. A Chinese woman who speaks Mandarin and English so fluently called herself a professor but wouldn't help besides telling us that she knows nothing about jobs in the department. Well, twice I was reminded how hostile an environment U of T still is. |
| 31st, Thursday As I look at a 12-year-old and think that there is yet a lot for her to learn, so will a 50-year old look at me and think likewise. |