Goodbye, My Friend

I don't usually check my personal e-mail at work, but I did that day. After reading the first e-mail in my inbox, I was shocked. 

My facial expressions easily betray me and it's hard for me to hide my emotions. Shortly after, coworkers were asking me what's wrong and if I'm alright. I nodded and continued with my work. But my mind was gone. I then noticed myself simply sitting and staring into space, for I'm not sure how long, until I pushed the thought out of my mind and continued on with work.

My First Time Attending a Pakistini Wedding & 5 Things I Learned

Congratulations Asma & Farrukh!

Five Things I Learned at a Pakistani Wedding

1. Do not arrive on time.

I'm a person who gets nervous and anxious when I'm running late, so I always try to arrive on time.

Judging at the Greater Vancouver Regional Science Fair

Ahhh, the 31st Annual Greater Vancouver Regional Science Fair. Students, judges, parents, teachers, and many others gathered at the Student Union Building at UBC to view science fair projects. The event ran on for 3 days with judging done of Thursday and awards and public viewing on Saturday. I had the honour to be one of judges for a couple of awards. My first time being a judge was at the Vancouver District Science Fair held at Langara College on March 7th of this year. However, this is my first time judging for the Greater Vancouver Region, so plainly said, I was excited! 

I arrived at UBC in the early afternoon and went to the judges' room to meet my team and gather all the information I needed - badge, list of projects I was going to judge, criteria sheet, etc. 

Judge at the 2013 Greater Vancouver Regional Science Fair

Brain Day 2013: My experience as the Coordinator

I'm honoured to have been the coordinator of this year's Brain Day, a program that's part of Parachute Canada. Parachute is a national, charitable organization with a strong aim of reducing injuries that are preventable. 

Brain Day is an event where university students visit elementary schools and teach about injury prevention, the brain, and the 5 senses through interactive activities. As the coordinator, I recruited elementary schools and volunteers for the event during UBC's Reading Week. This year, we visited Waverley Elementary, General Wolfe Elementary, and Kerrisdale Elementary. We devote a day at the school where we do the presentation and activities with classes for ~2hours. We delivered Brain Day to a total of 12 classes, which is double the number of last year classes!

Brain Jello

Black Ebony and White Ivory Keys

When exam period comes, I always have an urge to play the piano. Regardless of the number of exams and the amount of material that I have to go through, I still played the piano once in a while in between my exams. I'm not sure if I'm trying to avoid studying or if I'm craving the feeling of playing the piano but when I sit at the piano, on the bench that I have sat on for many many hours before, I am reminded of countless memories. Born into a typical Asian family, I started playing the piano at a fairly young age. I've always tried to talk my mom into letting me skip practice for the day. In fact, we even made compromises. One hour of piano for one hour of Neopets. Of course, the piano hour felt like 5 hours while Neopets felt like 5 minutes, especially with dial up internet back then. Soon the compromise became 1 hour of piano for 2 hours of Neopets! :P