Dominique Lau

This is our website… O.O it looks amazing =)

Well, not to sound stalkerish… but I’ve been reading some of your blogs, teeheehee =) WOW good job guys! On the first day you guys got 1777 from the stretch cards and you guys will also be doing a car wash too! =) Don’t let this enthusiasm die down, keep up the amazing work! LOL I feel so disconnected with everything, since I been at home cramming 2 years worth of materials last minute and only going to school for exams… =/  Anyways keep blogging and keep fundraising, and keep updating then i can do more stalking. =) I know you guys can reach the goals you set out to reach, SO PROUD of you guys =)

I guess back to studying… LOL =) Only 4 more subjects to Go! =)

Haha OH MAN!! I deactivated fb account and not going on msn and trying REALLLLY HARD TO CONCENTRATE AND STUDY… but I somehow find a way of looking through Mongolia photos… =( First I went through the ones in my camera, then just as I thought of blogging againnn…  I see this…

To see the photo gallery for the

Colts to Mongolia Click Here

Teeheeeheee =)))) SOOOO I sit here going through every single photo… triggering all the memories and making me laugh!! =)) Oh dear, im living in my memories and the photo. i still reallly miss it all…</3 As I have said… “I’ll put every photo and memory in a box and save it forever” well my intention is that I will move on… but what happened is that I accidentally JUMPED INTO the box and sealed myself in it too… =/

April 13
Im having such a weird feeling right now… the feeling preventing me from studying haha =). The idea of not being able to spend my lunches in global for a week, made me feel very lost, left behind and bitter >=/. Then I thought of something I read in Handmaid’s Tale, anything not normal will soon be normal. Does that mean soon it will be normal for me to not have global class? How long will it be? Seeing the interview list reminded me of when I had my interview, my summer trying to collect donation items, the silent auction, the Christmas Luncheon, the UBC basketball game, the Show down in downtown, all the bottle drives in between and then our entire journey to MONGOLIA. It seems like Mongolia was just a small part of the whole thing and the preparations took a larger part of my memory. I sit here wishing:

there was 61 seconds in a minute
25 hours in a day
If there was 8 days in a week

Those are the lyrics to Time by Danny Fernandez=) and I don’t want grade 12 and global to be finished. It feels like after all the exams which are in May, there is only one more month left. I want to take photo of every second and save it all in a box forever <3

Now that I’m back at home looking at the photos and loading then on to fb, I realize chances like this doesn’t come every day.  This trip didn’t just make me self reflect and understand myself that much more, but made me realize how precious chances are in life. I need to make sure chances in life don’t just slip by.  Through this trip, I didn’t have much time to reflect on the things that were happening, not until we had our class discussions at night. =) So one discussion topic that stuck with me is the relationship we have made with the students there are very special.  Right when I got back home, I turned on my computer and I see that Nyamka had sent me an email. The really special part is that even though we have a language barrier, and the simple things mean everything. Our friendship isn’t constructed on the sweet and nice compliments we give each other, but rather than the simple smiles and the way we worked together to get the job done. Although we don’t speak much to each other, her smile and the fact that we are working together in silence is what makes up our friendship. This made me realize that friends are people you feel comfortable even when in “awkward silences”. When working with Nyamka at the work site, I didn’t feel like I have to start a conversation to ease the tension, because there was no tension. We were both comfortable working beside each other. In her email, she told me the school we were building isn’t finish and the roof is still not completely on. Also she sent me a picture we took together. =))

Third day working on the school, I am learning life lessons and of course basic shoveling and hammering skills, skills I would have never learned at school or at home. Being away from home for such a long time I am being to feel a little homesick, but having so much friends and encouragements from my friends and the amazing ceremonies held by the locals made me feel very loved and minimizing my homesick feeling.=) Also through this experience I have learned to be more self dependent, because being in Canada where my parents are I rely on their protection and their care. Here away from them I am able to grow stronger and handle more responsibilities.

Looking at the half finished school I feel very accomplished, it isn’t the same feeling when you stay up all night to finish an assignment.  This school means a lot to us and to the local children. Although we only have been working on it for two days, we finished at a very fast pace is because we work soooo well together and everything just flows into place. Supposedly we are on our third day of construction and which means we should start feeling annoyed and frustrated with each other… but somehow we aren’t, maybe because it is sooo cold and we are helping each other stay warm that no anger is coming out of us yet. =) I guess that’s all! =)) Back to work, tell you guys more in a bit =)

WOW! The journey to get to our destination wasn’t easy and extremely loooong…

First off our flight to UB was cancelled, and we had to stay at the airport for a couple of hours, but it was resolved calmly by our teachers and got to stay in a really nice hotel for the night. =) After the 10 hours flight we weren’t at our destination yet, we still had to 3 hours of bumpy flight to get to UB, then 4 more hours on a train to get to our village. When we got there the villagers gave us a warm welcoming, which mean we mean all the travel worth wild to see the bright smiles on their faces.

Their village was nothing of how I pictured it; it was wayyyy more developed than I thought.  May be our school might not have helped them all as much as I thought it would. I guess it is the thought of showing that we care is the most important.  Also the opening ceremonies had shown me that they really do want to show their appreciation of us coming over to build them a school. They were very =) that we flew across the world to their place to show we care.  In the opening ceremonies I noticed they researched on the things we like and fused both our cultures together, making sure we are enjoying ourselves. Through our discussions at night I was able to reflect all that has happened and not just let it go by like a breeze and not absorb anything from it. The idea of coming together no matter what culture, what ethnicity, what background is mind blowing. We interact with each other as if we had known each other for the longest time and we don’t search for differences but similarities. I think what the night time discussion I am able to recognize all the things happening.

Today after school, Joyce, Sandra and I were working on the “pay it forward project”. This project is separating into groups of four and making original ways to fundraise money for Mongolia or for Haiti. Our group, we came up with the idea of “what is your expression?” On Monday February 8th during lunch bring your unique expression and friends and a dollar to take a picture, in support for Haiti and Mongolia. After asking Mr. Zad Friday during lunch he has agreed to put these pictures into the yearbook and he was willing to donate his lunch time to help take photos. In this project, I learnt that creating a fundraising event out of nothing is hard work. Also the power of team work is amazing. When you are thinking of ideas, it is better to have more people around to contribute their ideas to the table. Although I may be REALLY far away from both Haiti and Mongolia, and the amount raised may not be a lot since it is split between the two places, but I realized, when someone is in need, anything would help. I feel spend my lunch time fundraising money to benefit people in need is a better choice, rather than walking around school and really, doing nothing productive.

Canadian Mongolia Ambassador =)

WOW! Aren’t we special? On February 11, 2010 in the 4^th period, I walk into the room and saw a neatly decorated table with flowers. As I sat there waiting and chatting with Caroline, we wondered who this person might be. 10 minutes later we were wondering whether if the person is really going to come. =/ Soon enough we heard loud cheers and clapping, and turned to the door and saw 4 formally dressed people walked in. As the names were introduced, srry but I forgot them, because they were really hard to pronounce. =) Afterwards the ambassador started comparing Canada and Mongolia, the similarities and differences. The one thing I that found very funny was when he told us that the swearing finger in Mongolia had no rude meaning, it simply meant “middle, or so-so”. Although both Mongolia and Canada may be located near the same latitude of the world, but the cultures are very distinct. We arrive to Mongolia in approximately 22 days and we will be able to experience both cultures and do a comparison ourselves.=)

Location: Starbucks
Wow, just came home from an amazing “coffee break” with Madison. This assignment of where we were to talk to someone, we hardly talk to and spend time getting to know them is an amazing way of tightening our friendship. It really special how we don’t have any classes together (besides global), we aren’t in the same group of friends, but once we sat down and talked, everything just “clicked”. We didn’t have to search for topics to talk about and the conversations weren’t “forced”. I felt that the best way of connecting to people is spending quality time together individually. This assignment made me realize that, the relationship we all share is really really special, it all has to happen in the right time and right place. I would have never gotten to know Madison, if we didn’t go to Richmond high, if we aren’t in the same grade, and in global. Everything has to happen with perfect timing. She made me realize it’s the accumulation of these small things, which makes our bond closer together. Now when I see her in the hallway, it’s no longer, just a “hey” and “smile”, but we will stop to ask each other how our day was. It’s these small steps we are making which bonds us together, and prepare us for the adventure we are going to have ahead of us. =)