2008-02-03

A good day

This was a good day.

When the golden ray shone into my window, onto my bed, woke me up, I knew this would be a good day. I remembered my fellow Chinese people in mid-southern China who suffered from the snow disaster. After days of struggling with the cold, the freezing rain, the chaos, the hunger, the exhausted bodies... I knew this warm sunshine would ease their suffering a bit. This would be a good day.

I prayed that their desperate wish for going back home to spend the Chinese New Year with their families could come true soon!

Despite it was Sunday, I still need to work today, for it was the last session of the MBA class on Strategic Design. This was the 2nd time I co-taught this subject with my boss. Today I didn't need to prepare for any lecture because it was them presenting their final assignment. After spending with the class a consecutive 3 weekends, 6 hours each session, I was eager to see if they managed to learn a thing or two and reveal those learning in their assignment. Whatever subject I taught, I would always be excited at the last class, because it is a time I enjoy and harvest the result of my teaching. That was a good day.

19 students in 5 groups, they presented their final assignment. I always tried to be critical in giving comments as well as giving suggestions on how they could improve in preparing the written proposal for final submission. I find students always welcome suggestions on how they could move on. And because I pointed to them the way ahead, they usually felt less offensive about my critical comments. Today, we didn't end the class until we finished all the presentation at 2:30 pm. Before we dismissed, student C (the man sitting on the floor), the leading figure among them, also one of the students who my boss and I gave the most harsh criticism during the tutorial last week, proposed to take a photo together, as well as treated my boss and I a late lunch too! This was a good day.

These students came from a diverse spectrum of background and streams of specialism: they are from MBA in Innovation and Design Management, MBA in Information Technology Management, MBA in General Management, and Master of Design (Advanced Strategies); they are design managers, designers, design teacher, R&D manager, HR manager, account servicing, IT and marketing practitioners, TV producer... From their accents, I could tell many of them are either raised or educated in foreign countries: from India, New Zealand, Britain, Taiwan, the US... Gladly there were many positive comments given on the dining table, mostly on what they learned and what could be applied in their daily work. Apparently, most of them had a good experience in this subject. Thank God!

This was a good day indeed!