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I visited our College Generation Education Camp for freshers last Friday evening (27^th October) at Tai Po. As I tried out the food prepared by the students that evening, I was amazed to find out that many students are excellent chefs! After dinner, students were divided into groups to discuss how they should best invest their time in the coming years. As I listened to their sharing, memories of my university life in Australia almost 40 years ago flashed back…

I participated in a singing contest in year 1. During winter break in year 2, I went to Snowy Mountain and skied for the first time. I also began to ask deep questions about the purpose of life and eventually, I was enlightened by joining a university’s Christian group in year 3. These are happy memories. Traumatic memories also flashed back. I remember the night before the year 2 physiology exam, I was panicking because there were still notes from around 30 lectures that I never had gone through before. Eventually, I studied through the night and sat for the exam the following morning without any sleep. Thankfully, I got a bare pass. Since then, I made it a habit to go through lecture notes the same day after the lectures. As I looked back, I realized that these traumatic experiences somehow made me wiser and become a more empathic person.

After the sharing, we gathered around a campfire to make wishes for the coming years. Staring at the campfire, I wished that students could treasure their ample opportunities to make friends, learn, enjoy and serve, and can also treasure even their traumatic experiences, for these experiences will make us wiser and stronger. I love this quote from Nelson Mandela, “I never lose, I either win or I learn”.