We woke up cursing our own dogged persistence at 5:45am, ready for the 5K run that “invigorates” (or so our PD says) us every morning.
After the rough workout, we proceeded to have a quick 3-minute shower, only to hear the sound of bagpipes waking up our fellow comrades who decided to sleep in.
The giant basement “Ravine Room” next to the buggy Cootes Paradise valley is where we grudgingly trudged this morning for our daily philosophical lecture/pep talk from the one and only Kingsley Hurlington.
As we shuffled still half asleep to the “Bistro” for a hearty (only slightly repetitive) breakfast, we were informed that a visit to McMaster’s nuclear reactor had come upon us.
In the meantime, however, we were split into random groups representing each culture at Shad@Mac. While such groups included Korean, Native American, Indian and Saudi Arabian, my group represented all of “Europe.” In the end, we decided to do a silhouette ring representing the European skyline with a candle placed inside of it.
While unfortunately, due to uncontrollable reasons, we could not visit the nuclear reactor, Kingsley – our local geographic expert – decided to inform us of the incredible powers and applications of satellite remote sensing, and challenged us to determine different ways to scan the entire McMaster University campus from space.
In the afternoon, we had intensive pod work time, leading up to the submission of our business plan on this coming Sunday. We all got a little tense at certain points, but we managed to keep our cool and come together to work effectively as a group in the end.
After afternoon pod time, we proceeded to have dinner and go to our Shad “committees” to work on separate projects. My committee, Monthbook – a yearbook-style offline website that aims to document every inch of the Shad@Mac experience – was in its usual chaotic scramble to digest each new event and weave them into eloquent lines of binary.
After committee time, we arrived at our daily guerilla choir practice, again led by the now-famous Kingsley. Today, we began the grueling and slightly awkward stage of separating into sopranos, altos, tenors and basses. We are preparing a rousing rendition of “You Raise Me Up” to which everyone will almost certainly break down to on Open Day.
After all this, we crashed in our beds for the night…that is except me, as I am staying up huddled under my tiny crackling desk lamp past curfew writing this.
Although you may be thinking: why would anyone want to do such a program?
Aside from the amazing friendships and the discovery of what you are truly passionate for, the only answer I can tell you is…
You just have to experience it.
Andrew Webster, Shad Valley McMaster University 2010
Hometown: Toronto, Ontario�
