Tuesday July 6

John Steinback once said, "As happened sometimes, a moment settled and hovered, and remained for much more than a moment. And sound stopped, and movement stopped, for much, much more than a moment. And then, the moment was gone."

This quote describes the essence of Shad Valley. At Shad, 1 minute feels like 5; 30 minutes feel like 120; 1 hour feels like 3 and 1 day feels like 4. And the best part is, in the end, it feels like you haven't had enough time.

July 6th, the 10th day at Shad@Mac, felt like any other day we've had so far, and also like no other. The day started off with some Shads going for a 5 km run, and some Shads sleeping in. We had breakfast and headed to the lecture hall, where we began our activities with the daily ShadNews48 (hosted by our very own Shads!), and learned about local, national and international news. We then attended a lecture by Miroslav Lovric, an award-winning professor who introduced us to the concept of infinity as a quantity. Afterwards, we ran back to our residence building (Hedden Hall) and attended an extremely comedic and very enjoyable presentation by Sunjay Nath.

After lunch, I (along with one half of the Shads) attended a workshop at McMaster University's very own planetarium. Then, at "rec", we were taught by one of our own Program Directors, Mr. Kingsley Hurlington, the basics of self-defence. Dinner then passed, as did free time, as did "Pod Time" (to work on our separate projects), and more free time - then it was suddenly curfew. Whew.

Shad Valley has become such a huge "moment" in my life, that I still am not able to comprehend how we've managed to fit a few years into 10 days.

Palika Kohli, Shad Valley McMaster University 2010
Hometown: Ajax, Ontario