小米才说着我就中招了。。。

我病了，头晕怕冷，吃了就吐。

哪里都去不了。很难受。

做米虫，花别人的钱，也很难受 。

他们为什么不了解？

还是会失望。

有时想很多，说很少

UofT地图

 

LEGEND for the map:

Orange star: Residence

Blue stars: Lab building, exam building & lecture building

The Black path is the one that I took everyday, from the res. to the chemistry department.

The Orange path is the one that I took with Emily, my roommate, on our first day of camp.

The Red path is the one that I took on Friday afternoon,

...after two consecutive lectures, one on inorganic chemistry...orbital theories...crystal field...among other things, and the other one was on the inevitably moral-sucking nature of life, all from the same prof.(Kind of like buy one, get one free)...

which passed by the Royal Conservatory of Music (under renovation) and some prime shopping spots.

 

I've never left the campus square during my entire stay....

Darn...let's go back and actually see the CN tower and act like a normal tourist who's visiting TO for the first time and do all the other stuff (that are pertinent to a normal tourist such as me). I guess it will be sometime next year~

---

Ok, let's see, what are left from NOF:

name tag，name card from the banquet,maps,train ticket receipt, two chemistry textbooks, a novel and a couple of emails. Hhmmm... a really long one too.

I tend to get sentimental with those things...

 

Don't read it if you are just bored. I 've warned you, it's long, but I don't feel it since I care about what he talked about.

 

Hello,

Once again, here comes the time of the year where I tend to write long cheesy goodbye-emails to the olympiads participants. I hope that all of you had a safe and enjoyable trip back home, managed to get a few well-deserved hours of sleep to repair the chemisty-induced devrivation of last week, and most importantly that you'll be able to take a few days to relax and think of nothing that is even closely chemistry-related... unless of course you among the crazies like me who actually think that chemistry is genuinely fun and relaxing.

Perhaps I'm not the only one in this situation, but I find that the days and weeks that immediately follow the NOF inevitably seem immensely soporific. I'm not quite sure it if is simply that going back to life / learning  / shcool / work at a normal pace is just pale in comparison of our high-octane chemistry week. Maybe is it simply that after sleeping so little for a week has its toll after a while.

I have to thank you for all showing up to the olympiad. As the other instructors and I have already told you, we're not staying up late trying to find the harsh exam questions and labs by sheer sadism, but because there is no group of students with whom it is more interesting, stimulating, rewarding and quite simply enjoyable to interact with than you (I must say "interact", because truly, with a group as brilliant as yours, we can hardly call it teaching). Every year, by seeing how you work, approach and solve problems I learn certainly as much as you candidates had to learn during the week.

There are important limitations to the NOF selection process. Sadly, we can only select 4 team members for the international competition. This is much more difficult than you would think considering the quality of participants that we get every year, and I would have had no second thoughts about brigning the entire team of 15 to represent the country at an international competition if this had been possible. In short, you can all be extremely proud to be the top 15 students out of probably a million or two Canadians of CCPO-candidate age, and this is no small achievement in a field that is known to be as hard as chemistry. (Okay, we cheat a bit since unlike the rest of the population we actually know that chemistry is both fun and easy, but we can keep that a secret between us). You should also be very proud of all the work you have accomplished during the week: You have goen through certainly no less than 1 year worth of university-level chemistry condensed in one week. Us instructors saw how even those who had less of a complete background in chemistry learned and improved throughout the week, to the point where we it was difficult to find exams questions that are tough enough to challenge you but that we are still able to solve ourselves!

As I eluded to during our closing ceremony on Saturday, the other "instructors" and I were simply blown away by the quality of the candidates this year. This is with little doubt the strongest crop of candidates we've had since I've been involved in the olympiads (98). I kid you not, some participants who did not make the team this year were in my opinion (and in exam scores!) stronger than many of the 1st and 2nd ranking students from years past. (Had I been competing against you guys in 98, I doubt I would have made it to anything better than the 10th place instead of making the team!) Add in the fact that we had a quasi-record number of "younger" participants who may be back again next year, and it's just spooky! ;-)

Another disappointing thing about the NOF is that, as the acronym indicates, it lasts only one week. By that I don't want to imply by that that you would want be subjected to more than a single chemistry week from hell, but rather that it is disappointing to have to part with people we've had the great pleasure to meet, work with, and in many case develop genuine friendship with throughout the week.  This may well be some sort of chemistry version of a Stockholm syndrome, but nevertheless I hope that this departure represents a goodbye and not a farewell.

I look forward to seeing Jooho, Jong, Donna, Peter and Kent (and whoever else may still be eligible) at Université Laval next year for the NOF. It's no secret that a second participation in the Canadian finals makes things much easier. Just ask Charley and Dmitry!

Those of us who will be in Korea will try to send you some pictures and news of the IChO results when we get them. Similarly, if you happen to have good pictures of the NOF at UofT, place them on a website and let the others know the URL, it will make for nice memories in the months / years to come.

Anyhow, have an excellent summer, have great fun relaxing away from chemistry for a while (ah-ha, except for the team members: those have to study hard for another month! ;-), and feel free to get in touch with me be it for chemistry questions / advice or a simple chat.

Au revoir!

Jean Bouffard

P.S.: As organizers of the NOF, we are constantly trying to improve the way we run the selection week and chemistry boot camp, thus we would like to learn from you what were the best (and worst) parts of your experience at the chemistry olympiad. Please let us know what we could do differently to help make the life of the next generation of chemistry olympiad participants easier, more enjoyable, but also more challenging, stimulating and rich in learning experiences.

We understood from this week that starting on monday with 8 hours straight of theory in a poorly ventilated classroom was not that great of an idea ;-) We'll try to make things better in the future by introducing some breaks in the schedule (e.g. Menthos-Soda lab practice or soccer game, visit of cool labs like glassblowing, etc.) for the brains to reoxygenate.

We'll appreciate if you can send us your ideas / suggestions, and so will our future students / canditates!

P.P.S.: This is what our Menthos-Coke should look like at NOF 2007:

http://eepybird.com/dcm1.html

刚才我很没用地哭了

回到家开了机，发现桌面全变样了

我爸格了机子重装，没有和我说

我立即去我最宝贝的文件夹视察

一看最新修改日期

心里哽噔一下

完了

东西全丢了

我这些年的心血全都没有了

我嘴唇先是小幅度的抽搐

然后手开始痉挛，鼠标开始游移

接下来是横冲直撞地一脚踢开椅子蹦上床锤着枕头干嚎

怎么可以这样子

怎么可以没有了

不可以的

眼泪噼里啪啦地就下来了

撕心裂肺地发出很凄厉的哭声

哭着哭着不知道怎么样就到了地上

继续锤地板 和翻滚

因为不是所有东西都在blog里的

就在我以为我要死了的时候

电话响了

是我爸

我扯着喉咙质问他

他冷静地应付了我歇斯底里的咆哮

东西给你刻盘了。

 

过去的这一星期积攒的劳累，不愉快，和失望，都不及刚刚这一下给我的刺激大。

特此记录。给予优先权。