Fate's middle finger

Do I have superpowers? The power to predict the future? Bah, I'd rather not, but unfortunately, it looks like I predicted my own unfortunate fate in one of my short stories in the book!

Long story short: yesterday was indeed the worst day of my life to date, for the whole afternoon and evening. It really felt like I got my soul sucked out of me. I was utterly in disbelief, almost a mental breakdown on the event went on before school ended.

You are probably familiar with the story I told you about previously, and how confident and optimistic I was to come up with a plan to overcome that problem. It seemed like fate had given me the middle finger yesterday, and said in my face "Ha, let's see what you say about this!"

For a moment in time. I really thought my life is ruined. My book, my fundraiser plan, something I spent more time and put more heart onto than anything I've done so far, is completely crashed.

Okay, you don't need to hold your breath and worry about me. I am alright now that more than 24 hours had passed. My fundraiser? still in tact!

I will tell you this whole thing in 3 parts, just because this is ridiculously long. For today, I would just quote the whole part from the short story "Terryism" , and leave you hanging til Friday(leadership retreat!) because I am evil. It really is kinda frightening how I really seemed to had traveled into the future when I wrote this story.

“It was. Anyways, that was grandpa’s boldest attempt yet. I was planning to write a small book and sell it as a charity fundraiser. I worked so hard on this book in that summer and often I had no time to sleep. Since I had already gotten the approval from the charity organization, I had to finish the book and printed out the copies before the new school began.”

“What happened next?”

“Just when I was about to sell them, my idea got denied by my school principals. It was due to one story, Terryism, it was called.”

“Terryism?” the little girl chuckled. “That’s like your name with the letters i-s-m added to the end!”

“Yes, it was. That story was a humorous tale about me, creating my own mock religion. They said that the story was too offensive. And no matter how much I tried to explain myself, they won’t listen. I was so close, so close to do something exceptional…

Grandpa became very gloomy after that. I cried every single night for a while. My grades were affected, too. I was planning to get a very high average that year, but I was too indulged in my failure that I was unable to concentrate on my school work. That was something unlike grandpa, because he was rarely sad.

It took me a while before I was able to pick up that book I wrote again. It was the exact story by which they denied my book, which reminded me that this was not worth it. It reminded me of my own belief in life.”

“What is that story about?”

“Nobody understood the true meaning of that story. In that story, I was trying to reveal the moral of the entire book. Through the humour and the crude jokes I was trying to explain a point. I was trying to tell people to have a positive goal, and live life positively with that. I didn't like when people kept complaining about their life while there were many other people still fighting, even in a much worse situation. People were wasting their life away complaining when they could be enjoying their life and making a good contribution to society at the same time.”



Kinda get you guys thinking there huh?

Things are better than expected

What an awesome week this is! Nothing but positivity to report, other than getting a mark off in a biology lab :(

Anyway, let me get to the point. The last few days, I've consistently sold around five books in school a little over a week before the actual fundraiser started! Many of my classmates/friends are already too eager for me not to give them the book earlier. I've got another helper in grade 9. I'll leave Tony Cheng to organize the fundraiser in his grade with about 50 books!

So far, I am getting all positive feedbacks for my book except for one minor typo error. I doubt most people gotten to the point of this book yet, but it`s pretty awesome people already likes it :D

Thank you once again for everyone who is helping me! I guarantee our goal will be reached!

The official start to the unofficial start

Boxes of books are being piled at my home right now, I hope they can disappear as fast as possible!

26 books were sold the last few days mainly thanks to the effort of my mom. I didn`t really start selling books at my school yet except for a few eager friends who already given me money.

I was urged on by my classmates to show my book to my English teacher today(I didn`t plan to do that until next week). She made the whole class clap for me. Kind of awkward but awesome at the same time!

Guys, just pay attention to the sidebar on the progress of things. I don`t expect many books to be sold this week, if my mom can help me bring the total up to 100 by this Sunday, I am well overachieving. I will have a update on things every few days or so about the progress in detail and some interesting encounters.

That`s all for now!

Official Plan for Phase 1

Technically, I already started the business portion of this project a month ago. However, as I finally see that ever so welcoming "imagine a world" as well as the name of yours truly on a actual binded book today, it certainly feels like a big milestone. Let the selling begin!

As emphasized many times, the goal is 500 books sold for the phase one of the project. However, what I am revealing now is the true details on the exact what, where and when.

Alright lets go!

Agincourt CI

I am sure all of you knew the "problem" that happened my own school. Appropriate steps had been taken. There will be around 15-20 people that will be distributing this book around ACI. Due to the eminent leadership retreat(which I STILL don't know if I am going or not! frigging school admins), It will be better for me to delay the sales a bit and do a little more mouth to mouth advertising.

Monday Sept 28th to Friday Oct 1st - Presale
We will be starting to accept money for the books starting this moment. You can either give the money to me, Jessica, Yiwang or Anna at this point. You will not receive your book directly, but you will get it a week before most people(Next Monday Oct 4th).

Monday Oct 13th - Teacher Sale
I will probably bring 50-70 copies to school this day and most of them will go to the teachers.

Tuesday Oct 14th - Official Sale begins
I wont be able to bring 200 books directly at once, so I will bring them in in a three day period. I will first give distributors(those who are selling for us) the copies they are selling, but starting this point, you can buy it from the people on this list:

Terry Zhou
Jessica Yang
Yiwang Yuan
Matt Davooti

Anna Ma
Xuan Yao
George Wang
Michael Wang
Andy Luc
Ricky Shek
Ming Jiang
Sonia Zhang
Shuying Chen
Edward Zhang
Kumiko Motomura
James Chen
Brian Chu
Michael Poon

This list is the one I am looking at so far, it may still be on the increase as I am going to ask more people.

University of Toronto

Dave Liang at Scarborough Campus will be the main director in the university. He is planning to join the student union and come up with a official sales event with their approval. I will update on that later on. I will also have a number of other friends who will help me selling the books personally in the university.

Victoria Park CI

Leon Ni will be the director at this school. As far as I know, he will be selling this book through the book club(don't know the exact name). Ben Hu will also be helping out.

Dr.Norman Bethune CI

Shiping Shen will be the director here. I do not have the exact details on the plans yet. However, if you are also willing to help him out, just contact me or him.

Other Schools/Places

Contact me directly if you want to get this book in October! Unless you can meet with me or any of the people that is selling the book, I guess you have to wait until this fundraiser expands into the community late November.

Things starts to look brighter!

Guess what, I want to write again! I thought I would take so much longer to recover from the mental stress of writing the first book. However, it seems my mind is hyper again with fresh writing urges already! I will still wait a few more month to really start to get my imagination going. However, this is definitely good news for my upcoming book I want to finish in 2 years!

As you may notice, it seemed like I've already sold 12 books before the campaign started. How did that happen? Well, two of my friends already had given me the money before any plans made for the pre-sale. So I already put them up for buying the first two books. I myself will buy 10 copies of my own book (sounds weird, but that's actually what I'm doing). So far we have a grand total of 12 books sold with 25 dollars fundraised(hey it's only fair I give myself the four dollar price as well for working so hard!).

Things started to finalize on how exactly I'm I going to carry on the first phase of my fundraiser, details should be made tomorrow and posted Monday or Tuesday.

Everything is looking super special awesome. When life throws a huge boulder at you, you just have to go around it, that's all. Now that I almost went around, I could almost see that endless path again. Let's get going!

The payback

After the determination of countless trips to the main office and countless encounters with the staffs. All I got was that I can't do a charity fundraiser in the school because I am adding "competition". This is definitely not over.

Because of what happened on Monday(read below), I shall show my wrath! I will paint school walls with graffiti and initiate food fights in cafeteria.... nah!

This "revenge" I am going to embark on will be very subtle, I will simply "obey" her order and not sell the book officially at school. However, along with a large number of classmates, I will indeed sell the book in ACI through people.(yes, I am still allowed to do THAT).It is utterly ridiculous I have to take this step, but at the same time, this is really not quite far off in effectiveness.

Most of my classmates were outraged as well by the ridiculous rejection, many of them were willing to lend their hand in helping me with the distribution of the fundraiser. So far I am estimating 15-20 people who will also sell the books for me. A target of 300 books should definitely be achievable no matter

No Protest here from this charity organization, no more fancy announcements and good looking posters. If the school wants to add obstacles in the way of a charity fundraiser, I will just suck it up and bend another way(what else can you do in a dictatorship government). It will be rather ironic if we were to fundraise much more money than anything the school had "officially" done.

a little change of plans(at ACI)

It’s crazy, it’s ridiculous and it’s frustrating. Yes, there is a little change of plans here at ACI.

You see, Mr.P seemed like a nice guy. However, I didn’t even get a chance to talk to him before being stopped at the administration office.

A whole bundle of things happened today. First of all, we were supposed to do an announcement today(Approved by Mr.Carauna) to kick start our campaign. However, Mohit came in late, making us unable to do it this morning. That is when the hall monitor(forgot her name) stopped me. Saying that I cannot do an announcement because it is not through an official club. After explain what I was doing and handing her our mission statement, she “praised” me(its great, its fantastic blah blah), but I knew something a “but” is coming next.

She also pointed out that I cannot do an official book sale in ACI because writer’s block also sells books… Basically, she is saying that I am in competition with the Writer’s block.

Competition???? SERIOUSLY?

Um, first of all, I believe this is a free market economy. Only competition is able to make our society better with more motivation to do better things. However, in our school, it seemed like everything going on is just controlled by one staff member (not even the principal).

That is that even my point. But think about it. She is denying me of doing charitable work because there is competition? Competition for Charity? Are you kidding me???

No worries though, the book sale will still take place! I just won’t be doing any official sales inside ACI with at table set up with official promotions such as announcements, posters. But I still can sell them personally to you guys, the teacher etc. Sometime late September I will be going around in the school holding a bunch of books and an envelope along with the help my friends, doing the fundraiser. So, you can just pick up the book through us basically.

Since there won’t be an official sale, I need your help. Whether it is 5, 10 or 20 books that you are willing to help me fundraise, it will be awesome. You will also become part of our organization ;D. Contact us, and tell us about how are you gonna help, we will probably have a meeting at the cafe with all the people helping sometime early October, we will talk about that later.

Of course, this whole organization is more community oriented. Unable to hold an official sale at ACI is just a slight bother on my part and wont change the grand scheme of things. I think 300 books are still doable in our school with you guys’ help.

I will be discussing this whole thing with our principal eventually, but for now, here is the plan.

It’s really really ridiculous; After getting the support of Unicef, writing out the whole book and printed it out, I can’t even do a official sale of charity fundraiser at my OWN SCHOOL for a community orientated charity organization. But I guess I just have to cope with it.

Stay Tuned. And just contact me which ever way possible. I will appreciate any kind of support.

PS: to those who isn’t going to ACI, I’ll have more details about

Just around the corners!

I still remember how I got that tune "just around the corners", which came from a health video we watched in grade 7. That was awfully pedo, and something you probably don't want to know.

However, what you do want to know is that the first phrase of the fundraiser is indeed just around the corners!

The book is finally in print! After tedious amounts of checking, re-checking, designing and more designing, I am glad to say this part of the job is done! Yes, I've talked to the vice principal a few days ago, he proved the general idea. However, I still need a complete discussion about the specifics with the principal.

Currently, I am working on an official mission statement and sales plan which can be used not only for myself but for many people that I need to work with such as the principal, mall staff and the media.

I will be discussing some specific plans with the principal on Monday, as well as giving him the mission statement and sales plan. If all goes well, he would provide me even more help on this. Not so well? Things will still go according to plan!(Mostly).

Talking to the school principal tommorow

I will be talking with the principal tomorrow about my Unicef Write for charity. I can feel the nerves already.

My fundraiser will officially began after this. Wish me luck!

I'll keep you guys updated

Some thoughts about school

The end of summer is ironically the time where teenagers actually think about school the most. The usual division of feelings are there. Seeing from the msn and facebook messages, about half of my friends are looking forward to school after a boring summer, and about another wishes the summer would last forever.

The anticipation of this upcoming school year is probably my most pumped up and nervous of all. For one, this is the year that I promised literally everybody that I will put 100% effort and excel. With university applications right around the corner, these two years are definitely the turning point of my life.

Oh yeah, almost forgot. I got 2000+ books to sell! :S

Book in print tommorow

There was a strange sense of surrealism today. I am still in awe of what I am about to see. An actual printed book with my name on it!

I've contacted and confirmed on the printing of my book. I will be taking another trip down to Markham and Steeles, this time to actual print the book out. I finished the further designing of the front and back cover the last two days. Everything is basically done. Maybe another final check for some mistakes tomorrow morning would do.

Yes, I would be printing out 2000 books this first batch. That is two times more than the first batch of Harry Potter!(Though I doubt the final sales figure will be anywhere close though! XD)

Yesterday, I had a meeting with my friends for the discussion of the fundraiser. I already have a more depth idea of the exact plan. So far, I've basically have two phases of selling planed out.

Phase 1

Selling in the school and through friends/ classmates.

The goal for the first phase is around 500 copies by the end of October. Mainly in my school and schools of my friends. The main focus will obviously be in my school, Agincourt CI. The exact date and ever detail of what I am going to do is still a question mark pending the discussion with the principal. Though what I have in mind right now is to start the promoting the first two weeks adn start the presale on the third. The official sales should began early October. I will also encourage my classmates to sell for me. Although I don't know how well could that go.

Phase 2

Selling in the community.

This is the part I am planning to go big on. I just learned today that setting up the book sale in shopping malls will be free! I will probably be selling this book in several major shopping centres around Toronto. Mainwhile, I will be contacting the media for publicity and promoting. I will probably contact all of the major media outlet for their support and voice. Once this is done, I think selling the rest 1500 copies should be no problem at all!

Now that I finished the actual writing of the book, the stress is gone. The selling and promotion wont be too easy, but it will sure be very exciting! From all the excitment and ice capp I just drank, I feel so hyper! My hand is trembling on the keyboard, I guess it's going to be tough for me to sleep tonight.

Thank you so much for all the support. Stay tunned to the good news over the next little while. I will mainly do the updates on the blog with the occasional messeges sent from facebook( Someone already complained about me spamming their inbox with useless info :( ).

See you all and I hope you have a GREAT last few days of summer!

I guess start to update this blog

Its been quite a while since I updated here. So I guess I'll start now.

Anyhow, most of you must be wondering about the current progress. If you were a member of my group on facebook, you should have some ideas about it.

My book is near completion, just some finishing touches with the editing and design, it will be done product. I've already started to contact printing companies and is trying to get the best price possible.

As for the selling of the book, right now I have some basic ideas. However, I don't want to rush it out before discussing it with the others. I will be giving a letter to the principal of Agincourt CI(my school) informing him about this fundraiser. I am hoping to have a discussion with him at the beginning of the school year.

There will be a meeting with people that are helping me this Wednesday, drawing more ideas about how to organize this fundraiser. I will have an official plan a couple days before school starts.

That is all for now, I'll give you guys more updates later on. Right now I am on quite the rush XD

Up VS Wall-e movie review

First and foremost of course... update on Imagine a world. Yes, I am currently working on it. I am able to get 7 stories done so far and probably after I got off the plane... Oh wait, did I say plane? Yeah, I'm gonna back to China on Monday. Before you go "Whoaa", I'll give ya a little more details later.

Pixar... What can I say, not only are they the BEST animated film producer. They just produces classics after classics! While everybody have their personal opinions on which of their films are the best, most people agree, almost all of them are awesome! I personally think the latest two films by pixar are THE best of the best. They are definitely now my two most favourite movies of all time!

Before I go on bickering which one is better, I'd like to say, both of them are AMAZING. AMAZING animation, AMAZING storyline, just absolutely AMAZING. While these films may be entertaining for kids. They send adults through rollercoster rides of cries and laughter.

Wall-e so far is THE ONLY movie, tv show and anything media related that made me have a few tears beside my eyes. I wont go in to much details about Wall-E, alot of you probably already watched it(and hopefully enjoyed it as much as me ) and if you didn't, all you need to know is that this movie is beautiful.

Just watched UP in theaters for the second time yesterday, was planning to watch it the third time on Tuesday, but if I will be in China at that time, I guess it foiled it.

So how good is it? Well, let me tell you, it made half of the theatre cry the first 10 minutes of the film!


While the storyline itself isn't anything stunning(well compared to Wall-e), the way it was presented as well as the moral story behind it made this movie another Pixar classic. To add to the fun, this film is very funny! Defintely one of the funniest movie I've seen, adding this to an already charming film is just a bonus.

while I am not overwhelmed with emotions 10 minutes in, the scene that almost did it for me was near the climax, but if only their where some slight changes to the presentation (make it a bit slower and adding the soft theme music in the background). I think I will definitely be in tears.

This is a really tough decision for me, but I really have to give the winner to Wall-e. While Up is easily the most humorous of the two. Wall-e just slightly edges off Up in the department of animation, storyline and emotion. While Up brought me close to tears. Wall-E is the one that actually did.

I will probably set up a rating system for movies later on, but I feel that I already talked a little bit too much.

And yes, I will most likely be on the other half of planet earth in 3 days. All thanks to the cheap plane ticket offered for that particular day(we are Asian, what more can I say?). Was orignally going sometime in mid July, but oh well, this is much better ;)

Thats all for now, but remember to follow me on this blog while I have my own adventures in China.(Remember, adventure is out there!-Up)

The start of a new era

As we take the final jog of grade ten back from school on Friday, it meant the end of yet another school year for all of us. However, this jog, walk or maybe hobble of mine(with a sprained ankle) meant something extra; It meant an end to an era, and a start of a new one.

The last four years was fun indeed, from booing a teacher in front of the whole school and being one of the most unpopular kid in class, to the person I grew up to be today . From the optimistic kid who sat at the end of the table thinking things will eventually become better, to the optimistic kid who believes that he will be able to take on a big challenge. Terry overcame countless mental obstacles, taking them on with the typical Terry attitude, a positive one. This however will never be enough; What I lacked these four years are the extra juice, the extra effort and the extra mind-frame that will allow someone to achieve something special. from the get go of high school, I knew this time will need to come eventually. The time to digest that juice is now.

Looking ahead, to this summer, to grade eleven, to university, there are big challenges after big challenges. From the task of writing and selling a book, to the task of taking over the spot of top in the academic standing. From the typical stress of university/scholarship application to the typical stress of living-one-my-own university life itself. I will be venturing into territories I've never ventured before.

Will I be able to handle the stress? Will I really be able to put full effort on things after slacking off for four years? Will I really have the will power to stay consistent the whole time? Will I really be able to deliver my full potential?

These are the questions I have to answer throughout the next several years. Questions that I have the confidence that I will answer with authority.

Despite what looms ahead of me, I am looking forward to the challenges, looking forward to the stress and looking forward to the start of this new era.Taking on with me the belief a busy life is far more interesting than a non-eventful one. I will tackle whatever life throws at me for the next few years with full effort, full energy. The transformation from the king of procrastination to the king of academics will be painful but well worth it.

As the old cliche goes, an expression being used oh so often.

Bring it on.

Dedications Announced

Today, I am happy to announce two very deserving people whom will be dedicated in my book. The following dedication will appear on the second page of "imagine a world"

For Leon and Jessica,
whom had been supportive of me,
since the very beginning.

Both Leon and Jessica were the first ones to read my writing,they praised and helped my writing ever since I started to write 6 month ago, they continued to do so ever since. Thanks to their encouraging words, I continued this hobby of mine enthusiastically;They were one of the reasons why I even got to this point. When I started this fundraiser, once again, they did not hesitate to help me.

To both of you for the warm support of this short start of my writing career, Thank you!

More on "Imagine a world"

Since this book will be fully promoted as the charity fundraiser in a very short while, I guess I am all but forced to give you guys a little bit more details on this would be book of mine.

But before I get to that first, I would like to give you guys a little bit of information of the promoting side of things. Starting next Monday, I would be posting teaser posters of this book around the school, mainly to create interest of this project as well as a message informing people to come to this blog or join the facebook group(p.s if you have a fb account and you are reading here the first time, please join the group as well.) My goal is to reach 500 group members by the end of the summer, in order to do that, I need help from all of you. Please invite as much people as you can!

If you want to help me with the early promotions, you can either just spread the word or contact me to see what you can do. Especially if you don't go to ACI, I would really appreciate those of you to help me spread this to your school too.

Alright on to the book....

This will be the first ever book I will be putting out combined the fact that I am still an undergraduate from highschool will probably mean that my writing will not be the best. I think my vocabulary is not yet big enough and my writing style still needs to be a bit polished. However, the fact that all these stories came out of my heart combined with my descent creativity should make this book at the very least enjoyable to read for most of you.

most of you probably know that this book will be a collection of short stories and poems by me. These stories will all vary in length, topic and theme, but all these stories have one central idea. The idea that people should explore all aspects of life and take enjoyment from it, which will be concluded nicely at the end.

I like to compare this book of mine to a song album. although each song of an album is different, they all work best when they are put together. The order of the stories and poems will be put together with great consideration. It is used to set different mood and mood changes throught the book. Although they are all separated short stories, I think this book will be enjoyed best by reading it in order.

That is all for now, stay tuned!

My first book will be for a good cause!

The kid full of ideas is back again, and this time I will have immediate action.

Since I will be finishing my first "book" by the end of summer and since the chances of getting anything published from an unknown author is extremely slim, I thought of a fantastic idea to not only to get started on my writing career but also making a world a better place.

After I finished this book, I will be printing them out in copies and sell it for a low price( around 3 bucks). ALL the money I earned from this will go directly to a charity foundation(Which one is TBD). This means that I will be covering all the printing costs by my self and which ever money you paid for the book will be the amount donated to that charity

During the summer, I will also be contacting several charities for their support on this charity fundraiser and I will eventually determine which charity I will be donating all the money to.

Eventually, I will expand this into a club sort of thing where everybody can contribute their own writing selling for charity. But for the first book, I will be selling "imagine a world" by me starting from the beginning of next year.

If you are reading this the first time here and is support this idea of mine or is willing to help me, please comment "support" in the comment section of the note on facebook. Once I get 20 supporters, I will make a group titled "Terry's write for charity group" and get started from there. This group will be used for updates and further information. theyoungweatherman.blogspo

t.com will be the official site of this for now and also be used for the same purpose

Thank for all the support and by writing "support", you are already taking the first step for this good cause!

Time to get some updates in

before I start to promote this place fully, I guess I have to get this blog started. If you are visiting this blog, your probably know me on some extend or other. I will be keeping this blog up and posting updates about myself personally, my opinions on thins and such. This will also be the "official website" of my writings and stories until I actually open up a real one. For all the updates, previews and such about all the things I write or will write. This is the place you will get information.

I wont be talking to much since nothing is on my mind right now. Oh wait, there is one thing.... Kim Jong Ils Back!(If you don't know who he is, shame on you :D).

Bye for now, need to get busy with some other stuffs.