Oral Presentation Reflection

I am very disappointed in myself for giving such a lacklustre performance. I expected much better of myself, because of the heaps of practice and amount of time we had to prepare for this OP.

During my oral presentation, I felt that I didn't look around the audience as much as I hoped I would. I had also wanted to click on my slides without looking, but I failed to do so. I was very nervous, and that affects my presentations to quite a large extent, as I've gathered from my previous experiences. I thought I engaged the audience, but I paused at awkward moments when the audiences whispered to each other, though I should've ignored that. In my recap, one of the recommendations slipped out of my mind for a moment. Unfortunately, it was pretty obvious, and I'm still kicking myself for that right now. Things got better in Q&A, and I thought I fared slightly better. I felt very much "frozen" throughout my OP.

Now for the whining part: I met my group (another module) for discussion and it ended in the wee hours. When I finally got back home, I couldn't sleep and I ended up staying up the whole night. Fatigue may have attributed to my lousy performance, but I felt it was the gradual build-up of tension from insomnia that slaughtered me.

On a slightly more cheerful note, I'm thankful it's over!

On an even more cheerful note, no more assignments!

Cheers!

Comm you and I cation!

In communicating with others, nobody is perfect. People make mistakes, emotions mar judgement, and even though we may have learnt in class the proper thing to do or the politically correct thing to say, real-time communication doesn't always allow us to give the ideal reaction. Reflection, however, can bring us closer to what we expect of ourselves. In learning, it is essential that we reflect and correct ourselves, so we don't commit the same mistake again.

That was just my take on communication and reflection.

On the value of effective communication skills, my understanding of it hasn't changed: never underestimate it. They say behind every successful man is a woman; I say they missed out the part on how they all have powerful communication skills too. I simply believe.

To me, for this module, the past 12 weeks have been a journey. We wrote minutes, business letters, pieced a report together - complete with a survey, worked on our cover letters and CVs, now we even have our own E-portfolio. What I appreciated most about this course, was the writing practice we were given. And it was good that it came in chunks, not 1500 or 3000 word essays. Oh, we have subconsciously been reading quite a lot too. Haha. It kind of felt like growth, and I know that this journey will not end with this course.

In response to my first post(s), I feel better prepared to "take on the world". Haha. Yes, I am better prepared for my job interview (to come in summer 2010) and I will continue preparing myself for it. I find going through my own CV and cover letter a real bonus in this course. I have also learnt more about other cultures - I believe I have learnt more about them the past 3 months than I have in all the years before! Thank you Brad, for being our teacher. I have no regrets reading this module.

I'd also like to thank all of you, my friends, for being part of this experience. I have learnt much from you.

Edited 15 April 2009 - Grammer

Biodata

My name is Tng Wee Guan and I was born and bred in Singapore. I attended school at Nan Chiau High School (Primary), Anglo-Chinese School (Independent), then Anglo-Chinese Junior College, and am currently in the National University of Singapore (NUS). Intrigued by laws of mathematics and physics, I have a strong interest in my current field of study, Mechanical Engineering. I like to be thorough in my work and have a keen eye for analyzing. During my course of study in NUS, I have also discovered in myself an enthusiasm for working with others in a team.

In NUS, I started out by attending the Engineering Freshmen Orientation Camp. The following year, I returned to join the Engineering Freshmen Orientation Camp as an Orientation Group Leader. I was also drawn into the Sociology Society, an affiliate of the Faculty of Arts and Social Science in NUS, by my friends. A member of the Organizing Cell of the Society, I assisted in the organizing of activities such as the annual bazaar and the career fair. In my second year in the Society, I headed the Publicity Cell, which was responsible for the design of t-shirts and posters, and liaised closely with the Marketing Cell for sponsorships and funding. I have learnt a lot from my experience in the Society.

I have also interned at CPG Corporation Pte Ltd, where I gained exposure to the field under a Mechanical Engineer. There, I assisted in the design of Air Handling Units for an upcoming government building. I have also acquired good working relations with the staff and other engineers.

After graduation, I hope to excel in the field of Engineering in the private construction sector. I will also be grateful for learning opportunities in the financial sector.

Edited: Added internship details; Used full name [3 Apr 09]; Deleted paragraph 2 [13 Aug 13]

Five

Smallville is an American television series developed by writers/producers Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, based on the DC Comics character Superman, created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. The plot follows the adventures of a young Clark Kent's (Tom Welling) life in the fictional town of Smallville, Kansas, during the years before he becomes Superman (Wikipedia, 2009).

An avid fan of Smallville, I’ve gotten a breathtaking view into Clark’s life, his many loves, his undying morals and stubbornness, even his fantasies or nightmares. What I’m going to write about this morning is non-verbal communication.

Clark was very much in love with a girl called Lana. She was the girl next door, and they’ve braved through many storms/episodes to end up how they are now. Have you heard of Lex Luthor? Lex Luthor was Clark’s arch rival, be it in love or in, well, matters of the world. They were enemies, though they had a rather strong friendship in the earlier seasons of Smallville.

Lex had just found out one of the biggest secrets in the world. He knows who Clark really is, where he came from, all of his abilities and most importantly, all of his weaknesses. Lex was, however, unable to harm the world in any way, because there is nothing left of him but his brain. Furthermore, there was nobody who could trust him enough to work for him (anymore).

Lana went away for a while, training under the toughest she could get her hands on. She wanted to be strong as she saw herself as a liability for Clark. She left Smallville earlier because of an incident where Clark almost lost the world because of her. She uncovered what she thought was Lex Luthor’s plan to become superhuman. She hijacked the plan and paid off the many people to make it hers. She underwent the operation and became somewhat of a –gasp- superhero. Little did she know that she was also a walking Kryptonite sucking superhero. Kryptonite is a kind of rock that came from the planet Krypton (before it was destroyed). It makes Clark vulnerable and weak.

In the beginning, it was near perfect. Having super powers took away Lana’s fears and they could be together, no worries involved. They even fought crime together. It all began when Kryptonite was being used by some of the villains. Clark was weak to Kryptonite, so Lana would take care of it. She began absorbing the kryptonite’s ability to make Clark go weak. It was a matter of time when her kryptonite buildup would kill him. This was a very very sad episode for me. They were like the Sun and the Moon - they could never exist at the same time. There was no chance they could ever be together again.

The non-verbal communication here? Lex’s hatred for Clark.

Lex Luthor had a plan to transform a person into a superhuman, but it was not for himself. He was in a state where it was not physically feasible for him to undergo the operation without killing himself. He was also married to Lana (for a period of time) so he understood her and her longing to be with Clark. The latter was what enabled Lex to come up with such a vicious plan. It made Lana predictable – she would seek strength to void the liability in her, as mentioned – and easy to plan for. So Lana was the intended person for the operation. Lex hated Clark so much that he wanted to take away the love of his life and make it impossible for them to ever be together. Lex also loved Lana, so it was obvious to him what he had to do to deprive them of each other.

Lex Luthor is such a bitter villain!

It also shows us how strong a message can be brought across through non-verbal communication. In fact, in my opinion, it is the strongest message that anyone can bring across. Imagine the suicides and the messages that come with it. Imagine the killings and the messages that they are conveying. Imagine the things people do in the name of love and hatred. Don't you think that non-verbal communications sometimes convey much stronger messages than words can?

Sorry for the long post!

Ref: Search Smallville on Wikipedia.org

Four

Nan Chiau Primary School was my school for 6 years. It was small, very simple, and everyone knew each other. It was a comfortable place to grow up in. After graduating from primary school, everybody went their separate ways. In the leaving cohort there were only around a hundred students, so people were lucky if they went to the same secondary school.

I wasn’t so lucky. I was the only person from Nan Chiau Primary to be posted to Boys’ School X. I haven’t heard of it before and I didn’t even know it was an all boys’ school (till days before the first day of school). It turned out to be a huge school with over 400 students per cohort. It was also a mission school (religious education was part of the curriculum in school).

All along, my parents have been rather open with my choice of religion so I’ve never had any form of religious education before. At the same time, both of them are Buddhists, so you can roughly guess which side I’m skewed towards. So imagine how it was like for me to attend a service and be told that it was compulsory, and to bring a hymnal along to sing songs of praise every Tuesday, and stand through long “sharing” sessions by the teachers every single morning during assembly.

The worst part of it was: I was alone. Only some weeks later, I made some friends and things weren’t as bad as before. There was this boy, Eugene, who was going through the same patch as I. We took it up to the Head of Level (Secondary One) and asked her why the Indian boys were excused and us, not. She gave us the mission school reason and we were simply defeated. After that, I gave in. I sat in services with an open mind and enjoyed all the morals of the stories.

All till Mrs Icantsayhername, my Literature teacher, got off the wrong side of bed one morning and came into class with a mission of her own. She wasn’t into teaching that morning; she simply came and preached to us in an awfully misleading manner. She was trying to put across a simple message: Non-believers convert or you will be going to hell. That hour of lecture was etched deeply in my memories.

Nicholas asked me later during recess, “Roy, how? Are you converting?”

“No, are you?” I asked.

“Yea, don’t convert will go to hell eh,” he replied.

She managed to intimidate a few of my classmates into converting. Nicholas was one of them.

Later in life, I’ve had friends bringing me to services at different churches; I even went to some on my own accord. I’ve come to know the meaning of service and preaching, of hymns and of prayers. I believe Mrs Icantsayhername meant well, but she let her emotions get the better of her and chose to spread the word in a not-so-subtle way.

Is there something else in her behavior that I’m not seeing?

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Three

Subject: TIP Seminars: NES BizAsia Entrepreneurial Exchange Program 2009


Dear TIP Students

Please note that there are three upcoming event each of which is recognised by TIP as "1 TIP seminar". Details and registration of the events are attached.
If you like to attend, please register, if required, direct with the event organisers.

Do remember to bring along your logsheet and obtain the signature of any one of the receptionists or officials at the event to certify your attendance. You do not need any additional signatures on the logsheet.

A copy of the logsheet can be downloaded here: http://www.tip.eng.nus.edu.sg/_downloads/logsheet.doc.

TIP Seminars attendance is one of the components of EG1603: TIP Instructional Workshops & Seminars. To obtain 2 MCs for EG 1603, students have to complete all the following satisfactorily:-

- A 3-day "TIP Workshop"
- At least 4 "TIP Seminars"
- One Summary Report (of between 800 to 1000 words) summarizing what you have specifically learnt from the 4 seminars attended.

Note: The 4 TIP Seminars can be done anytime, i.e. before or after the TIP Workshops. There is no time limit for this EG1603 Module. However we prefer that the TIP Workshop is completed before the start of the final Semester before graduation.

When you have completed the above requirements, please scan in your logsheet and send it together with your report to Dr John Bauly at engjb@nus.edu.sg.


Regards
Undisclosed (Ms) :: Management Assistant Officer, Office of Undergraduate Programs, Faculty of Engineering :: National University of Singapore :: Blk XX, #0X-XX, 9 Engineering Drive 1, Singapore 1175XX :: 65-6516 XXXX (DID) :: 65-6774 XXXX (FAX) :: XXXXXXX@nus.edu.sg (E) :: www.eng.nus.edu.sg (W) :: Company Registration No: 200604346E

----------------------------------------------------

Background information: This is an email I receive very often. TIP stands for Technopreneurship & Incubation Program and this program is open to students across NUS.

To begin with, in the “Subject” field, NES should be in full, i.e., NUS Entrepreneurship Society. There are many more societies and organizations taking part in this program, so I feel that the full name of the organization should be used.

Next, this email seems to be in block format with open punctuation, so the punctuation in the addressee, salutation and complimentary close are omitted. Furthermore, at first glance, the email seems messy with links and bolds and italics all over. I feel that it can be improved with better organization.

This email is addressed to TIP Students only. Thus, the students receiving these mails are those who have already registered for the program. Most of the information provided in this email are present in the TIP website, so I feel that they can be omitted. Also, Ms Undisclosed has included more information on the event itself directly below her email, so I feel it would be best to have kept it short and concise.

In her first sentence, Ms Undisclosed should have underlined “three upcoming events” because I missed it out totally. It could be bolded and in italics, like “register, if required, direct with the event organisers” so that the email would be consistent.

I like that Ms Undisclosed gave a gentle reminder of the logsheet because I have forgotten about it before. After that paragraph, all the extra information below the reminder could be exchanged for a simple “For more information on the TIP, please visit inserttechnopreneurshipandincubationprogramlinkhere.”

P.S. Oh no the formatting of the email cannot be seen.

Boy and Girl

Characters involved: Boy and Girl
Boy is an army recruit, while Girl starts work as a part time office girl.

Things to note:
Boy and Girl are in a relationship (6 months).
Boy will “book out” and return home every Saturday afternoon.
Girl is thinking of taking up Salsa lessons.

Here’s what happened:

One Saturday afternoon, Boy calls Girl. He tells her that he has been confined for talking back to the Instructors and will not be able to return home till Sunday morning. She sighs.

Two days ago, she signed up for Salsa lessons for the both of them. The classes are held on Saturday evenings (7 pm). She is really interested in Salsa and is disappointed that she’d have to go for the first lesson by herself.

(She went for the Salsa lesson by herself. Nevertheless, she made some new friends and enjoyed it.)

Boy and Girl met on Sunday morning and they talked about the Salsa lesson. Boy and Girl have this mutual possessiveness going on between them, so Boy wasn’t very happy about the whole she-went-for-salsa-lesson-without-him thing. He did not trust other guys with Girl and especially not the guy salsa instructor.

(They agreed that the best way for Salsa to work out in her life is if he comes along the next week, to see how things are like in class so he could feel more assured.)

A week passes and it’s Saturday again. This week, Boy just returned from “Field Camp”. He has been out in the woods the past week and is so physically drained that he wishes not to go for the Saturday night Salsa lesson with Girl. Boy feels guilty about it but he needs this recovery period for his body to keep up with the strenuous military training. Girl felt very disappointed because she had high hopes that with this Saturday night’s lesson, Boy would show some approval of these Salsa lessons and she could then properly welcome Salsa into her life.

(They are at a stage where Girl would not feel at ease doing something that Boy doesn’t trust her to do. In other words, she wants his full support before she feels at ease doing it.)

Additional points to note are:
Girl is seriously upset.
Boy is seriously tired.
They are quarreling now and they come to a standstill.

Help them out! What should they say to each other to make things right? (Subjective)


edited Saturday, 7.48am.
(grammar!)