“Individually we are one drop. But together, we are an ocean.” (Satoro, 2013)

In Ngee Ann Polytechnic, every student was encouraged to participate in the Overseas Immersion Programmes (OIP) or the Overseas Community Service Trips (YEP). I was lucky that I could be involved in both OIP and YEP. 

I went to Wuhan, China for OIP that lasted for 5 weeks. At Wuhan, my group of friends and I stayed in the local polytechnic campus dormitory, as there were 60 over student's, entire block of dormitory was filled with Ngee Ann students. The disadvantage of the dormitory was, it does not have lifts. Students staying at higher level had to climb up several flights of stairs. The intention was to encourage students to climb the stairs which is a form of exercise. Although the intention was good, the students faced a huge problem when we had to move our luggage in and out of the dormitory. 

Even though many of the students did not know one another, everyone was willing to lend out their hand to help. Without any form of communications, the role of every student was clear to everyone. Male students would just grab the bigger luggage and head towards the flight of stairs. The ladies would either approach smaller luggage or work in pairs to carry a bigger luggage. Some students would also help to take care of the luggage that was left behind or grabbed luggage that went sliding down the slope next to the dormitory. The entire process was smooth and all of us had a role. Teamwork had happened without any of us noticing. 

Similar thing happened in my YEP trip in Luang Prabang, Laos. The group of 30 students and lecturer went to visit the local elephant village. The tour consists of visiting the baby elephant that was located uphill. Along the way uphill, there was no ‘road’, it was entirely a nature trail. The time taken to travel uphill usually takes 10 minutes on sunny day. However, on the day of visit, it was raining. The students were already half drenched prior to walking up hill, which took us 30 minutes. 

Screams could be heard as we travel uphill. The trail was muddy due to the rain, and this makes it slippery. A few of the students even fell and landed themselves in the mud. Many of the girls were holding on to one another, trying to keep their balanced. As the rain gets big, no one had mentioned of stopping, everyone kept on going. I also had handed out my umbrella and sweater to the girls that were totally drenched. The walk uphill finally ended with disappointment when we managed to see the one and only baby elephant.

The way downhill was a nightmare. I really hoped that I had a cardboard to slide down the muddy trail. As it may be dangerous for everyone to travel downhill at one go, the students were separated to travel in different batches. The way downhill was really slippery, yet the male students just slide down without difficulty. I slide down accidentally, thus I joined the group to help the others. The male students and I would take the lead and find a ‘non-slippery’ step for the others to land on. After the males students and I had stand firmed on the muddy trail, the females students would take their hand and travel downwards slowly. Our travelling pace also slows down to prevent any form of injuries and accidents. The process repeated several time with the male students leading ahead. When the entire crew managed to reach the bottom of the hill, everyone cheered. Many might not have noticed, but the lecturers that went through the journey with us looked pleased. As one of the senior students in the trip, the lecturer shared with me that they had truly enjoyed the view of the students working together to overcome our challenge. 

OIP and YEP expand my horizon, which allows me to understand the culture and traditions of different countries. Through the trips, I also learnt to be independent and the importance of teamwork. Without teamwork, the challenges I faced in China and Laos would not be easily overcome. Teamwork was a precious takeaway from the events.

“Individually we are one drop. But together, we are an ocean.” (Satoro, 2013)
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Satoro, R. (2011). Ryunosuke Satoro Quotes. Retrieved November 28, 2015, from http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/r/ryunosuke_satoro.html

Oral Presentation Reflection

On Monday, my team and I completed our presentation. We had prepared for the presentation in the past weeks, the team also meet up the day before the presentation.

It had been more than half a year since my last presentation, I was really nervous. Everything seems to happen so fast in that short 5 minutes of my presentation, and I can hardly recall what had happened. My only memory was during the Q&A and feedback session. Based on the feedback and evaluation, the team and I still had rooms for improvement. Notable mistakes of the team were not using pointers and the arrangement of the slides, the flow of the presentation was a bit messy. Besides the mistakes and negative feedback, there were also positive feedback. The idea of the destination alarm application seems to be well-received among the class, many even said that it would be a feasible plan. The prototype in the slides had also caught the class attention, the prototype had made things easier for everyone to understand the function of the destination alarm application.

Reflecting on my performance based on the feedback in class and from the peer evaluation, the following are things that i should look out for in my future presentation.

1. Eye contact. It was commented in the evaluation that I was lacking of eye contact with the class, however the comment varies among the evaluation. I believe I had focus on having eye contact with certain part of the class only, thus receiving the feedback of lack of eye contact.
2. Confident. During the feedback session, it was commented that I was confident with the presentation. With the clear projection of voice and gestures made during the presentation, I managed to mask my nervous self. I hope that I will keep up with it.
3. Hand gestures. Without pointers, i ended up with more hand gestures than others. The amount of hand gestures had became a distraction and it ought to be reduced to a suitable amount. And what is a suitable amount? 
4. In appropriate transition to the next speaker. I did not hand over to the last speaker ‘fluently’ as my thought became blanked at that moment. This actually contrast the confident figure that I was as compared to when I was presenting. Further preparation could have been done, a few more rehearsal should improve the problem.
5. Grammar and language. I stumbled for a few times during the presentation, filler words were also used. This made the presentation less professional and not really fluent. Rehearsals and improving in language maybe the solution. 

No one is a born speaker. Learning and improving from our mistakes will be the key to be great in presenting.