Why I want to teach

Many people have asked me this question, only for me to brush it off with a diplomatic answer of doing public service to the nation. Deep in my heart, I know I need to have a comprehensive answer to account for my switch in career to teach. Here are the reasons:

1. I want to use this chance to do my Masters. I felt that being in the teaching line - gives me the best chance of doing well in my studies. I can pursue knowledge, gain wisdom and share my learnings with my students. It's a win-win-win situation for the institution, the students and me.

2. I want to do something that is more aligned to my interests. I love to do public speaking. I started my journey on Toastmasters 5 years ago and am still loving the feeling of doing a speech in front of an audience. Putting an interest as a job - is as good as it gets. I get paid for doing my job, which can only motivate me to do work - beyond just carrying it as a mundane task.

3. This institution has similar values with me. For one, it belongs in learning and development, placing much emphasis on the need to carry out Problem-Based Learning (PBL) effectively and invests in conducting a wide spectrum of courses. I believe that it is only through learning that I constantly and continually become a more well-rounded person.

4. There are avenues to pursue my interest. I believe a job is not just an avenue to pay one's bills, but allows for dreams to come true. I have thought of carrying out community outreach project, doing outdoor adventure camps, heading an overseas trip, setting up a toastmasters club, participating actively in sports and even pursuing a PhD. This job becomes a career allows me to possibly fulfil my dreams.

5. I would be adding value to myself. If each person has a value attached to himself and that value is based on his skills set and marketability, I would like to view teaching as an area that would increase my self-worth, whereby I would be conversant in handling sticky situations with participants.

Working on my Feedback

People often carry out their work, without any feedback. Maybe it started since we were young. After we finished our exams, we seldom look back at our papers to go through our mistakes. Is it because we are already given a grade for that performance? Are we so short-sighted that we fail to see that learning from our mistakes will help us in our future exams? Maybe the childhood habit has become a life-long trait of us.

As I scored an 'A' during my Area S1 Speech Evaluation Contest, I know I still needed some feedback. Thankfully, CH voluntarily gave me 2 suggestions for improvement. I thank him for not being silent because his comments meant that he wanted me to get rid of it and probably save me from future embarassment.

Today, I focussed on one of his suggestions - to signpost my recommendations during my evaluation. An example I could use - would be "Next, may this humble engineer give you a suggestion on how you could fly even higher?" Another example could have been, "This was one of your strengths that kept your helicopter high in the air." I learnt that having an analogy at the introduction of my speech isn't sufficient. An effective analogy requires me to constantly make reference to it during the speech so that people can make ocassional connections to subject matter.

My next 'exam' awaits me. With a review of my performance, I now brace myself for the unknown.

What's Next for Me?

Recently, I participated in the PA Humorous Speech Challenge. The objective of the Contest was to provide an avenue for members of the public to do a humorous speech, preferably with elements of jokes in a local context.

Last year was my first time having a go at this national contest. Though I generated much laughter, I was disqualified as I exceeded the time allocated by a mere 2 seconds. My mistake then was not having rehearsed sufficiently and not paying attention to the lighting signals.

This year, I decided to give it another try. My results going into this Contest wasn't as impressive as before. Last year, I was the humorous champion in both Area and Club levels. This year, I only managed to scrap through with a 3rd place during my club contest.

Knowing that my club performance isn't sufficient, I chose to re-write my speech for the recent PA Humorous Speech Contest. This year, there was a strong field of 25 contestants, with several fresh and young faces proving their talent. Giving my best shot, I squeezed some laughter out of the audience, based on a simple and structured humorous speech. That got me into the top 12, i.e. the finals, of the Contest. When the results were announced, that sense of euphoria went through my head, for I have finally achieved what I failed to attain last year.

As I get in touch with my thoughts, what I saw was a mountainous path in winning this Contest. I have become more experienced after completing an Advanced Manual on Humorously Speaking. I know what tickles people. But watching other stronger competitors speak - makes me reflect that my capability and 'weapon' - is not going to be sufficient to get myself onto the podium.

What's next for me? Do I give up? Do I persereve only to fail? Maybe I should scramble to find new weapons to fight for the summit. Or maybe I should understand that at least I have even dreamt of such an ambitious thought...

Meaningful Reflections?

Today, I attended a course titled 'Encouraging meaningful reflections through reflective journals (RJs)'. I am excited over the authority of being able to set questions every day for the students to answer. I am intrigued over the directive of requiring students to reflect through the day's learning. I am fascinated to know that I can read the thoughts of 25 students.

Beyond all the initial enthusiasm in deciding students' fates and grades through their RJs, I am blessed to have a job that stays close to my faith - a practice of self-reflection, a routine of writing my posts and a belief that this is for my spiritual health. This job not allows me to blog, this job wants to teach people how to blog effectively and get paid for it. 

Whilst others might have grown sceptical after reading boring / blunt / bad entries, I am filling myself with enthusiasm as to how I can shape the habits of students in my faith for blogging. Maybe other facilitators are tired about reading mindless entries by students. Maybe they are finding it difficult to sieve out the better responses from the students. But what enlightens and yet entangles me today is the following statement - "What I am looking out for in my students’ RJ response will determine the question that I actually set".

As I reflect on the higher-order level, I ask myself - Is the process of recording my thought process sufficient? Have I been blogging intelligently over the past few years? Or maybe I should just ask myself - what was I looking out in my own response that sets me out to blog?

My Little Success at the Toastmasters Arena

Last year, I experienced some moments of being at the summit by winning both the Humorous Speech and Speech Evaluation Contests at the club level. This year, I participated at both segments of the contest at club level, but only achieved 3rd and 2nd position respectively. Maybe the playing field was of a higher level, maybe I could have deproved, maybe it was meant to be wake-up call.

The top 2 from each club progressed to the Area level. Last year, I was the winner for both segments and had the opportunity to represent my club at both segments of the contest at Area level. I became the Area's Humorous Speech Champion, but I only achieved the 1st runner-up position at the Speech Evaluation segment. I was beaten by KO who was 1st runner-up at the club contest.

This year, my standards probably deproved. As I was 1st runner-up at my club's Speech Evaluation Contest, so I only had a shot at redeeming myself at the Area's Speech Evaluation Contest. After a hard fought contest, I beat my club's Speech Evaluation champion and came in 1st. Maybe I wasn't as humorous as before, but today's little success meant that I was probably still an expert at critising people. The success in an ironical manner meant that I am still good in a not-so-good manner.

When Common Sense doesn't Prevail

Sy and I travelled to Langkawi for a 4D3N holiday. We stayed at Frangipani Resort and Spa, which is located conveniently at the fringe of the more popular Pantai Cenang beach. Common sense tells me that it would save money to take that occasional taxi to reach places not accessible by foot. Sy and I never rented a car before, especially when it's going to be a hotel stay for 3 consecutive nights, unlike holidays with hotel-to-hotel changes every night.

However, the cost of taking a taxi is high. We found that out when we took a 15-min taxi ride from the airport to our nearby hotel for MYR 20. In the end, we rented a car (Perodua Kancil) for a day, costing up to MYR 109 (MYR 90 for the rent and MYR 19 for the fuel).

Ironically, renting a car doesn't burn a hole in our pockets. If we had not rented the car, the cost of the taxi fares would have escalated our holiday expenses. The breakdown of the costs is as such: MYR 56 to the cable car (2 x MYR 28 each for a one-way trip), approximately MYR 60 to Kuah town shopping centre (2 x MYR 30 each for a one-way trip), MYR 6 for a dinner outing at Tomato Restaurant.

In addition, it gave us the convenience of not having to wait for a cab, the luxury of having to not lug our shopping throughout the day, and the mobility to explore the island.

We challenged our conventional thought of not renting a car. We re-studied how we can better achieve cost savings through a car rental. Maybe we should always be open to new ideas and never accept the norms as a steady state...

Scaling the heights in Langkawi

One of the main attractions in Langkawi is that of the Cable Car. Unlike the cable car we have in Singapore, this one starts from the base of the mountain to a height of 700 metres. Though I have not tried out Singapore's cable car, the monotonous & short sky ride from Habourfront to Sentosa doesn't seem to be worth my efforts, even during my free time.

In my opinion, the cable car, costing MYR 30 (SGD 12.30) is probably the most enjoyable thing-to-do in Langkawi. The base station is conveniently located at Oriental Village, which comprises of a variety of touristy shops. The journey is more than 1,700m long in terms of distance traveled; it comprises of the middle station at 650m and the top station at 700m. Besides the breathtaking view at each of the stations, one can also experience the steep climbs, especially during the final ascent towards the middle station. In some way, the latter gives that roller-coaster feeling, giving us a dose of adrenaline each. Amidst our stay at the summit, we also managed to take photos at the curve hanging bridge.

Maybe it was the scenery that makes me happy. Maybe it was the feeling of being at the top of the world that makes me high. Maybe it was the feeling of escaping from the humidity at the base station that makes me cool. I guessed little joys like all these - adds up to form the happiness within a holiday.

Little Fockers - Laughter in a Sequel

'Little Fockers' is a sequel to the movie 'Meet the Parents' which was produced back in the year 2000. Back then, the movie produced much unanticipated laughter from a crowd who could connect easily with the plot. This time round, the plot was thin, the jokes were half-baked and laughter was barely in sight.

Maybe it was because jokes, such as how easily adults were scared by the pet lizard did not appeal to an audience like me. Maybe it was because the audience nowadays are harder to please. Maybe what appeared as jokes to them didn't come across to us as jokes.

Recently, I participated at the Club's Humorous Speech Contest. Though I spent much of my time re-writing the contents of my slapstick-like speech titled 'Voting during Courtship', I did not make the audience burst out in any sign of an audible laugh. Only through reflection and defeat did I come up with 4 learning points. I figured that laughter comprises of:

(i) Warming up the audience sufficiently, and hence it does not help that I went first onto the stage as part of the draw of the lot,

(ii) Using previous jokes to enhance the current jokes, and hence kudos to other contestants who used me promptly to lighten up the audience,

(iii) Making jokes more light-hearted and easily comprehensible, as Singaporeans are a stressful bunch of people who doesn't try to think too much into your contents, and

(iv) Making simple noises, instead of the usual jokes (e.g. 'tan, tan, tan, tan' created some laughs).

Just like how this movie has turned out, maybe I need to reflect on my recent performance. Whilst I was easily amongst last year's Division S' best, my sequel, released on 31-Aug, only got me a 2nd runner up placing.