POO practical - the 4 ball time exercise

Time flies, it's towards end of semester again, where lectures have completed and it's time to do something else more interesting.

As ususal I told the class it's non examable, no extra marks given, it's not related to safety module, no attebdance taken purely optional. And it's on 8.30am very early in the morning.

In the past semesters, once such conditions were issueed out...straight away will make more than 1/2 the class decided NOT to come already. And in the end at most we have 2 groups to form and have fun and we took pticures for memory and also sotred in the graduation CD later.

This semester, surprisingly...turn out was like much much moer than usual...double the past turn out rate ....4 groups in total.

TSO Ah Meng was helping me for the full 2 hours to take pictures and video. She keep on saying why we pioneer batch students don't have such thing one!!! Have to buy her a lunch to keep her quiet in the end.

Very soon this batch of students will be leaving school for attachment...hmmm ...just when I am getting to know them abit better...

D. R. E. A. M. - Team creativity

Went for course in SIM again...this time - a team creativity course.

B4 start of course I already have homework - to think of a metaphor most suitable to represent myself. Think ablou it for afew days...and finally came out with this picture which I draw myself :

We laerned that a metaphor is worth a thousand pictures, and a picture is worth a thousand words. so I think the picture is self explainatory...anyone needs further explaination?

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DREAM - stands for Dream, Review, Expand, Assess, Manage.

Basically we are taught to use Metaphors / Excursions / Paradoxs / Doodling / Analogies to brainstorm for connections in order to do the seemingly impoosible thing - connect the key word to the task and force fit a possible solution.

Since there is only 9 course participants, the is no escape but have to get involved in alomost every exercise and I am happy that in the process, it make me learn more and have a deeper understanding of the process after numerous attempts to utilise/ apply what we learn to generate ideas and solve problems.

Key of success - use a metaphor / keyword that is as wacky and as fun and as strange as possible. Further away the metaphor from the task...the brain juice will flow even faster.

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On a separate topic, I have also just completed my 3rd technical articles. With this writing i will be soon earning my 1st $1000for commercial writing. Not an astronomical amount but I see it as a good start and i gaves my alot of self confidence along the way too. The apprehension at the very 1st article is now gone and thet ime used write each article is gettting less and less too.

I think the megazine is rather happy with my contributions so far too. They wanted a meeting early Aug to discuss about my "expanded role". Don't know how much time the new offer will take up my evening rest time...but will really need to balance the exposure / reward and resource required to make a final decision.


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Tried to use the concept learnt to solve for the task : "how to balance new role with work/family". Got a few clues now as a start...rather be compact n critical contributor than try to take on too much than i can afford to spare the time and end up not seemed to be important. Hahaha this is the cue by darwing analogy to the army rifle magazine.


Next year when I have a new PEM, will be asking them to draw a metaphor besr representing themselves too...it will enable me to know them better and also memorising their names against the metaphor will be much easier too! sounds fun...

Farewell for DTs

Went out for lunch with the DTs today. After spending more than a year in NYP helping out with our daily routines and projects, it's time for them to move on and continue their studies. All 3 of them managed to secure a place in NUS Chem Eng course, which is very nice fit for the continuation of CPT learnings.

BB is the weakest of the 3 physically (...and academically?? hahahaha) but she is the one involved in pilot plant cleaning / flushing. We all wonder why she was admitted to Chem Eng but maybe the pilot plant operating / washing experience helps her in her bid to go Chem Eng. So it will be used as a good excuse to assign next DT to take care of the flushing of p/plant. She always wanted to be remembered as the hottest babe...but I always remeber her as the Ben n Jerry victime No. 4th time running to the loo.

Never actually worked closely with the DTs, only to do graduation filming with Felicia and tease Christina about watering plants during our rare gathering for tea or lunch and at time they help me to do invigilatiom for class tests.

I asked Ah Meng to come along to join us too. For I have always feel abit guilty to not knowing and taking care of the pioneer batch students as well as i could have. They have missed alot compared to the later batch students....Magic / chocs / VIVA / settlers / flash e learning / DnD / outings / graduation tours /visit to my home in CNY just to name afew...

It's good that now Ah Meng have join us as staff, we are slowing re-establishing the contacts with quite afew of them already. Min Li / Sasde / Jun Hui / Rahinni visited us in school and 2 of them even join in the paintball4 fun. Even managed to ask Min Li to do some part time work for me b4 her 3rd year CBC course starts. Then Rahinni seems very keen to join Bali 08 too.

I am sure with Meng's help we can slowly but surely widens the contact with this batch of students.

You may have noticed 1 DT is missing...student Z. She left us midway to join companyEG. As her PEM mentor and project supervisor for the past 3 1/2 years, I need to guide her abit more deeper than usual. So I prompted her about the oppurtunity and glad that she prove to me that she is good enough for the rare job opportunity. I think I made a tough decision to let her go...wish her well and hope that she is enjoying her industrial working life now...

Soon we will welcome a new batch of DTs...they are currently undergoing interviews and will start in Aug07 most likely. Can't wait for the welcome lunch...

Paintball 4 @ OCC 10 Jun 2007

It all started because GL wanted to organise a outing badly because he missed the graduation and also he will be going into the army in 8 days time. Suggested to do Go-Kart at Jurong and started to ask around for any supporters for the event.

YH feedbacked that if we do pintball...then we will have 4 participants...trusted her words and decided to go full steam ahead to organise Paintball 4....

Allen / Christof have kindly agreed to join in with no hesistation. With these 2 heavyweights (NOT their weight but their influence of course), I have a much easier task to attract participants once they know other lecturers are also involved.

Lu Meng, our pioneer batch student who joined us as TSO recently, is also a great help. I have lost touch with most of the pioneer batch students sadly...only with her eager help that the lost connections are slowly but surely reconnected again. She manged to jio 5 of them within a couple of hours.

Then saw Shirlene on MSN and managed to convinced her to come too.

Sarah is easy this time...never ask for choc...with she saying yes, Annie then has no objection to join too.

Show this to YH and she afinally agreed to join is as well, despite the pull out of the others 3 originally who actually inspired the event.

Went down to the LT and ask the current 3rd year and got 3 positive response too, making the total number now 15 and thus meeting the minimum requirements, so within afew hours the event is CONFIRM ON!!

Then Mr Wong also confirm his participation at 6pm after his long meeting...

In the evening also manged to talk GL into this, luring him and YL away fromSentasa for 1/2 day. Promise to let him play table soccer in staff centre with me after the event.

And finally in the late evening received SMS from SLnSL that they are also confirmed joining too. Which now makes the total number to 20. Not bad at all for a 1/2 day effort to call for respond on such a rather expansive event.

There will be still afew more to come...afew needed till Monday to decide, some are working...so the final number may still goes up. But currently it looks good for 4 teams of 5.

振臂一呼， 百人相随。

I am begining to able to understand this feeling mentioned by 鲁迅。

Below are the Pioneer Batch ppl.

Followed by the graduated batch and teh current 3rd yr students...4 generations already!!

The winning team...no wonder 3 guys in the team n 1 retired commando. Glad to aviod this team. Shooting Allen and Christof is more fun.

Many thanks for your help and support and participantion fir Paintball4. It's fun and we managed to keep to cost down.

Graduation Day 2007

It is truely a happy occassion to welcome back so many students back in school together, and all are in an exciting and nostalgic mood. Almost could not recognise some of them because of their new hairstyles (both male and female gradtants) and afew of them I need to think hard again to recall their names as i dont know them and see them very often.

Carried with me 38 Graduation Cds (12 already given out on the previous few days), 15 Dinner n Dance CDs / 10 Kukup tour Cds and 15 secret DVDs. This make me look like a illegal disc pedaller tryingto sell adult movies in school. The secret DVD really raise a lot of eyeborows and many start to question what's inside the disc. I just smiled and replied "secret, of course!".

Sign all the copies personally and hand over to each recepiant and congradulate them for making it through. I really hope they will enjoy watching this CD and believe it will bring back fond memories of their encounter with the horror kind for the past 2 years. I also noticed that Chistof finally agreed to put down his name on the CD cover. He has helped me a great deal for designing n printing the CDs. And also being present in most if not all of the outings with students.

The ceremony is abit uneventful...pictures slide show no go, video no sound, Student S never bang the podiumnor use left hand shake, but Ming Han managed to leave his sole onthe stage and let the remaining medal winners to bow to his legacy.

After which we have some light snacks and take plenty of pictures in the function room. The collection of the diploma by 1 pm is a big distraction and I found many students left early to collect and never come back again. We did not manage to take a group or even class photos, which is very rare to achieve.

These two helpful girls save me and help me alot on the e-learning part-time work. Their works are truely apprecaited by the current 2nd year students!!

Could not find TWL / Wei Kin /Joanne and Angela...my pbp students...luckily still manage to took picture with Adam/Elaine/San/Marcus.

Oh..Cerelia did mention Magic and videos in her speech!!

At 2pm we are in AMK teahouse again to continue the fun. Learned a new fun game to play today too!! I think they had a great time laughing and eating too. For me, just seeing both fractions able to sit down and not avoiding each other and having a great time together is already worth alot. Glad to be the bridge.

When will we meet again? i really dunno...but sure i will visit NTU n NUS soon, just keep in touch. And dont forget...Bali Jun 2008!!!

1st price entry in 07S1 CT

Finally the marking of papers are finally over...speed is much slower than before but I am kind of more enjoying the process and MSN with some students along the way...some declare heart attack when they see my msg...they are still very new to my style of communication, (unlike their seniors)...hahahahah

with no disrepect to the contributor....but this is my 1st prize for this semester of term test entry. Technically I found it most amazing...

1 g of water removes 1 C of water...hmmm...

when fire reaches 500C...no worry, just use 1/2 kg of water and the fire turn to zero degree C?

Actually i am about to declare to the whole class happily that all passed the Common test...only to find out the one who take retest with extra few days did very very badly....so have to swallow my words. Haiz....