SLC Poster making night

PGDE Presentation Summary

While Guan is trying to get Prof Vilma for the video for the PGDE presentation, I (i.e.: Wan Ting) shall do a short summary of it here. I was actually very nervous on the day itself because of the following:

1. YY wasn’t feeling well the night before and I worried that that he would be too sick.
2. Guan’s flight was delayed so he may not reach in time.
3. The Jan batch, though I foresee will be smaller than mine, is still big enough to fill up the whole LT and I’ve definitely have not presented to so many people before.

Fortunately, YY was kind enough to appear on the morning itself, while Guan made it in time (in fact, he came much earlier cause the whole presentation was delayed). Since I had to upload the slides before 08 45, most of my time was spent waiting for the two guys and letting people who walked by me wonder why am I wearing a sarong-lookalike to school. I had a much better time than YY and Guan though. The moment YY stepped out of the male toilet in his longyi, a lady who passed by immediately burst out laughing. When Guan thought it was our turn and was preparing to walk down, the people at the back row were raising their eyebrows at him (with the “WTH” look). Still, I’m quite glad we wore longyi and our blue top, since the North India group didn’t, so we looked extra unique.

Guan was the first to speak. He impressed the group with his Myanmar language, and then started scaring Prof by saying that it would take 1hr for us to actually tell them all about our trip. With that, we went on with our presentation and we overrun because we thought it was supposed to be 15mins but they cut it to 10mins. Apparently there is another group of people from the same batch looking at us in another LT and I happily waved to my friend seated at the front row when I spotted her haha..

Prof Vilma looked and sounded pleased with us when she said “Good work” or something like that. She also asked me how I managed to tie my longyi, only to realise I used the strings but hers did not have strings hehe..

That’s all for the presentation that day. As for the event on 15 Jan (Sat), there is a NTU-parents day kind of thing and Service Learning Club (SLC) was hoping that we can send them our slides so that they can play it on the laptop. If we are willing to come down and share, it’ll be even better. They have a similar sort of sharing session on 27 Jan (Wed) as well. =)

Details about SLC Jamboree Sharing Session are as follows:

Where: Student Hub Amphitheatre, Level 3
When: 27th January 2010
Time: 10.30am - 11.30am

Post - trip Local Project @ Siling Primary School

Serene, Wanting, Kay and I came down to Siling Primary School on the 28th December 2009 with the intentions to wrap up the local project and to share with the children what we have experienced during the trip. We kick-started the programme at 1020am.

We have prepared a presentation addressing what we have done and experienced over there. As soon as the presentation started, the children sat down with their watchful eyes and to listen with their attentive ears. The children were soon immersed in what we were sharing with them. Curiosity was the word of the day. Quite a number of them bombarded us constantly with questions. As we discussed the lifestyles of the children over there, the siling children compared it to their own. They came to realise how fortunate it was for them to be in Singapore and learnt not to take things for granted.

After the presentation, we had a short Q&A session. We answered many of the burning questions the children had. Their questions range from the lifestyles of the Burmese children to the different cultures among the tribes. We ended the session at 1130am. Although the children did not have the chance to go to Myanmar with us but they certainly widened their knowledge bank of it through our short session with them. 

Yea!! Almost all of us are back at SG!! Please take good care of yourselves and see you all at the next meeting! Remember to finish all the thank-you notes by the next meeting =)

Love, Wan Ting

UPDATES from Wan Ting on $:

Mingalabar peeps! Eh.. Oh. I rmb wad I wanted to say. After staring hard at the bankbook and trying to find the old sms-es you all have sent me, I've more or less figured out each amount on the bankbook and double-checked with the excel file. Here's the scanned images:

As you can see I've yet to figure out the last transaction because I put all the cash in at one go and the envelope I wrote on previously has been lost. Yup.

Hmm. This post sounds really random haha. Muz b slpy.
If I was looking very fierce and/or rude to you in any way during the retreat, please forgive me because I haven't realise it myself. You can scold me back next time hehe

And oh. I have not included what donations June gave me and Thu Linn's basic expenditure fee, just to inform you all.

Local Project @ Siling Primary School

We (LH, YY and I) completed our last and final pre-trip local project @ Siling Primary School on 24th November. We have a group of 16 children aged 7-10 at Siling Primary School. These children are like angels, very well-behaved, very easy to bluff.

We started off with some ice-breakers, followed by a presentation on Myanmar by me. Most of the children do not know where Myanmar was. Some were quite surprised by the condition of the classrooms in Myanmar. Overall, the children were very interested and engaged in the presentation. I explained that they will be writing and designing a postcard to a "friend" in Myanmar.

After that we break them into groups of 5. Yong Yan and Leong Hwee taught the children some burmese words. "Mingalabar" became the hottest word after this activity! In their own groups, the children played mini-games to learn more Burmese words.

The children then went back to their desk and started designing and writing their postcards. They were very eager to write their postcards. Some even us if their friends in Myanmar understand English!?

In my eyes, the children embodied innocence, encapsulated by the hope that they can make a new friend overseas. I took a peep at their letters - some of them wrote about their PSP and favorite cartoon characters that are "alien" to us. It seems to me that these children are fervently fighting the onslaught of modernisation with thier new computer games and cartoon characters.

The activity ended at about 1630.