biodata

Coming from a Christian family and having attended mission schools since young, (Paya Lebar Methodist Girls’ School, Primary and Secondary,Anglo-Chinese Junior college), the ups and downs in life have only served to strengthen my beliefs. Currently a 3rd year Life Sciences undergraduate in National University of Singapore (NUS), I am pretty much enjoying the varsity life. Back in secondary school, I had the opportunity to expand my musical knowledge in the Chinese music and subsequently became president of the PL Guzheng Tuan. Under my lead, we successfully clinched the Gold in SYF. My other passion lies in baking. I’ve learnt that baking is not just an art, but also a science of experimenting with the ingredients. It has also taught me the importance of being meticulous, accurate and patient.

I believe my training in the sciences academically and exposure to the arts have greatly prepared me for pursuing my dream of becoming a successful baker and entrepreneur.

blog post 5

I am sure many of you would agree with me that writing this research report was pretty tedious. This was especially so, having to juggle other CAs and projects. However, it is also precisely the reason as to why I had a positive learning experience whilst doing up this research project. The process was certainly not a bed of roses as we met with hiccups along the way. i.e. we had no idea we do not have access to the survey results once it expired. But of course, we managed to rectify the problems and dealt with them positively.

This isn’t the first time I have experienced working in a group on a particular project. However, lessons were still learnt throughout this process, especially since learning more about communication skills earlier on during the course of the module. As mentioned in the blog posts earlier, communication is necessary to avoid misunderstandings. On top of that, it has got to be effective communication. So, what is effective communication? Basically, I feel that clear instructions and common understanding of the instructions given and ideas presented form the basis of clear communication. I must say that initiative of the chairman (Hui Min) to disseminate the agenda or outline of what is to be done next, clearly, together with the response and agreement of the group members is what clear communication is all about. Although we did meet with our fair share of problems, things still turned out fine because each one of us are clear of our roles and took the initiative to do what’s necessary.

In preparation for the oral presentation, there has got to be a different approach to making the presentation effective and clear. The language used when speaking to a group of audience is clearly different from the written style. Moreover, it is important to maintain eye contact with the audience during the presentation to “listen” to their silent comments (i.e. non-verbal cues). Also, striking a balance between the visual presentation (powerpoint slides) and our oral presentation is important in helping us put our ideas across more clearly. It is all the more important that we do not allow the visual presentation to “take over” what we have to say.

Hence, learning how to present in an interesting yet informative manner is something I have to learn to master for the upcoming oral presentation.

evaluating intercultural behaviour

As a Singaporean, learning how to live with people of different cultures seems to be no big feat. Being born in Singapore, I guess many of us probably do not really meet with much inter-cultural issues. I am one such example. Hence, what I am going to share is actually what one of my friends experienced while travelling in Italy.
As mentioned earlier, my friend and his wife were touring Europe, and Italy was one of his tour destinations. It was lunch time, and both of them were famished. They settled for a restaurant along the street and when their order came (spaghetti), they dug into their “noodles” and ate like how we (Singaporeans) do. Soon after, a lady, who was sitting on the table beside his, stood up and walked over. She actually went over and reprimanded my friend, for not eating the spaghetti the way they should be. (i.e. digging into the noodles and twirling it with the fork) My friend obviously felt offended to be actually told off in public in a foreign land!
I reckon that this is a pretty fine example of inter-cultural differences. Culture is defined as the behavior and belief characteristic of a particular social, ethnic or age group. To put it simply, it comprises of beliefs, values and certain behaviors that are imparted to us. And these behaviors and beliefs differ from people to people, from village to village. It is precisely these cultural differences that lead to many miscommunications and misunderstandings. Why so? For the same task/problem, people from different cultures learnt different ways/methods of solving it. Just take the pasta incident for example.

Task: Eating pasta (noodles)

French : Twirl pasta on fork
Singaporeans : “scoop” noodles with fork

So how does this difference lead to communication barriers? Taking a step back, one would easily realize that behaviors fall under the category of non-verbal communication. Different actions could be used to express the same issue. The difference lies in the way the how the individual was taught to do so. As the saying goes, action speaks louder than words. Indeed, an inappropriate gesture could result in dire communication errors. What’s important is to learn how different cultures work and to be tolerant and understanding.
By knowing the taboos of other cultures, one can effectively avoid unhappiness and misunderstandings. Knowing isn’t good enough. Understanding and being able to accept the fact that each culture has itstheir set of learned behaviors and values could very well help one look at a matter from a different perspective.

toys no enough?

Do you remember the days where short advertisements in between your favorite cartoon program by Mattel, lego or hotwheels got you excited over a new toy or game? Well, I definitely do. I thought toys in our days were sophisticated enough, ranging from nail art set for the girls to power ranger robots which could speak and light up with noises for boys. Whatever the case, as I took a look around the toy shops around me, I started to realize something. Gone were the days where building planes with legos and dressing up Barbie was the “in” thing. Now’s the age where purchasing the latest popular movie-themed merchandises is the way to go.

It was reported that there has been an increase in childrens’’s purchasing power which generates billions in revenue for related companies and corporations such as Disney. This phenomenon which includes largely “tweens” (preadolescence), are found to be the largest driving force in this market. Who then enables these kids to have such big spending power? I would naturally assume their parents are the ones. I’ve come across an article in the papers that mentioned a parent who recently spent several hundreds of dollars buying high school musical merchandises for her child. It certainly shocked me there on the amount spent.

A fine example of such merchandises:

Image courtesy of http://highschoolmusical.tystoybox.com/

Are parents so caught up with work that they feel buying their kids the things/toys they want is a way of compensating time with them? Or, are parents nowadays just so willing to spend loads on their child? If it is so easy for a child today to get what he/she wants, would a child still be able to learn the value of money? Hence, my research question would be focused on these tweens’ parents’, “How much are you willing to spend on your children on movie themed merchandises?” My hypothesis would then be, “As long as it is within my financial means.”

Through an attitudinal survey, I hope to be able to find out what are the views of these parents (with children aged between 8 to12) with respect to buying of these movie themed merchandises and to what extent are they willing to spend for their children. (problem statement) It is therefore, my wish to raise awareness of these parents (and parents-to-be) with regards to their expenditure on their children and probably a self-check to see if they’ve gone overboard. (purpose statement) We certainly don’t wish to have to come up with a “managing your finances” education in future, do we?

Here's some advertisements to relish our childhood memories:

resolving interpersonal conflicts

Many a times, interpersonal conflicts arise as we fail to see the other party’s point of view and understand what he or she is going through. However, as the saying goes, it takes two hands to clap. If the other party is not open and honest about certain misgivings he or she has, it would also be difficult for us to try to understand the other party’s point of view or what he or she is going through. Isn’t this a very fine example of the importance of effective communication?

Below is something which might very well happen in a work environment:

Karen just got a job in a renowned investment bank. Soon after, she realizes that she is consistently running into problems and meeting glitches with long hours at work every day. She has been approaching her supervisor quite often for help in the problems at work. However, her supervisor always seems snappy and always gives vague answers to the questions she asks and has made some unpleasant remarks such as, “Haven’t you wrote this down in your note book? Go refer to your book then!”. As a result, she would procrastinate before asking in order not to make her supervisor think she’s wasting her supervisor’s time. Things never seemed to improve although she was really putting effort to learn and do well in her job scope. One day, she really couldn’t figure out what went wrong and decided to ask her supervisor for help. Her supervisor snapped back almost immediately, “Don’t you understand English? You mean students from NUS are of this calibre?” Karen felt this was beginning to become a little too personal and start to wonder how she should go about solving this issue.

David works in a renowned investment bank and he has a group of people under his supervision. The company has just hired someone new. He found out that she graduated from NUS and always never thought well of graduates of NUS. After a week, he realizes that this new team member still doesn’t seem to be able to catch the ropes. She goes to him every other day with problems he thinks she should have learnt by now. He tries not to spoon feed her by asking her to refer to the notes she has taken down all these while. This went on for quite some time and his tolerance level is decreasing by the day. One day, she went to him again; he couldn’t take it anymore and snapped at her, saying, “Don’t you understand English? You mean students from NUS are of this calibre?”

Standing in Karen’s shoes, what would you consider doing to resolve the conflict? What might be some of the reasons for your proposed solutions?

effective comminucation skills

As far as I can remember, my mother used to tell me that arguments and unhappiness amongst people arise due to miscommunications. Even though I bore that in mind, it was only till I experienced such a situation myself did I fully understand what my mother meant.

Today, communication only isn’t enough. What is essential is to be able to communicate effectively. What does it mean to communicate effectively? Particularly in today’s fast-paced society, effective communication would mean conveying ideas, messages, feelings and emotions accurately and in certain cases, quickly. This is definitely not an easy feat.

In the light of globalization, with people of different languages and cultures are coming together, this is certainly posed a certain level of difficulty in conveying ideas accurately. Ideas get misinterpreted and the work gets done wrongly. Non-verbal cues are misread or in some cases, ignored and this could probably lead to the downhill of a marriage. Hence, gaining knowledge and understanding of different cultures and styles can help very much in minimizing communication errors and misunderstandings.

Effective communication skills are also important as man is constantly expanding and increasing the list of communication channels. Yet, with this increase in communication channels, comes yet another problem of deciding the appropriate channels to use at the appropriate times and situation. A wrong choice of channels could have varying degree of effects. It could very well mean a loss of job right down to a marriage breakdown.

As such, learning how to communicate effectively enables us to not only minimize misunderstandings but also learn to understand the original intention of the other party (many a times through listening) which enables a higher level of cooperativeness. This in turn leads to more efficiency in the work to be completed.

me, myself and i

you-fei [u-faye]
-adjective

One of my friends once commented that the word "youfei" has become an adjective. Well, I guess the main reason for that comment was a result of my clumsiness and carelessness which many a times, result in situations in which is embarrased myself.

Currently a yr 3 life sciences student, university life hasn't been quite packed with activities. Most possibly due to my laziness. Getting to know the existence of this module has given me a new perspective of my then, dull university life. University life is definitely more than just learning new things and passing exams, but more so, cultivate life skills (i.e. effective communication) which will be both useful and beneficial to one-self. A moulding experience I would say.

And so, I am excited to start on a whole new different learning experience, blogging.