Continue from lessons
2) As you are leaving your mark about your work, people will remember your work and yourself. I recalled the days i spent my days in MHI as committee member.
I started in helping out in sign language department. Soon it sparked my passion in training people.It taught me alot in handling different people and built my confidence to face people.
As i read one brief chapter from the leadership book written by John Maxwell about the Power of Influence, John wrote about Princess Diana who died in car accident.
Many people remember her as the humaritian Amabassdor who did alot of charity work. She made use of her title as Princess Diana to raise awareness about humantrian works despite her troubled marriage.
It is her work that people remember her and cried for her when she died from car accident. It is one of the leadership area that she has strong influence over people.
During my days in MHI, i remember that i get to work with hearing people on projects. The viewpoints between HI individual and hearing individual are different that have alot of disagreement. But it did have everlasting good or bad experience for individual to work together.
Two different worlds coming together is not easy task because of its communication and deaf's command in English language. It takes two hands to clap.
Courage to over come the barrier of communication and to communicate the ideas across to the other party is the achievement for people to make the project a success.
Not many people are open to the new ideas. They can be very cautious over many things for various reasons and hence slow down the work.
Lesson to draw from here: If you find that things are not in favour, try to take a step back and think where it go wrong.
Pace is also important. If you run too fast, you will have your friends lagging behind. So you will stop to pace beside your friend towards the finishing line.
Sunday??
Lessons learnt today had brought me to understand my LOrd, my Mighty Father better.
He is wonderful God that always works around me and he had given me lessons to learn.
1) Volunteers=> I must thank the 2 role models whom i had known for about 4 or 5 years for inspiring to continue to do volunteer works.
Victor and Evelyn were the example that they showed their passion in serving deaf community. Victor started learning American Sign Language at about 25 years old and went out mixing with deaf. It built up his passion to continue to serve deaf community til today. He is now in late 30s.
Evelyn was another example. Her strong faith in achieving one goal to bridge 2 worlds, hearing and deaf never waver. She strongly emphasis that hearing people never be "2nd class" citizen but to be equal as deaf people in doing volunteer work. She had come far to show that it can be achieved. Collebartion between hearing and deaf can be feasible.
Hearing people can be "listening ear" for deaf people when comes to certain and important issues so that deaf people are able to make decision in better and constructive way.
Both of them inspire me alot til today, i did an interview with them for International Day for Deaf. It was surprising indeed for me because i also manage a dragon boat team which consist of hearing and deaf team mates. I came to understand their passion in volunteerism for deaf community.
I shared my thoughts with my christian team mate how blessed we are by our God that he gave us lessons to grow and to have different perceptives.
Praise our Lord, our Father and Jesus Christ, Amen
Words from your mouth can either "kill" or comfort people
Whenever you speak, words coming from your mouth can speak the volume of your thoughts.
Sometimes the person with no intention speak from her thoughts can be a disaster or good news. Even writing an email can be a poison too.
People can misunderstand or misinterprete your words. How would we get our message across to other people?
1) Write in simple English in email that can be straight forward. It mean no malice.
2) Some people find hard to express their thoughts into the words and tend to keep quiet in fear of facing objections or rejection from people around them.
3) When embarking on projects or working with people, communication can be important. Sometimes, the person tends to with hold information with reasons and will tell people bits by bits till the person feel ready to accept the major project or assignments.
4) In the rush hours especially at work, the person tends to make things short and gives out the key information without going into details. It can cause alot of misunderstanding.
Sometimes people tends to use words to express their thoughts but can be easily misinterprete by other people.
Is it good to be straight forward without malice or drop hints that people will understand?
Some people do not like hints or cannot get hints because they prefer the straight forward way so that they will understand easily.
In emotional, some people tends to use words carefully to comfort the person or choose to keep quiet not to fan the flames. Sometimes words can be very harsh that woke the person up. It is the most direct way that stir up the raw nerves in the person.
My thoughts here: If i am tactful, will the misunderstanding be minimized? It is something that we have to be tactful in some ways.
But words can speak the volumes of our personality. Even writing simple english is able to get the message across to the other people.
Sometimes words from simple english show no malice and cause people to think more than just a meaning.
Sleepy in my office
Dozing off in office in front of PC...wah liaozzzzz..Too sleepppyyyy that i cannot keep my eyes open to do work..
I kept on going to toliet to wash my face..
Oh thank god, i managed to finish work before 3pm. My desk is unusally clear unlike the few weeks that my desk got messy with papers everywhere.
My supervisor is so pleased with me today and praised me.. Phewwwww..what a relief despite my sleepy eyes..!!!
Wednesday, dont make me sleeppyyyy
Interesting turns on Sunday
At 630am, I buzzed my "hubby" if he was awake for Mizuno Wave Run. It was very early fresh morning that about more than 1000 heartlanders and a few teams of dragon boat people signed up.
"Hubby" buzzed me that he was picking up in yellow cab and we headed to Kovan where the run begun at 730am.
I never run for 10km for almost 3months. What a long dry spell for me not to run till yesterday.I told myself to pace myself at slow motion at the start.
Pink bibs numbers for competitive ladies, Green bibs numbers for competitive men and white bibs number for those who take part in fun run.
Flag off at Kovan Hub and the crowd begin to run...At 2.5km, many people grabbed to drink well-deserved water and threw cups on ground. At 5km, i felt heat and sweats coming from the runners.
The atmosphere were still high and people started to slow down. Some people were seen walking. Bravo of my team mate, Victor who was seen using ski sticks to support his crippled legs. He was doing "Terry Fox" style... What a great style!!!
Saw my hunky coach running ahead of me with his team mates. At the end of the run, many people were seen grabbing free goodies bags with exclusive dri-fit shirts. "Hubby" sat on the pavement near ambulance, frowning..I asked him what happen. He did not eat breakfast before the run and felt dizzy. Wearing tight cap was another factor to his dizzness. Lucky man that he finished his run.
Rushed home to take my stuffs for my dragon boat. Excitement still high because my team will have combined training with visually handicapped people to do rowing. My coach was "loaned" to my team because he was the coach for visually handicapped team.
Co-ordination in stroking were corrected by the coach and getting the team to do the sets. Shiok...I was so excited because it really motivated my team to work harder and take training seriously for upcoming race, SAVA Sprint.
I only can pray that by the race, the team will be fit enough to do well in the race.
Adding the dimension to my daily life
While preparing the lesson for my student, i was wandering into some thoughts and recalled back on how i taught my student.
2 years had passed like flash. My student had grown up into a mature little lady from the rebellious kid.
I remmeber when i first started tuition with her at MHI, she was not serious in her studies. She always skipped the tuition lessons to play in arcade. Can you imagine that i had to sit and wait for her to come?
I always headed to arcade to find her and bring her back.At each lesson, i often scold her with my harsh words. I can be very sacrastic towards her that fright her out of her wits.
In the moment of folly, she felt discouraged and quit halfway from her studies. Somehow she faced another problem in finding a job with only her PSLE qualification. She suddenly remembered my words. My words kept on barking in her mind.
It was fortunate that her school principal was understanding and accept her back to school.
Given this blessing that she was back to studies and decide to be serious, she gave me a call to thank me and wanted me to give her tuition.I was surprised at the change in her attitude towards her studies.
My patience and scoldings (harsh words) are worth all the efforts i put in her. I decided to give her extra tuition given her pace of learning.
This lesson had moved the heart of tuition co-ordinator that she was glad to see her getting serious in studies. Morever she was glad that i had brought her back to right track.
Maintain her pace of learning...
One lady from tuition centre remembered me and we kept talking about deaf issues. This led to one topic on my life. Before she left, she said to me that from my action and my life, this had inspired her to stay on to tutor deaf kids.
On my way out to lift, a guy who studied in USA and had learnt ASL. He was happy to encounter a deaf lady like me who use sign language and strike an conservation with me. He was so excited by seeing me using gestures in my sign language.
Asked me alot of questions and we touched on topics in deaf people in States where he met.
It reminded me of Kenchi who was an American Deaf guy and Yen who was my partner in Master of Ceremony for Family Day2006.Kenchi came to Singapore cos of his marriage to his Singaporean wife. Yen studied in New York and had picked up sign language from deaf people. He was very fluent in sign language. They showed different perceptives on the life style in USA. The thing that attract them to deaf community is their freedom and right in disability system in USA.
This trigger my thoughts and realised that things in Singapore had progressed very fast but deaf people of this generation today had lagged behind in the education where the syballus had been changing over years.
This forced them to think out of box and to be creative where deaf children find hard to catch up.
This is another dimension in my daily life where the person have to adapt to the ever changing world with open mind. The person has to navigate through the obstacles with wits, survival instinct that build the security area around them.
Working in Male-dominated environment
After many days or months, i had not added my blogs here ever since i started work at NSL Engineering (NatSteel).
Woopz...Leaving me tired after work and rise before the darkness breaking into morning. Catching the bus among the ordinary folks who jam pack at Jurong Bus Interchange.
Eyes sleepy and folks bring their own breakfast to office to eat. Catching 40winks in bus before starting the day at work. Machines start whirling with noises at 8am sharp on dot.
Indian workers climbling out of trucks driven by their foreman to production and start work stretching from 8am to 7pm.
Food not plenty but I am grateful for 2 canteens that cater to Malay minorities and serve little variety of food that leaves you feeling bored. Food in city becomes your luxury when you get off from work on friday and on weekend, head to city to enjoy the food.
Typical day with many emails from clients that want the products filled with parts.
Running around to check stock and go through drawings to match with products before passing to Quality Control Dept for checking.
After approval, the production will start with the new project.
Manuals needed to be sent locally or overseas by DHL in express. Rush manuals to give the warranty for the finished products.
At the end of day, workers rushed out from office at 530pm on dot to catch the company bus before the bus leave after waiting for 5minutes. How impatient of bus driver...Cannot wait even the last worker dare to stop the bus in front of him/her..opzzz..Near -death experience...hehe
Dropping off workers at 5 drop-off points.In bus many workers are seen sleeping or chatting...
