Curtain Call!

"Oops you just had a communication breakdown! You should save it for your blog-module thingy"

Ever since I took up Professional Communication, my girlfriend has been analysing our daily 'communication' problems, be it in school, work and play. And with every communication breakdown, she would then highlight to me whether it was juicy enough to be put on the blog or not!

And despite going through one semester of "Principles and Practices" of Professional Communication, I still experienced numerous communication breakdowns and miscommunications that was 'juicy enough for the blog'.

Not that I am accusing the course of failing to equip me with the skills to prevent any forms of misccomunications, I am just saying that putting principles and practices learned in classrooms into real life takes time. Furthermore, it is the 'trials and errors' that you encounter in real life that also make you understand the importance of proper communication. 

My views on communication is still the same as my first post: That effective communication is important in maintaining relationships, in preventing any misunderstandings, and in saving time etc.

The most important thing I learned from this 13 weeks would be that never take for granted the importance of communication, and don't assume that there are no miscommunication. Miscommunication will appear out of nowhere, when you least expected it.

Thank you everyone for an enjoyable semester! I hope you have enjoyed my company as much as I have enjoyed yours!

Can't wait =)

The Green Initiative Fund @ UCLA

For your entertainment, the unedited version! Anyone knows why UCLA and USC are such rivals?

Reflections: My Oral Presentation

I spent the entire night editing the video clip on “The Green Initiative Fund”, and two other videos. In fact, I wasn’t even sure whether any of the videos would be used in our presentation. Also, I drank a total of three 3-in-1s and one “teh peng” from the Fong Seng Chess Prata Shop, all within a period of 7 hours.

To put it simply, when it was my turn to present, the only thing keeping me awake, was caffeine and adrenaline, and to some extent nicotine.

Why did I leave it to last minute you might ask? Well, if it was formulated into an equation, it would be “Last minute = Procrastination + Other tests that week + Hall commitments”.

But I am happy the way things turned out. Despite feeling nervous (I think nervous can be a good thing if put it to good use), the clicking of wrong slides, and the occasional mental blanks, we managed to carry the message across, and got members of the floor to ask us intelligent questions.

Other than being nervous, I felt that the presentation would be smoother if there were no problems with the video. Although it is impossible to come earlier to test the venue’s technology, in a real situation, the audience would probably lose interest when we only start testing the technology when called on stage.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank my group mates for doing such a wonderful job. You guys did great alright?

Do give me feedback on our presentation!