on the 17th of august, as said before, i went to millineum tower to facilitate a workshop. (the objective i think was mentioned in the previous post) there were 8 of us there, taking charge of the entire event.. interestingly i was given charge to a group which consists of all ladies... wht the??
laughter was apparent when the workshop started, the rules were given in a very hilarious manner, and among them were "you are not allowed to say 'i dun know', 'i dun want'"... i actually wanted to say "i dun care"... then they were all divided into 4 groups, which were known as "friend, ship, moon, cake" (quite a funny name)
the ice breaking itself consists of people required to call out the names of others with their respective gestures, with a rhythm of course... it went on, until round 2 started... this time there were more people, so it is more difficult to remember the names and gestures.. at last one of them made a mistake, and all of the group were asked to sing a nursery rhyme... they did, and sung "twinkle twinkle little star"... (see below) proves that human memory is not that powerful
secondly, we were asked to sit with them to discuss of their ultimate targets, and estimate the time needed for the entire group to achieve the ultimate goal... a lot of jokes happened there as well...
third event was the so-called wargame... in which the groups were given materials (which was of course not enough) to build a tanker, a flag of their respective countries and a masking time to mark their boundary... unfortunately one of the groups failed to mark their boundary and was exposed to the raids, which involves stealing of stuff...
the game itself took 45 minutes, and we constantly make fun of them by putting the "a-bomb" to halt all their activities.. some of them were even unable to stop on time and was taken to "jail" for 30 seconds... and 30 seconds is a big waste of time, as this job cannot be done by strength and wisdom of one alone...
at last time was up, and all their tankers and flags were inspected and given marks for stability, height, and how nice it was. sample tanker and flag:
next was lunch time, and i took the 1 hour interval to show people some of the examples of funny exam answers done by students during their examinations, many laughed until....
immediately after lunch was the jenga game. what on earth is it? very simple, as the groups were required to use the given chopsticks and transport the jenga blocks to the end, while the last person was to build a tall and stable tower... which means that coordination and cooperation as well as knowledge in building matters as well, again it was a gangbang work..
minds were tested for logic and knowledge during the next session, in which they were given questions to answer, most of them do not require any usage of language and grammar, just logical thinking... proven to be that most of them do not have enough logic in their minds... i laughed the moment i looked at their faces...
then was the charade, not much to be said, but there was one notable thing to say... the last question was "reproduction", and all the groups tried in vain to perform it out. what to do? all of them acting were girls, obviously they are shy of doing things like this... imagine if guys act it out, what will actually happen? dare not even imagine....
next came the core of the workshop itself, which is "the essence of success"... for about an hour nigel the missionary stood in front and gave his speech, including jokes, tactics and even a story about reproduction, which made all of us laugh like mad... he also gave out his chemistry notes, not to show off, but to show his way of making notes... rather impressive, short and direct... probably i will take his tactic as well...
the penultimate event was the sharing of thoughts -- which in the facilitators' mind, "emo" time... i sat there with the group, listening to their thoughts attentively, and suddenly i felt something, somehow i can listen to strangers better than those i know. perhaps it is due to the lack of knowledge about them that draws on my curiousity. after about 40 minutes of sharing, they were given letters from their parents and they read... some of them even shed their tears... try imagine if your own parents write things to you in which they don't usually say...
after that was the cert-giving ceremony and prize-giving as well... then all the facilitators grouped up and had some photos taken....
to tell the truth, this workshop actually let me know the truth of certain things... a mind is not impenetrable as always, there are always times when it proves to be a weakspot. persevere, and one can discerned the thoughts of the person. secondly, there are things in which one cannot complete alone, the elements of cooperation, coordination and reasoning matters a lot in the success of it. never before was my mind so calm after an event, though exhausted...
even better, i got RM 50 for the job, which is yet to receive by now...
the next post will be discussing the choral speaking performance on 29th august.. until then, this will mark the end of this post... may the grace of the stars shines upon you at all times..
p.s. as for the pictures (for both the independence and the workshop ones), kindly refer to my old msn space, as i have no idea on how to upload photos here in a bulk and in a slideshow form yet..
