Blog Post 2

Disputes, conflicts and arguments seem like something that are unavoidable in life. We grow and learn from such situations if there is any consolation to be had from experiencing such unpleasant events.

There is this particularly unhappy incident that I had to experience which took place almost four years ago. The people involved are myself and Miss Y, a JC classmate with whom I used to be pretty close to. She became my “matchmaker” when she introduced my girlfriend to me, who was from the same faculty from Miss Y. We were deeply grateful to Miss Y for that and had thanked her face-to-face.

My girlfriend and I became an item just before a birthday chalet that Miss Y had organized for herself. Naturally, my girlfriend being my first girlfriend, and me being my girlfriend’s first, we were pretty affectionate at the chalet. By affectionate, I mean hugging, holding hands and whispering sweet nothings. Nothing that could not be published on these pages was done.

That night, while playing pool, Miss Y seemed very unhappy and was indeed unhappy as I found out soon. She loudly commented that my girlfriend and I were an eyesore with our actions and claimed that we did not thank her for bringing us together. I got pretty unhappy as it was not as if she did not perform such actions with her boyfriend, who is our common friend. I also explained that we had thanked her already. When my girlfriend and I were about to leave, we bid goodbye to Miss Y. Instead of reciprocating, she asked us to just “go go go and get lost.” I was really hot at that moment. I had a minor quarrel with Miss Y as a result.

From that moment on, Miss Y and I no longer communicated and she hardly does so with my girlfriend too. She does not reply to my messages even when I wish her happy birthday or offer her apologies. I really did not know what I have done wrongly. Her mood just suddenly changed that day. Could it be when she claimed we did not thank her, it was because she expected a different method of thanking her?

I hope someone can offer some possible suggestions to resolve this conflict or provide me with some inkling of what I could have done wrong?

Blog assignment 1

To me, effective communication means being able to convey my message across to my target audience or person clearly. If I am not able to do so I would have wasted both me and my audience’s time. It could also create a lot of unnecessary misunderstandings. There was once where I went out with my friend, a girl, but I just simply informed my girlfriend that I was going out with a friend. My girlfriend found out and she got angry and suspicious. Effective communications skills will also be important to my career development. If my manager or fellow colleagues find that I cannot convey ideas clearly they may not involve me in bigger projects or more important jobs. During national service I once declined doing a task and my superior did not dedicate a task to me for quite a while. It felt bad and I felt redundant. I also feel that if I am being able to communicate effectively, I would be a more confident person. There would be fewer barriers for me in reaching out to others and I would be able to network more effectively. It was this lack of confidence that lost me the chance in going after a girl I admired during Junior College. Delivering concise and clear messages is extremely important in this fast-paced world, one that is very dependent on emails and short messaging services. People nowadays simply do not have the time and patience to read long, vague and boring messages thus effective communication skills are highly sort after. Thus, in summary, if I am able to communicate effectively, I would create less misunderstandings, improve my career chances, be more confident and not put off others from reading my message.

First Lesson

The first lesson was carried out today and lets just say that I did not regret taking the module. Firstly, the lecturer, Mr. Brad, was interesting and humorous. This went a long way in preventing me from falling asleep, which could have easily occurred after the heavy lunch I had. He introduced the module to us allowing us to know what we have signed up for. Activities were also held to help everyone get to know each other which lead me to find out that my classmates are quite a great bunch, being friendly, spontaneous and fun. My classmates are a pretty diverse group being from a few different faculties. I am glad to have remembered most of my classmate names, if not all. Great classmates and an interesting lecturer are certainly important ingredients in making me look forward to the next lesson, instead of having to drag my feet to class!

Introduction

Welcome to my blog! I am Ken Jie, a fourth year engineering undergraduate at NUS. I am new to this blogging business so please forgive any inadequacies! Any feedback will be welcome. I hope my subsequent posts will not bore all you readers :)