​The week started off with 'Workout of the Day' (WOD) but this time, we put together our own exercises that work on different components of the muscle. As for my workout, I included 30 jumping jacks, 10 standing toe touches, 10 pushups, 10 squats and 8 burpees which majorly work on full body. I was responsible to lead Day 4 and I found it quite challenging to come up with these exercises because on this day we had to cut our time short as we had to prep up before we got our COVID-19 vaccination at the Medical Reception Station (MRS). Luckily, I managed to conduct the WOD session in 30 minutes which met the Ms Susie expectations.
The wait for the vaccination tested my patience and I have never felt so hungry in my entire life waiting for the bus to come after queuing for at least 4 hours! Overall, previous WOD sessions led by Alya, Syasya and Raziq enabled me to be more active because I will feel less productive if I have not done any exercises. Currently, I have weak upper body strength and lack of flexibility which affects my posture but I hope that I can improve as I stay consistent in working out especially when I am in Ireland.
It still bothers me a lot that we have to stay confine in our home and restrict movements during the COVID-19 outbreak but all of this must be adhered to lessen the governments' burden. Because of that, we had our 'Personal Discovery and Leadership' talk through 'Zoom' meetings. It was really difficult to conduct this session. At some point, my internet became unstable and sometimes it was hard for Dr Smita and Ms Farah to manage breakout rooms but I was still fascinated by the whole programme because I got to converse and make group discussions with other Ministry of Defence (MinDef) civilians, military personnel and officers.
I even grabbed some important information from Lt. Hjh Farihah and Puan Zalinah about the rapport between civilians and military officers in which the relationship between military officers is always firm and it was interesting to know that some civilians are intimidated when they face the officers. Coincidentally, I was in the same breakout room with Puan Muizzah over the 3 days and I happened to know more about her personality and she even gave me useful university and travelling tips during one of the solo discussions. We identified our common goals and practiced reflection-in-action in which we analysed the COVID-19 situation in Brunei and created a report in chronological order without the use of any figures.
We messed around a lot during the online talk by changing our backgrounds to food, future workplace and used some face filters but it really entertained others throughout the long talk. Dr Smita explained about the Leadership skills in the 21st century and I tried to utilize these essential skills when I presented to the MinDef civilians and officers my step-by-step methods in making a toast for a Martian to follow. I believe that some of the skills that are useful to a leader is relaying accurate information with confidence and to understand his/her subconscious bias.
Mdm Snéha, Managing Director of Blue Tulip Consultancy, covered about Emotional Intelligence and Neuro-Linguistic Programming. I have discovered that both topics link together and they create a powerful element towards the human behavior. She even mentioned that if we have laughter in a team, it means that we trust each other and I have noticed it since day 1 of the programme. From my understanding, laughter is an anchor which shows commonality of perspective coming from all parties and it really speeds up the rapport-building process.
My experience with my friends, MinDef workers and organizers has been truly marvelous. But I thought that it could have been better if the HRDS programme was done physically. To sum up everything, this week constantly changed my demeanor from being impatient to curious and maybe even imaginative but what comes into my mind is to be genuine particularly when making new friends in university later on.
Richmon Lee Edward
SCRBAF 2021 Recipient
Arranged and Formatted by:
Aiman Abdullah Tee
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