It has been about a week since we all went home from our apartment due to the unexpected Covid situation that had arisen last Saturday due to community spread. Although our Military Orientation was postponed to a later date, this did not stop us from moving forward and carrying on with our Freshman Induction Programme at home through online platforms. We mostly utilized Whatsapp, Zoom and Discord to keep in touch with each other during the programme by video calling or texting one another.
For the first day of our seventh week, we started off with our workout of the day being led by Alya. Every day for the whole week, five of us scholars each take turns leading the workout through Zoom meetings every morning with different sets of workouts designed by us. As for Alya's workout designed by her, it mainly consisted with working on our core upper body. Among the sets of workouts which focuses on our core were Standing Cross Crunches, Commando Planks and Sit Ups.
After our workout, we all showered and had our breakfasts before we started our first session on our main course for the week, "Personal Discovery & Leadership" conducted by Dr Smita and Puan Farah from HRDs. We were to carry out the session in Zoom meetings where we were joined by other junior MinDef and RBAF civilian and military officers.
Although carrying out the session online felt a bit weird at first, we eventually got used to it as there weren't as many technical issues as expected in the Zoom meetings. Additionally, I am not sure why but we all somehow found it more fun to do the course online. It did not feel much different from being with each other in real life which really shows that there is not really much drawbacks when it comes to doing this course online as an alternative.
On our first session, we looked at the roles of leadership and we looked at the types of leadership there were. Dr Smita gave us a kind of survey to determine what kind of leaders we are according to a Leadership Matrix diagram that was given. As for my results, I lay along the lines of having a 'Team Leadership' aspect where I am strong on both my people skills and tasking when being a leader.
Other than that, we did a lot of fun individual and group activities. For the group activity, we were put into groups to make up our own story which must include three facts and two lies. After that, we were present it to the other groups for them to find our which parts of the story were we telling the truth or whether we were bluffing. The goal of this activity is to read whether someone could be lying through their facial expression, body language and even the tone of their voice.
As for the individual activity, we were given a task to write on a piece of paper to portray a list of instructions to make toast if it were given to an alien. However, we were not allowed to write any instructive words among them. The goal of this activity was to be able to communicate our ideas using the appropriate technique to respective audiences. Everyone's drawing was pretty straight forward although some people even decided to draw an alien eating a toast in their drawings.
On the next morning, Syasya was leading the workout this time. Syasya's workout also consisted of focusing on our core muscles, however the workouts were different from Alya's workout the previous day. This time, we did Bicycle Kicks, Flutter Kicks and Planking on each set. Although I could feel my core soring during those moments, I knew it was a good thing as my weakest points during the Individual Fitness Assessment (IFA) were my sit ups which mainly focuses on my core.
We were on the second day of our Leadership & Personal Development course. This time it was more focused on the personal development side. We all took the DISC (Dominance, Influence, Steadiness & Conscientiousness) and MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator) tests which were two online personality type tests which were meant to play a role in our personal development. By reflecting ourselves from our respective personality test results, we were able to look at ourselves from different angles in terms of our spirituality, Integrity, our kindness, our open-communication with others and even our strengths and weaknesses.
After that, we did a fun activity among all of us where we did something like a 'whisper challenge' where we were to secretly relay a message from one person to another but this time, we had to do it through actions. It was really funny to see how much the action had changed as it relayed on from the first person to the last. I was one of the last people who received the relayed action and then we later realized that the original action had changed completely!
In the afternoon we were joined by Dr Sneha who gave us a brief on the topic of being Biased and the type of biases between people. I understood from the session that having biases are like mind bugs or thinking errors that maintains our hidden belief. One such example is a 'status bias' which meant that we treat someone else different based on their status, whether they are a famous celebrity or a high achiever etc.
By the next morning, I was assigned to lead the work out of the day myself by which I had already planned the sets of workouts the day before. This time, I was prioritizing the upper body which mainly consisted with working on our bicep and chest muscles. We did Push-ups, Mountain Climbers and Shoulder Taps which really puts stress on our upper body muscles. For me, both of my arms felt really sore after the workout but of course, this is a sign of progress.
For our final day of the Leadership & Personal Development course, we looked into the concept of 'Reflective Learning'. It is mainly a type of learning skill which helps us to become more of an active learner where we can be more engaged, involved, contribute and teach each other when we are learning something. We all can relate to it very much when we were in school as we were also introduced to the opposite of reflective learning being 'Passive Learning'. Passive learning is when we follow everything by the textbook just for the sake of passing the exams. However, this is not the best way of learning as it almost always ends with us forgetting what we have learned.
In the afternoon, we were joined again by Dr Sneha who gave us all an idea of how important it is to establish rapport with other people. Building rapport is important as it slowly develops a kind of mutual trust and affinity with someone else which can be beneficial, especially in the workplace when it comes to improving productivity and teamwork.
We were all meant to have our second dose of covid vaccine the next day however I was not able make it until a later date since I had to be quarantined as one of my family member was a close contact who had to be tested first. The next day, Hanan had a runny nose and hence, her vaccination was also postponed to a later date. The next morning we had to do a relatively shorter workout since Richmon, Alya and Syasya had to go for their vaccination early in the morning.
Although I did not go for my vaccination that day, my friends were able to tell me about their experience getting vaccinated. I was really interested though since I literally have not left the house for two weeks, and it has been a while since I experienced life outside during this restricted/control measures. On that morning, they first did a screening at the multi-purpose hall at Bolkiah Garrison and followed the Standard Operating Procedures (SOP). There was a lot of people and they had to wait almost two hours just to get into the bus just to go to MRS.
At MRS, they had to wait in six separate areas where they had to do registration and administration which is kind of a systematic they had to do. Even so, the major part was that they had to wait a lot before getting their vaccine shot. Syasya's mom was very protective and secure of Syasya, she made Syasya wear a kind of bucket hat with a face shield attached to it which I have never seen before but I thought it was funny. Syasya said she felt embarrassed waiting in a room full of people staring at her since she is the only one wearing something like that. But at least she is the safest one in the room though!
After that day, they did not report any major side effects other than feeling pain and weakness at the limb of the injection site. On my end, the week of our Freshman Induction Programme went smoothly even though we are doing it online, I felt not much difference as the online alternative still gives me a feeling of close contact with my friends. Although the Covid cases are increasing gradually everyday towards the end of the week, I still believe that it would get better in a matter of weeks if we stick to the current SOP.
Personal Takeaway:
Despite spending two weeks at home from the apartment due to the Covid situation, I was able to get used to doing the Freshman Induction Programme at home. Either way, I had to be quarantined for two weeks at home since one of my family members was a close contact. This meant that I had to reschedule and postpone my vaccination at the MRS to a later date. It was understandable as it plays a role in minimizing the risk of infection and spreading of the virus within the community and if we play our part following the SOP, hopefully we can start to see the numbers go down and soon enough, everything will go back to normal.
For me, doing work from home is not much different for me. This is all thanks to our latest available technology and online social media accessible from home. We were able to stay in close contact through many online platforms such as Zoom, Whatsapp, Telegram and Discord. Thankfully, there were not as many technical problems than expected.
For this week, we had a course on 'Leadership & Personal Development' which we did online through the Zoom app. It worked quite well and smoothly to the point where I felt like it would not feel much different if it were to be conducted in real life. As a matter of fact, I felt like doing it online made it more fun. We were able to on our cameras and see each other's faces, there were not many problems with sharing screens and watching videos, we got to have fun changing our Zoom background and so on. From the course alone, I found it very informative to learn about the many opportunities there are in life where I could develop myself and the importance of connecting with other people around me. Additionally, I had so much fun with all the individual and group activities given to us.
Other than that, it was the first time for all of us to create our own workout of the day (WOD) for us to do every morning. We all took turns to see who would lead WOD which included leading the dynamic stretching, main workout and the cool down. Again, we did it through the Zoom app. It was good as we took turns doing different workouts which focuses on different muscle groups each day such as doing chest muscle workouts on one day then core muscle workout the next day. Overall, it felt good to wake up early in the morning to get us started through the day with our WOD, even when we have to do it online.
To finish off, being quarantined really is nothing new to me as I have done it last year through online learning and to be honest, I am not worried how this will affect me mentally as again, I know I have gone through this same thing before. I can relate this to my physical training and even any challenges that I will face later in life, if I have done it before, I will for sure be able to handle the same challenge if it were to come up again. This is why life challenges play an important role in character development; it makes us stronger than we previously were.
Abdurraziq bin Abdul Aziz
SCRBAF 2021 Recipient
Arranged and Formatted by:
Aiman Abdullah Tee
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