Upon the recommendation of the Married Soldier, The Changed Man (along with his girlfriend whom I had not found a suitable codename yet) and I went off to the Treetop Trail. I have only heard of it on the newspapers so this is my first visit. We started off at a visitor's center near Telok Blangah Heights and here are some of the photos I took during our trip over the F1 race weekend.
The visitor center was beautiful. Luxuriant with wood finishings and plenty of water features. It feels like some huge condominium clubhouse. Nobody's sitting on those sofas though because the day was very sunny but I like. 
A bridge to nowhere? I think it's meant for the disabled to edge closer to the water to enjoy the scenery beyond. Very picturesque view of the surrounding forested area. I could never imagine such a place in Singapore until I visited it myself. 
The large assembly area of the visitor centre. I particularly like the high wooden roofs and the openness of the views. Very relaxing, especially since the whole bunch of us wanted to escape the noise and smoke of the F1 racing in the city. 
I didn't notice the man in yellow before I quick-snapped this shot. He must be taking the photo of the bridge in the midst of the greenery too. I must admit the bridge seemed like some ordinary pedestrian bridge so I didn't notice how it actually marks one of the stops for the treetop trail. Here we go on the trail now... 
First few moments of the treetop trail reveal a maze-like walkway. There wasn't much to see initially because this stretch of trail is still above the highway roads below but The Changed Man's girlfriend was already jittery because she is afraid of heights since we are walking along metal grilles which one can see through to the bottom. The height above ground is already 8 meters. 
The treetop trail eventually smooths out to much more luxuriant greenery and it was nice and comfortable walking amidst it because you can literally touch the trees right in the middle of the forests. At this point of time, we got used to the height, which was easily 20 meters above ground or more. A pity that few animals and birds were spotted because there was a crowd of people on the trail during the weekend. I even bumped into my secondary school friend who was accompanying her parents there too! 
This was the part where The Changed Man and his girlfriend (who wore slippers) started to tire out. As you can see, the treetop trail started to climb up Telok Blangah Hill gradually and we were only 2.4kilometers onto the supposedly 10km trail. By the time we reached the top, they were too tired to go on and we turned back. I cheerfully suggested that we should come more prepared next time and finish the trail together as a group. I am looking forward to getting up close with nature again. 
Dinner after the treetop trail was settled at IKEA where The Married Soldier was persuading us how delicious the Swedish meatballs (which came topped with jam) was. Whilst we shared the meatballs, I myself ordered a salmon dish which tasted not bad either. The place was crowded though but we enjoyed our dinner after a good 2.5 hour walk on the treetop trail.Lazing at Pacific Coffee @ Marina Square:
Last Saturday afternoon was spent with The Busy Bee. We ate lunch at a Hongkong food mini-outlet at the basement of Raffles City before we took a short browse through the Marina Square mall. She was looking for some clothes for her friend's wedding but found none suitable there. We eventually propped ourselves down at Pacific Coffee near Marina Square and spent a good part of the afternoon reading away.
We found sofa seats near a strange screen which showed the latest stock market rates as well as weather forecasts for several cities (some of which I have never heard of before) but some on-screen information provided visual relief from reading. The Busy Bee was reading some hedge fund book whilst I was trying to revise the first-aid manual book. 
The Busy Bee was tired from reading after a couple of hours and started to use MSN on her phone and snap photos of the cafe itself. I like the cafe a lot because it's quiet, the people are well-behaved, the sofas are comfortable and the music is soothing. We probably were lucky because moments after we were seated, the place was nearly completely occupied. 
You can see a little bit of me seated opposite The Busy Bee's shot of the cafe. Most of the people were reading quietly at their own seats and you could also see how messy our table was - newspapers, books, drinks, hand phones and stationery.MOE "Teach" Career and Networking Session:
For the frequent readers of my blog, they would know that I am a tutor so naturally, I would be interested to hear what the Ministry of Education in Singapore has in store for people who love teaching. I wanted to know if there is still a possibility that I can teach in government schools but the session proved to be a disappointment which reinforces my belief that I can function much better as a private tutor rather than as a government school teacher.
Although the session was glamorously held at an esteemed hotel in Singapore, in my opinion, it will probably fail to attract mid-career professionals (it's targeted group) due to the following reasons:
1) The speakers were too young to convince the mid-career professionals that the session was genuinely meant to impress and attract people to teach. I thought they looked amateur at best onstage, stammering away with poor self-confidence and conviction. The most experienced one seemed to harp on her nineteen years of teaching experience even when some of the audience looked probably much more experienced in their line of work than she could ever boast. She kept mentioning "distinguished-looking" as her adjective for describing the audience but never went far to say why, which I thought sounded more like plain flattery.
2) The highest ranking speaker was a Deputy Director but I thought that was not high level enough to attract mid-career professionals to switch their jobs. I thought a Director level or Minister level speaker would have carried more weight and respect to the mid-career professionals who took precious time off to see what the Ministry has to offer/showcase to them.
3) There were Powerpoint presentations attempts to inform and impress that teaching is a good career option for the mid-career professionals but I was bemused by the choice of presentation. Most of these professionals would have seen countless presentations and would have been easily bored by them, no matter how well-made they were. I thought much more would have been achieved if they conducted a Q & A session which would be much better than a confusing networking segment where the venue was too crowded with people, food and noise to be effective. I believe there were so many questions unanswered in the minds of the audience.
4) The session's punchlines were "Changing Lives", "Passion" and "Vocation" but the speakers did not seem qualified to mention "Changing Lives" since they looked too young to be "preaching" about such a principle to the audience (some looked like 50 years old whilst the speakers were mostly 30+). The word "passion" was mentioned at least five times but none of the speeches were even close to passionate (they sounded very measured and well-rehearsed). "Vocation" was used at least twice but the presentation slides were featuring alot more technical jargon and career prospects of titles of teachers which meant nothing to people who genuinely wanted to teach.
To sum up all my grouses, the session was expensively adorned but hollowed out in sincerity and effectiveness. It did not manage to answer my foremost questions -
A) How does MOE intend to reduce the unnecessary workload of teachers so that they could concentrate on teaching and deliverance rather than attending seminars, workshops, course, meetings, projects which will definitely take away much of the 24 hours of each day? One can always wax lyrical about "good time management" but I thought one should look to the root of the common problem faced - what about "realistic time management"?
B) How does MOE intend to reduce the unnecessary enrichment classes/programs of students so that they could concentrate on revising their work and absorbing whatever the teachers are trying to impart without burning out?
To conclude, there is still much room for improvement before MOE can truly attract people who have the real passion to teach (no matter how complex or simple the career track is to them).
No comments:
Post a Comment