On course the past week - which was my longest ever course. But oddly (or not) it also felt like the week passed by in a blink and I found myself enjoying it, despite the amount of content and pre-recorded lectures and readings that I had to go through before each session. 

One big reason for it is the home based learning environment where I don’t have to give a hoot about lecturers in front of me and I can be in a very comfortable position (which was a major plus of WFH). I actually don’t even mind the fact that every single session overran and ate into our break times, or that there is now no free lunch/tea breaks that I usually look forward to whenever I attend courses. I like that I can roll my eyes and give OS-es on something lecturer/enthu course attendees said. Granted there are some sessions where facilitator will remind us to switch on cameras but I will switch off at the first opportunity just so I can go back to a more unsightly position.

And maybe, just maybe, it also had something to do with my relative disdain for work (in general, not specifically the work I am doing now) that anything can be a welcomed change. Logged on to my email once a day, only to find that I wasn’t really needed at work. Like there’s an average of 30 emails received per day, including those mass emails so the number of emails that actually needed my attention..is not a lot. Could have just replied on the spot but I suppose I can save them for next week when I am back. Sigh mentality these days.

Anyway, thoughts after one week course:

1. LKY is a god who thought of everything and is basically the sole reason why SG is now very liveable
2. Senior public officers cannot stop talking about him. It’s almost as if they wouldn’t think of all these without him. 
3. They also continue to reminisce on their good old days despite the first thing the coordinator said in the course - “make no mistake, the good old days are really not good at all and we should never go back to those days” - mainly because of the poor living conditions (think slums, poor sanitary standards etc)
4. They think the problems faced by current crop of public officers are inconsequential compared to theirs. Not gonna lie, they have done a lot and they are amazing. But don’t discount the problems we are facing now. It’s not apple to apple. 
5. The passion that the speakers have in their mission is very inspiring. Unfortunately it still takes a lot of top down instructions for some of the best decisions to be made. 
6. Despite the fact that we are all safeguarding our own turf most of the time, public officers always have the best intentions. Execution may be flawed sometimes and worst of all public is just not appreciative enough, but it’s all for the good of the country. 
7. We should do engagement but we really should ignore online trolls and keyboard warriors. 
8. Cocreation is good and all, but really people only dare to do it for unimportant stuff with low impact, e.g. playground design, then proudly showcase it as “Yay! We did it together!”
9. NIMBY is the worst attitude to have, isn’t it. 
10. This segment about planning for security - why does FW become a major discussion point? Singaporeans’ xenophobia and racism is a thing you guys.

Labels: thoughts, work