Day 3 (6th Dec) - started off with the mundane stuff like the welcome speech, housekeeping matters and then icebreakers for the kids. We skipped the tour of the college (since we kinda knew most of it anyway) and the uni and decided it was better to head down to the city so we went to Bourke St. again since we didn't get to go into the departmental stores the last time. But we found out that the prices there are really ex compared to Singapore and though I tried to work my way through the little streets around the area I couldn't find any bargains sad to say. Even "The Reject Shop" didn't have much things that appealed to me (unlike the one in Penang where I bought clothes)...
We then went back to observe the kids as they went through some team skilling stuff (think team-bonding games, again a bit like the standard type of games in orientation such as building the tallest tower with paper, although this time I did get to see a very creative design that was tall and looked decent; I also liked the part where the kids were asked to choreograph certain segments of a dance and the various flashpoints which were quizzes that helped to break the monotony of certain tasks), listened to the introduction of the leadership project and I took part in the hip-hop lesson that they had which was quite fun! I liked it cos of how the instructor taught the moves and got the kids to open up and the learning points that she had, which was NOT about the dancing but just giving 100% in whatever you do and having faith in yourself and not being afraid to be judged by others. She started by teaching a routine that everyone did, then a routine for the girls and boys so that we could battle it out, then divided into even smaller groups of 4-5 where each came up with their own dance routines and finally ended with the confidence circle where everyone went up individually to the centre to do whatever they were comfortable with. I thought that was really good and tried to force people to come out of their shells (although some did minimal stuff)... Certainly gave me some food for thought about next year's Council Training Camp... =)
Night activity was trivia night which the teachers felt could be improved by having questions that were more general and allow greater interaction and sharing of culture amongst the participants rather than very obscure questions based on American/Australian culture so that at least the kids can interact more rather than cracking their brains individually...
Day 4 (7th Dec) - started off with an introduction to this "Melbourne Model" thing which was supposed to describe how wonderful the system is like but in the end we just thought it was no different from our Singapore system so it was kinda boring but thankfully it was just a short session. We then joined the kids for a lecture on "How We Fund Our Ideas" which was on copyright issues, trademarks, trade secrets and patents. While certain parts were interesting to know, I thought there were too many draggy parts which stopped me from enjoying it more but it was ok for me (though many of the kids seemed to be falling asleep).
We also attended a Maths lecture on "Mathematics, Nature and Nonsense" which was quite funny and I appreciated the idea to bring the kids back to fundamentals such as how Pythagoras Theorem came about, how pi was defined and some other Laws and formulae that were put forth by early mathematicians. I think the important idea which is true for Science also is that we need to appreciate how the early theories come about rather than just memorising the formulae and it is also important to understand what went through the minds of the great people because sometimes the stuff they think of can seem so nonsensical at that point of time and yet it all makes sense much later on. I also liked the part about the numerology and how there are various ways in seeing patterns. But as a kid pointed out, she couldn't see the application of the knowledge from the lecture which is true and I just felt that it was a basic introduction to Mathematics and the philosophical side of things rather than the hardcore mathematics stuff so it was very different from the JC system naturally...
Last part of the day we had public speaking and I thought it was quite boring cos it seemed pretty basic stuff and also for our kids since they went through almost everything in their OP preparation for PW so we left early, though apparently there was something a little bit more interesting after we left...
Dinner was good as our host brought us out to Lygon Street for dinner at an Italian restaurant and the food was awesome! I had a mixed seafood grill and thoroughly enjoyed it, as did the rest. Then we went to a nearby cafe (Brunetti's) for ice-cream and it was again fantastic cos it was really creamy and smooth and tasty! Best meal we had in Melbourne so far! =)
Day 5 (8th Dec) - Went to Xavier College for a tour there and I believe it's a private school and for boys only. I thought the labs were quite good and I liked the way the doors and walls were designed with murals of famous scientists to liven up the place and create a better atmosphere for doing lab work and I thought it was something that could be done also relatively easily and cheaply. There were some fascinating stuff that we saw in the labs such as some cleaning equipment that would make cleaning so much easier and we thought about getting that for our own labs haha. The school had a pretty posh look also and their auditorium was impressive, as was their general school compound. We also got a look at their attic, which served as a heritage centre of sorts and helped to capture all the memories of the alumni as they had many photographs, replicas of the dorm beds, bathrooms, and even the original graffiti on the ceiling. It was certainly pretty impressive though much space had to be given up to do that...
After we came back to Trinity College we set off towards the city again as we wanted to find the DFO shops at South Wharf so we took the tram to the end and stopped outside Flinders Station. I then bought food from "Lord of the Fries" which was just ok - the fries weren't that awesome anyway though I liked the Belgian mayo sauce. Took another tram to Spencer street where we dropped off then walked through the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre before finally reaching our destination. It was certainly worth the traveling because it's a shopping haven, esp for the ladies I'm sure because the basement had a huge area of shops with discounts and I finally got to buy some decent stuff though I held back on the more expensive items because I wasn't sure about my fashion sense haha. But we'll definitely go back next week with the kids and I want to buy more stuff! =)
Night activity was karaoke night and there were plenty of bad singing haha though some of the performances were quite entertaining cos of the dances that the groups tried to come up with and watching our kids perform was quite entertaining... =p
More updates soon!
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