AYC, Day 2


28th July 2010, Wednesday

As the second day here in Singapore starts for me and my fellow YDLs, there's only one thought in my mind. Today is Picture Day. Even though I realized I was in Singapore, Picture Day was important for me like it was every year. It was rock solid evidence that I was a member of the 8A family. But this year, I would miss it. And I know very well, that memories cannot be replaced. I woke up still feeling very sleepy, as always, and I was reaching out to the other side to poke my sister to wake up. It wasn't until I fell off my hotel bed did I realize where I was.

I climbed back into bed, my eyes not even open yet. To me, that meant my mind was still asleep. Then the doorbell rang. Since my roommate, Kay, was still in the bathroom, I had no choice but to open the door.

Feeling very cold but awake, I opened the door and saw Yudhi standing behind it. Looking ridiculous in my pajamas, with squinty, half-open eyes and bedhead, we exchanged hellos.

Evan who was standing beside him, saw me and laughed.

I was given the Academic Guide for the material that would be covered during the convention which was 74 pages long, the size of A4 paper and reeeeeeally small text.

As soon as I had taken a bath and changed, I put on a red USS jacket I had bought the other wet day, and went downstairs to have breakfast with Kay, Zoya and Erico.

Around 12.30, the vans came over to pick us up and take us to the place the YDL training would be held. The building was called Spring Singapore.

We were given an extra 8 dollars for lunch and dinner, and we went to the cafeteria to have lunch. When that was over, we went up to the seventh floor which was filled with lecture rooms.

With met up with some of the organizing team of AYC for this year. There was Eileen who was the Chairperson, and Stephanie who was the Alternate Chairperson.

A guy in a light green shirt (my fav color, which I took as good luck) took over to start the session. His name was Uly, and I have to say I've never seen anyone speak like he does. He's humourous, energetic, quick with the punch lines and changes his underwear a lot (I'll explain it in a bit).

So you've probably guessed by now, today's lesson was Public Speaking. He showed us a few of the basics, like how to organize the content of an improptu speech, how to use the stage, gestures and expressions, and the Underwear Theory.

Confused? Haha, well so am I.

So basically the theory is about how your position affects the range of voice over the audience. In Uly's expressive drawing, the range of your speaking voice will spread out to form a triangle. Add a few adjustments and you have an piece of upside down Underwear. So when you change position (and volume!) you change your Underwear.

We were split into two groups, Group A and Group B. We all had to come up and tell a 1-2 min. speech/story about "My Most Embarassing Moment".

...

Okaaaaaay. I can see this going smoothly.

The session was a bit sped up since we were a bit behind schedule. Uly only gave us 30 seconds to think about a few stories we could tell about. With my eyes still open, but my mind was flying elsewhere, I thought about it. Suprisingly, I had a lot of embarassing moments and I had no idea which one to choose.

When my turn came, it turned out really well, even though I was hassled. Or in a term you kids at Loren can understand, diejek setengah mati. -__-

Hahaha... Well, I won't tell the story here. My motto is: What happens in Singapore, stays in Singapore. Well, to be honest, that wasn't the most embarassing moment of my life. It was just one of the most spread and hyped-up. There were worse times, and they used to happen daily.

It was just playful fun, so no harm done.

After that session we had a recap of what AYC is about and how to coordinate projects or ASEAN Youth Club that would happen after the convention. So the delegates made groups from their respective countries and discussed the possible issues and solutions and implement them in Indonesia.

We Indonesian Delegates, have already thought ahead on this before the convention even started and then we suddenly realized this: all of our ideas can be connected.

For those of you curious, here's how it goes.

One of our ideas was to collect coins from the people of Indonesians, who usually don't think much of the value of silver 100/200 Rupiah coins. With so many people in Indonesia giving coins, in the end we could end up with a lot of money.

And this money can be used to fund other projects. In awareness for the lack of Cultural Exchange, we can use the money to hold Indonesian Cultural concerts and exhibitions that would in turn make a profit and increase other people's knowledge on Indonesian culture.

Using the coin fund and the concert profit, we can plant and buy Sansivieria plants, which can absorb more carbon dioxide and hence decrease Global Warming. This project would need a lot of manpower, thus we could give jobs to unemployed people and increase their over-all welfare.

For the people we employ who have children, their education is something we also plan to help with. The funds we have can be used for educational reform and operational support. We can give out more scholarships and school supplies.

Funds-->Culture-->Environment-->Education. Simple yet effective, no?

Then the other countries shared their thoughts and we discussed about the problems their respective countries. The Singaporeans talked about Youth Empathy and their idea of increasing the awareness. And the Vietnamese expressed difficulty for youths to be personally involved in changing their countries, but plan to possibly start with reforming the educational system.

We wrapped up our training for today at around six and at had dinner together at Chinatown.

We had a lot of free time that night, so some us decided to take advantage of it by walking around Orchard Road. Suffice to say, I was satisfied to grab some awesome buys at Kinokuniya, even though going back to the hotel took some time. (Read: sempet nyasar).

Tired yet happy, today was a great day. I look forward to what's waiting for us in Singapore.

--Karin Novelia

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