A little Trip in Singapore.

STEP SOCIOVATION FORUM

REGISTRATION STORY:

       Hi, so on May 11th to 16th I enrolled in this program called STEP Sociovation Forum.STEP  Sociovation Forum is a design thinking workshop divided into three topics Disability, Environment, and Ageing Society. Participant gets to experience these problems in Singapore directly with their own team in Singapore Social Science University or SUSS in short. But, before we get there let me tell you where in the world did i stumble upon this program. Way before that date I was informed by my English teacher to join this so called "workshop", she said it was fully funded (as a way to buy me in). I didn't take it seriously since when I looked at the University rank, let's just say I wasn't interested (Sorry SUSS :))) ).  I was skeptical because in Indonesia these kinds of event wouldn't be organized well if ,it isn't organized by a notorious or well known university. But then my father encouraged me to join as an experience point for myself, since I'm shooting for NUS for my study (hopefully) even tho I am still reluctant about it. 

    So I decided to enroll in it, to enroll participants are needed to make an essay about the topic chosen (for me its the Disability Group)  achievement details, and also inspiration to join the program, all consisting of 250 words. So 1 week before the program I started consistently  messaging my father back and forth (since he was and still is working in Jakarta) to correct my essays since it was my first time making an essay for a program like this. After 6 days I finally finished it and decided to send it. However there was a problem, the web registration has already closed even tho the website states that it ends on January 24th(which I enrolled on that day). I was shocked and disappointed for a while. That exact night I decided to mail a complaint to the organizer and the university due to them lacking the specific time (like the hour :( to complete the essay ). Maybe at the time I wasn't thinking clearly about it,  I was a bit mad and decided to go full rage mode on the event organizer and the university while still keeping my manners :)).( FYI I also contacted them through Facebook).

   So that's what happened over the next 2 days I keep on mailing them back and forth which they reply that they were sorry and blablablbla. But suddenly on that Friday I got an email to put all my needed credentials in that email. I still remember that Friday vividly in my head, I quickly borrowed my friend's laptop and write all the the needed credentials on that email and sent it 30 minutes after the email was sent. I click sent and waited for a response after 3 days, 4 days, 5 days, etc. After around a week I got an email again detailing that I got accepted to the program (yayy :) ))). In my head I was thinking that maybe filing a complaint was the right move, if I hadn't done that then maybe this program would have just brush over my shoulder. 

D-DAY:

   The day finally has finally arrived for us to go to Singapore, BTW before all of this I already met my fellow teammates from Indonesia. 2 of them are from my school ( Tata and Saskia), one from a different school in Bandung(Morla) and the other 3 are from Jakarta (Nabila, Naura, and Edo) ,so we met the week before with our chaperone in Bandung. We went to Singapore on the 10th of March and went back on the 16th of march, so in short the program felt like it was almost a week (hehehe just a bit of FYI on the 17th of March my school had a mandatory program for all student to go to Bali, so let's just say I'm very lucky). So we boarded the plane and arrived in Singapore around  12 pm I guess???( I kinda forgot I'm writing this a month later so my memory is a bit foggy). Any who me, Tata, Sas, Morla, and our chaperone got to Singapore first and the ones from Jakarta got there on a later flight from Jakarta. To my surprise there was already someone waiting for us. His name is Leonard and he redirected us to terminal 3 since we were in terminal 4. We were told to follow him and put our suitcase with him. We then met the Malaysian team and then Leonard directed us towards the food court. The food court was surprisingly clean(well it is Singapore, Dwikaaaa :(( ) and had a lot of cheap foods which is what I needed since I only had 100$ (SGD) in my wallet although I do have a backup inside my suitcase. After all of that we did some more waiting and waiting and finally decided to take the bus towards our hostel in Nanyang Girls Boarding School. It took around an hour but still I was still skeptical about the program (heheheh). Since we arrived first there was literally no other group that has arrived. So I decided to go out and explore the area a little and buy some water (even tho I know that the tap water is drinkable).Finally everyone finally arrived an we're all instructed to gather at the foodcourt, I still haven't met my other roommates tho. I decided to sit with my other Indonesian friends.

   Since most of them are girls, I tried to find Edo since he is the only other boy from Indonesia. I was a bit strucked when I finally get to know some people and learned that they were either 7 years or 4 years older than me and so were they, hearing that we were all still 16 and 15(well to be honest the requirements are for Pre-U students). When all of them arrived we were directed towards the main hall and played a game to get to know each other better. After all of that frenzy we were all kinda tired and were all directed to sleep since we have to sleep and I finally met my roommate which was Han (Vietnam), and Farhan(Singapore). They were all older then me but was surprisingly very nice to me. Anywho we all chatted for a bit and decided to sleep after 12 pm.

DAY 1

  Still being skeptical, I decided to just go with the flow if the event was bad. So in the morning we all ate breakfast and went to SUSS. Then came another icebreaking where we all finally introduced to our teammates. For this I got teammates from 5 other countries Sarah (Singapore), Ping and Magic(Thailand), Gerald (Philippines),  Nabs(Brunei), and Acelyn (Vietnam). Our facilitator was  Hui Xien/Xian( Im sorry kinda forgot :) ). She is very nice person and an easy to talk with too so it was very interesting to know her. After that we were all directed to the function room in Block A. There we met the higher ups and some innovators. There were a lot of them but one that caught my eyes was Mr Yoh which the CEO of Dignity Kitchen (more info on this later). After all of those boring intros we got to play some simulation games which is very interesting like doing the whisper challenge, solving a puzzel with your hands tied,etc.

  After that we all went to Ngee Ann Polytechnic which was a polytechnic next to SUSS to enjoy the Dinner in The Dark Event. BTW throughout walking around in SUSS I got to know one member of my group really well which was Sarah since she was the first one that I approach and was easier to get to know than other members (some of it is because she speaks fluent English and was not shy). While walking towards Dinner in The Dark, I asked a lot of question on how the Singaporean Education System works, and to my surprise it functions very differently from the Indonesian system(more on this later). The clock was pointing to 6:00 pm and we finally got into the specified place. To my surprise Dinner in The Dark is literally what the name suggest which is EATING DINNER IN THE DARK. Interesting concept ey??? Well it is, so how do they serve the food then??? Well surprisingly all of the servants are blind so they use their sensory system to know the space around. It was very interesting we were all served 3 main dishes and were all told to eat with no lights available, it was hard tho , I even spilled my drink hehehe. In here I get to know more people which was Shaheer(Singapore) and share a lot of stories while we were experiencing this event. After this event is over we all headed back towards the hostel by a bus and throughout the journey I decided to chat with my fellow teammates more, just to get to know them better.

DAY 2

    Day 2 was a bit different and more geared towards visiting and getting a hands on the disabled people in Dignity Kitchen. This day was surprisingly interesting since we got to go to Diginity Kitchen which was a place where the Disabled can work again by making good quality food. Dignity kitchen is also the only food safety graded place  by the FDA to hire the Disabled to work in the world.  There my team got to ask some question about the Disabled ones. We were taught a lot on how Mr Yoh( The CEO) built this company from the ground up and told us a valuable lesson on how to start a business like this that makes profit while also giving benefit towards those with Disability. In Dignity Kitchen we also got a hands on, on how to make Rojak with Mr. Roger who got a stroke 8 years ago and is having speech and movement impairments on his left arm. The interesting part is that Dignity Kitchen allows him to do all the necessary work to make a rojak by giving and making him a special equipment to do so. We also got to see the disabled making cofee and milk tea. On this day too, I got to know more people from Tata's and Edo's group since there were a lot of people I tried to blend in better.The interesting part about this day is that we got to eat outside, we were about to eat in an Hawker Center but apparently it was closed so we all went to a nearby mall called Clementy. 

       On the bus I got to know more people which was Isaac, Keff, and Jeff whose is a facil from Morla's group . There we did some cringey love jokes, I wasn't good at it so I just laughed at it. We were told to split up and gather in front of a Miniso store on 11pm. So me, Edo, Morla, and Tata decided to eat together, while finding food we decided to catch up and a little and take some photos. While doing that we got too far and decided to headback to McDonald's and eat there, it was very crowded, so I decided to order all the food while the others find their seats. While doing that apparently Edo was super nice and decided to help and old man with a wheelchair towards the bus station, it was a very warm move and I decided to follow him just in case something bad happens. We got back and ate our dinner afterwards. While eating dinner there was a nice guy that chats with us and shared a lot of information about Singapore and where we should go for the next day. I forgot his name but Edo got his number and he explained to us that he is chatting with us because he saw what Edo did and was very touched by his act. Well I guess that's magic right there!!!! So we gathered back at 11 pm and Edo decided to buy gifts for his girlfriend before that. After that we all headback towards the hostel and sleep for the night.

DAY 3

      Each day keeps on getting way better and interesting, on this day we got to have more workshops on emphaty mapping and also design thinking as a whole. Me and my team ideate for a very long time and cannot decide what How Might We question to come up with along the workshop. We finally came up with the theme Inclusivity after a lot of brainstorming. It was stressful but we got it done, in terms of progress tho we were lacking than other team. Thankfully it was also fun because I got to know more about my teammates and what their good at which is needed later on on the 4th day. After the workshop we are all directed towards the Marina Barrage to play games and do more bondings with each other. The game was super fun our it was match to gather the most rubber out of all the other teams.The game requires us to be splitted into some groups each consisting of 3 people from the  Disability Group with groups acting as a hunter and the other as a catcher. To form acathcer you need at least 9 people tied together and form a circle around those who are targeted. It was easy for me to play as the  catcher since I run pretty so I didn't get caught while doing so. Overall it was great and we got to watch the sun go down from Marina Barrage. After that our facils told us that we could go to the lightshow near the Marina Bay Sands nearby. So we went there,but to be honest I wasn't interested in it. While walking towards the lightshow we all decided to blend and get to know others languages it was pretty funny seeing other people speaking your language. After we got there we decided to try the cheese milk tea store nearby, the taste was very interesting tho and it was my first time tasting it too. 

     Since I was pretty reluctant on going to the light show, Isaac asked me and Edo to go see acarnival nearby, however to enter we need a ticket and our time is limited so we decided not to go. However there is an electric scooter rent nearby and decided to rent 3 of them, we all have to pay for it using Isaac's credit card since we don't have any of them(don't worry we paid him back).  It was pretty fun since Isaac was so nice and showed us around the Marina Bay Sands Area such as the F1 racing area, Singapore's oldest hotel,etc. He was very keen and nice on doing so that we pretty much scoot all over the place for hours and met our team back around 1 and a half hours later. After already eating before for some reason our facils decided to get some supper before going back to the hostel. There we chatted more on our love stories(hahaha) such as how Sarah has a muslim boyfriend, the story of Isaac and his girlfriend, Edo's story,etc. It was super interactive and I got to know more about them. I don't why tho when they were speaking English it was so fast that it's somewhat hard to understand (hehehe). After all of that fiesco we went back to the hostel and sleep to be ready for the next day.

DAY 4

     Day 4 is the worst day out of all them, to be honest this was the day where we are suppose to make new ideas. My team were kinda lacking behind on what we were supposed to do and only got our idea down after hours of discussing. It's ok tho I got to try Subway for the first time anyways (haha). There were lots of memorable moments tho like Ping shivering due to it being very cold, Magic being super focused, me and Sarah joking to much, Acelyn nice drawings and alot of them. Sadly as the day rolls we didn't get to finish most of our work an have to continue it inside the hostel while some went to go to Mustaffa, Haji Lane, and more sightseeing. So me and my team worked very hard at night after we got to the hostel, our facil wasn't there too because she had a class to attend to. Oh well it was fun, afterall this is what the event is supposed to be. After all the quarrel we decided to split the team into two me, Magic, Ping, and Nabs would work on a customized chopping board for people with one hand while Gerald, Sarah, and Acelyn got to work on making a viral video challenge. We did that for hours and since the clock is always ticking we finally decided to go to sleep because we were so tired after the clock passes 12pm.

DAY 5

   Day 5 is the day where we got to show our ideas and how it would be integrated to society. After all the hecticness we finally got to show our work. But first it was the closing ceremony first, we have to wear the specific attire that the facils gave us. We watched the video that the organizer made, and took a photo of all the participants together. Then after that came the interesting part where we get to show Mr Yoh and other executives from SUSS about our ideas. Thank goodness our work paid off and the result is suprisingly good we got featured on their facebook page and was widely appreciated for our efforts to make the challenge and the customized chopping board in the first place. After that came the cultural event where we share our own culture from our own nationality. We Indonesians got to wear batik for the boys and kebaya for the girls. To be honest I feel proud of myself for completing the presentation so the cultural event was a very good one. We Indonesians got to sing Manuk Dadali but was cutshort by a Cambodian performance(sorry Jeff) we initally wanted to ask the crowd to play Ampar - Ampar Pisang but the class is already booked and we were running late. So we decided to pack our stuffs and hurry towards the hostel. When we got to the hostel we decided to rest for an hour and then got our tickets to Gardens By the Bay, to be honest I've been here before and it was so awesome. The last time I went there was 3 years ago and sadly we didn't get to go to the second dome however this time I was lucky to get inside the second dome. It was themed Japanese at the time and was so amazing to see. After walking around I told Sarah to take a picture of me (she was pretty bad at it tho (no offense Sarah :)))) ).After Gardens By the Bay we decided to split and went towards Bugis, there I took some photos on the famous murals, and bought some twix candies for my sister. Then we all got back to the hostel, I was a bit sad since the event is already over again.There, our facil Hui Xien gave us gifts with letters inside of them, she told us not to open until we reached our respected countries. Sadly this is the last day we got to see her because the next day she got a morning, we all hugged each other and say our goodbyes to her, It was pretty sad :(((.

DAY 6

   This was the last day, the day where we all had to go back home. I feel pretty excited and also sad after gaining many experiences here, it is so sad to go back and saying goodbyes to the new friends that I made here. But as they say, the show must go on and we depart to the airport at 10 in the morning. However we Indonesians still want to shop around so after the painful goodbyes with the facils (like Jeff, and Ju-Yun (sorry if i misspell your name)) we decided to headbakc to the city by hailing a grab from the airpot to orchard road. We only have one hour to spend so I went with Tata to buy his dad a watch while Morla and Saskia went to Kinokunia to buy some books and stationary tools(BTW we were splitted with the team from Jakarta since we were on different flights). After an hour of shopping we hailed a Grab back to the airport and made it in time jsut for the flight (it was tense, people:( ). While wating for the flight I bought more twix chocolate for my sister and father at home. Well while on our flight back, I was sad and excited too because the day after this I got to go to Bali (hahahaha). That is all for this short yet amazing week in Singapre. Hope you enjoy reading through this mess and to all my ASEAN friends thank you for being so kind and not making me feeling left out although our age gap is so far apart. THANK YOUUU FOR THE FOND MEMORIES!!!.