“For You, for you and you”

My mother is my inspiration. She was the one who taught me my first word, how to walk and many more. She taught me the importance of loving yourself and always reminding me to be nice to people even when they treated me badly. I didn't do well in both primary and secondary school. I remembered crying upon getting my GCE Os result. I remembered feeling like a failure and just really disappointed in myself. Living in Singapore, I was told that without education, you can't really survive. With my results, I couldn't enter a Junior College (JC) and can only enter a few courses in Temasek Polytechnic. I couldn't enter the course I was interested in which was Biomedical Informatics and Engineering. My mother was the one who assured me that it’s totally fine and said that God had other plans for me. She kept saying she was proud of me and that she's grateful that I passed. We even went to get pizza after that to celebrate. From then onwards, I had this motivation to do well. I did pretty well in polytechnic. Now being in University, it’s hard. Most of my poly friends in University are either planning to withdraw or has already withdrawn. I can’t possibly give up now. School is tough but Diyanah isn’t a quitter. I really want to make my parents proud. Each time I feel down or at the point of breaking down, my mother comes to mind. The thought of seeing her proud smile gets me motivated.

I remembered going to my parents’ room and I saw my mother asleep. Looking at her, I whispered to myself, “For You, for you and you”. Her happiness is the key to Allah’s pleasure and mercy towards me. And therefore, I ask Allah that He enables me to continuously make her happy.

[Final] Reader Response to "Developing Sustainable Infrastructure in New Cities"

In the article “Developing Sustainable Infrastructure in New Cities”, Cho (2014) claims that urban challenges must be considered in developing a sustainable infrastructure. The improvement in performance and flexibility of infrastructure must adapt to the 21^st century extreme urban context. Infrastructures in this era should improve a community’s quality of life. She further mentions the Envision Sustainability Rating System, an evaluation tool that measures the performance of infrastructure and its impact on the community. She further shares her experiences in the King Abdullah Economic City (KAEC) project and the key challenges of urbanization. She hopes that the right project will help any community and city to function as a whole. While I agree with Cho on the importance of considering urban challenges in infrastructure planning, the examples she provided lacked details and was not convincing enough.

The first reason that makes her points incomplete was the lack of explanation on how developing countries like Peru and Mexico managed to build the awarded infrastructure. Developing countries must first ensure their people have access to basic social provision such as water and education before moving towards sustainability. Due to increased poverty and urbanization, the ideals of sustainable development largely remain a distant reality across developing countries (Amoateng, 2015). Cho should have addressed the issue of the extra challenges developing countries face and how they can move towards sustainability. Also, the challenges faced by both the developing and developed countries are different. With different challenges, the actions taken by both countries will be different. While Cho does mention projects in Peru and Mexico, both of which are ‘middle income developing countries’ according to the World Bank (The World Bank, 2015). She could certainly have given more detail especially the process in building the awarded infrastructure.

The second reason is because of the lack of explanation about her own KAEC project and how the Envision Sustainability Rating System is applied to it. Cho only mentioned her aims of KAEC sustainable infrastructure using the Envision certification process and how this process allowed the infrastructure to achieve the Infrastructure 360 degrees award. Envision has 60 criteria that is broken down into 5 different sections: quality of life, leadership, resource allocation, natural world and climate and risk (Beach, n.d.). It would have been better for Cho to address how she plans to improve KAEC so as to achieve the points. Under Envision Rating System, awards given based on credits. There are four tiers to achievement, based on a minimum percentage of all applicable Envision credits: Bronze, Silver, Gold and platinum awards (Beach, n.d.). Cho could have mention her target for KAEC and which award she plans to achieve. Only then will it seem more realistic and believable. Cho kept mentioning that she wants to apply the Envision Rating System to KAEC but she did not mention how she is planning to do it.

In conclusion, Cho managed to convince me on the importance of considering urban challenges in sustainable infrastructure. However, her article lacked detail especially the process of applying the Envision Rating System to KAEC and which award she plans to achieve. Also, it would have been more realistic to also touch on both the successful and unsuccessful stories of building these infrastructures as not everything has a happy ending.

References

H Cho (2014, December 17). Developing sustainable infrastructure in new cities. [Blog post]. Retrieved November 1, 2015 from http://www.newcitiesfoundation.org/evaluating-sustainable-infrastructure-development-new-cities/

P Amoateng (2015, March 30). Sustainable development in developing countries: ramifications of urbanisation and poverty. [Blog post]. Retrieved November 1, 2015 from http://www.openpop.org/?p=1054

S Beach, S. (n.d.). Isi envision: sustainable infrastructure rating system. [Blog post]. Retrieved December 28, 2015 from http://www.permatrak.com/news-events/bid/100073/ISI-Envision-Sustainable-Infrastructure-Rating-System

The World Bank. (2015). Mexico Retrieved December 28, 2015 from http://www.worldbank.org/en/country/mexico

The role of Peer & Tutor feedback

I have been writing since young. I think my writing skills have improved since my poly days. I did a lot of reports back in my poly days. Once the report is submitted, I will usually receive a grade. But my lecturer does not  really feedback on my report.  At the end of that module, I will not know what I missed out in my report. For example;

what I did well? Any areas I can work on? Whether my content was good or lacking? With no proper feedback, I will not know which areas I am lacking in and where I can improve. 

With this module, Effective Communication, getting feedback is something done for every assignment and tasks.

Honestly, for myself, when I got my first feedback, I believed it was for the summary of Cho's article. I thought I did well. But when I received the feedback , it turns out I was lacking. I missed out the main point of the article. Its good that they were specific so I know where exactly I went wrong. However, It was quite upsetting and I felt that the comments were quite harsh. For most of my feedback, I had to look at them with an open mind. I had to have this mindset that they want me to get my A. 

When a classmate gives a valuable feedback, it feels like they are cheer leading from the sidelines. I now truly appreciate every feedback I got where they were honest and did not sugarcoat any parts of my work. With this kind of feedback, that classmate is taking a risk, knowing its something I do not really want to hear and that I might be upset. However, If I were to take in the feedback, I can definitely improve. 

Most of my module requires at least 1 report this trimester. I found myself referring to the links Brad shared and notes for most of the report. For most of the report, the prof wanted them in APA style. I kept referring to the links given by Brad. Most of the time, its the references and the report format and style links.  I was able to transfer most of the skills taught by Brad to my other module assignment. There will definitely be more reports coming my way throughout my university studies and future career. As an Engineering student, writing report is something common so the writing skills will not be forgotten. I cannot deny the importance of these sets of writing skills. 

Thank you Brad for teaching us this set of skills and also making the lesson enjoyable.

Reflection on presentation

Our group, Triple N recently finished our proposal presentation. Yayy effective communication is done. I thought we did quite well and we're all satisfied with our performance.

Although I thought we did well, there were still areas that needs improvement. Reading the feedback from my classmates, as a team, we were really selling our idea. Individually, I felt that I messed up my part a little at the end . I laughed and my hand gestures were crazy and all over the place.

With regards to the crazy hand gestures, I thought my hand movements were good but turns out it was very distracting for some of my classmates. For my next presentation, I will try to have more control for my hand. I am someone who cannot sit still. I have to like move and its honestly uncomfortable to just stand with my hands at one place. But I'll try my best to exercise more hand control.

Another interesting comment by a classmate was that I was too cheerful that I started laughing. Honestly, its my first time hearing that. While I was presenting, I saw a classmate laughing and I just felt like laughing. I laugh easily so I need to learn to maintain.

Slide wise, a classmate commented that my slide was clear and neat. I was glad to hear that. I wanted the audience to focus on me. I didn't want them to get distracted by our slides so I only had 4 pictures there.

 In conclusion,  I thought our group did a great job and we're very happy.