caffeine & mentos overdose

it's back to work after a long 5-day course. course started on the 30th, then 31st was public hol, then day 2 of course, then weekend, then 3 days of course again. felt like a looong time leh. oh, and it felt like a holiday off work, especially since i took leave the day before the course started. haha. 1 full work week away from the office! hahaha.

oh oh, wat's more, the course was held at river view hotel, it's not like a 5-star hotel la, but it's still quite nice. we had morn tea break at 1030, lunch at 1230, then afternoon tea at 1530. we were well-fed! and best of all, no need to pay cos they're all included in the package (and my company paid for the course!). The food was not bad, and the nicest thing i ate there was the chocolate truffle cake from the coffee house. it was really really nice!! too bad we only had lunch at the coffee hse on the first day. most of the other lunches were at the chinese restaurant, 6 course meal. sitting down at the chinese restaurant for lunch felt like we were on a packaged tour leh. haha.

other than it feelin like a holiday, and the free food, the course was jus plain boring. I think i got an overdose of caffeine and mentos from the course, cos only the tea and coffee and munching on the free mentos provided could stop me from falling asleep. I think i drank on average 4 cups of coffee/tea and gobbled up at least 10 mentos candies each day, not including the other tidbits n candies i/my colleagues brought. It was THAT boring. Thankfully the trainers always let us off by 4.30pm (there was even one day when it ended at 4.15!). it's not exactly the trainers' fault that the course was boring la. these poor ladies (2 of them were professors leh) flew in from the US jus to teach this course to a whole bunch of workin professionals who were not very engaged nor interested, and most were sleeping or doing some other stuff. but honestly, the material and content of the course was really dry la. no wonder they had to give us so much nice food. i mean, we probably only looked forward to the tea breaks n lunches lor. personally, only the tea breaks n lunches kept me going.

i think it's very interesting to note that ppl's attention span and concentration for lectures really drop once they start working. i think if i were still in uni, and this same boring course was taught, i'd be able to pay much more attention. working ppl need a lot more activities, icebreakers, incentives etc to pay attention. i also saw many lil' things tat ppl did during the course which i thot only students in sec or JC will do (or at least I did during those days). Ppl were writing messages on scrap paper and passing around, munching on tidbits while the trainer's talking, smsing away during the course, drawing pics n patterns on the notes. quite fascinating to noe that regardless of age grp, ppl generally do the same things when they're tryin to entertain themselves in class.

despite the course being boring, i am thankful for the break from work. really needed to get away from the office n work and take a breather before going back to stress stress stress n more stress.

so here i am back at work, gettin ready to meet the stresses head-on. i really do need a good helmet for this.