After the previous week’s successful pop-up booth, YIH Room 4 saw a number of guests visiting NUSTM for the first time. VPM Christina opened the meeting by paying tribute to the late Mr Lee Kuan Yew with a minute of silence and reflecting on her leadership journey in NUSTM.

First-time Table Topics Master Ryan Leong started with an interesting series of hypothetical scenarios. Guest Seran was given the choice of living in either Antarctica or the Sahara Desert for the rest of his life. He entertained the room with his explanation that he would choose Antarctica, due to his fondness for cold weather, having lived in tropical climates for most of his life, and his penchant for the cute penguins there. Next up was another guest, Alvin, who had the ability to rewind to one moment in time. He chose to travel back into the 1950s to see the nation building of Singapore after reading up about different accounts of Singapore history due to the passing of Mr Lee Kuan Yew. The third Table Topics speaker was Kang Rui. He had the option of going for a holiday to any destination, and he chose one that is off the beaten track – Costa Rica. As zoologist Kang Rui claimed, he is not a city person and he prefers nature, which Costa Rica has an abundance of.

The second part of the meeting, the prepared speeches, opened with A Glimpse into Yanping’s Life. In her emotional Project 1: The Ice Breaker speech, she spoke about her hobby of baking, and her initial failed attempts at baking. After Yanping was Weizhe, who kept the room in fits of laughter as he spoke about His Life Story on how he picked up Tamil in secondary school due to the conducive environment there and sparked his interest in learning languages. The third speaker, Cynthia, recalled her culture shock when she first moved to Singapore from nearby Indonesia to study: students here discuss their homework before class, ‘discussing answers’ during examinations rarely occur, the streets are clean, and people walking for long distances without feeling tired. The audience then gave Jun Han 5 More Minutes of their attention to listen to his persuasive speech on the importance of encouragement, in terms of his Himalayan trek, marathons and Mr Lee’s passing. Next, Kang Rui reminded the room to Sleep to Remember and Remember to Sleep, as he informed us on the relationship between sleep and memory. He ended off with two tips to boost memory: sleep three hours after studying and staggered studying. Lastly, Jackie informed us how to be In The Zone, or being comfortable on stage. CMI – Take Charge of the stage, have a Motive, and Immerse yourself at every opportunity.

Guest Seran won the Best Table Topics Speaker with his humourous attempt, the Best Speaker award went to the Tamil-speaking Weizhe, and the Best Evaluator went to Wekie with his Wekie’s Words of Wisdom.

Written by Koh Yan Ling and Edited by Koh Shi Ting