2. Your progress so far
 
 Assalammualaikum, da jia hao, eppadi irukinga, to my esteemed supervisor, Prof Madya Dr. Noor Dina Binti Hashim, legendary coordinator and Komanden(the most pro), Dr. Syamsa Rizal Abdullah, and to my dear peers and friends, welcome back to my elective posting project update, for the third week this time! As mentioned in the previous week, I will be exploring on another service that is under F&B, which is room service, which I must admit, is my favourite service among all, as it strikes an almost perfect balance between physical and mental challenges, while also having fun meeting all kinds of people of different ethnicities, backgrounds, and getting to explore the hotel rooms as a whole, and getting to even access the very special rooms such as the suites, and presidential suites etc. I truly enjoyed this service the most, as it is relaxing in its own way, and moving to and fro is free exercise for me, gonna have to burn all the calories gained from the free hotel food…
 Anyways, for jobscope, it is very simple and satisfying, and in the name of the service itself, is truly focused on guests’ wants and needs from the coffee house. This starts from receiving requests from guests, mainly from the hotel phone where they would call from their rooms, and very rarely some guests will come down to the coffee house to request, usually because they are just around the floor after swimming etc. Next, we will jot down the orders, and confirm with the guests if they want to pay by cash or charge it to the room, then key in into the system, and the order shall be prepared by the chefs. Then, I will wait for the food to be settled, so in the meantime I will prepare the necessary cutleries according to the order, any condiments, and most importantly the receipt and spare change in case the guests want to pay by cash, or change their minds from room charge to cash payment. After that, once the food and drinks are ready, place everything including the food and cutleries etc onto a trolley, and cover all the food with food covers that are very classy and shiny, to preserve the food and avoid it getting cold so fast. Once done, double check everything to ensure all of the items are accounted for, compare it with the receipt, and then start bringing the trolley to the staff elevator, and go to the floor of the room of the guest that requested for the food. Once reached, knock on the door with greeting according to the time of the day, and mention room service, all this in a calm and polite tone. Once guest reaches the door, usually the food will be passed to the guest one by one, and some don’t mind us entering the room with our shoes on to deliver the food into the room. Once all the food, drinks and cutleries have been successfully passed or delivered safely and all accounted for, for room charge the guest is required to sign on the receipt, while if payment by cash, cash will be given by the guest, and we will always be prepared with change to be given, to make things easier for everyone, smoother, and always safe than sorry. Once change is given, one copy of the receipt will be given to the guest, and the other copy will be kept at the coffeehouse as proof of transaction and payment. After all that is settled, bid the guests farewell and wish them a good meal, and then deliver to any other rooms if any, and then start to head back to the coffeehouse using the same route.
 Another job scope in room service is called ‘floor check’, whereby usually a 2-man job, is required to go to each floor containing guest rooms, starting from the highest(13^th floor) to the lowest(8^th floor), and pick up any used utensils stacked outside the guestrooms, used plates, dirty dishes etc, usually from the room service. This is done on a daily basis, 2-3 sessions a day depending on the number of guests occupancy. This one is abit challenging at times especially when it is only done by 1 person as the amount can be a lot at times, but still manageable.
The final jobscope for room service includes delivering fruit baskets to VIP Accor club members’ rooms, usually before they check in. The fruit baskets will be prepared by the chef, and we deliver it using same route as usual. Before that, I will have to head to the front office to get the master key card in order to access the rooms, as the guests have not arrived yet. The fruit basket will be delivered along with fork and knife placed in red cloth folded nicely, and with a greetings card for each of the guests, and arrange nicely in the room, as a nice welcoming gift. This is where I also bet to see and admire the rooms, as usually these VIPs go for the most luxurious rooms, so I will get to see the room upon entering. So these are the main job scopes for room service, and I really enjoyed it.

3. Your feelings and thoughts 

  My feelings and thoughts remain the same, and am still learning along the way, and this week I worked a lot of night shifts, and it was very much more tiring, but made me learn even more while building my physical and mental resistance, and in turn more grateful and appreciate the hard work that people put in to work. All in all, I really enjoyed myself doing the room service, and is my favourite so far compared to the others.

4. How did you learn and apply the skill of decision making in your EP journey?

 Throughout the journey, decision making has been and always, a very crucial skill needed. Decision making of course is not learned merely through this posting only, but throughout my whole life, and this EP has been another phase of learning it more. Throughout all the services I have gone through, decision making is required in every single one of it. I managed to learn to decide when is the best time to clear the tables during the buffet and event times, I learned to manage my time better and wisely, deciding when is the best time to go for rest and taking turns with co-workers. Deciding to go and help any guests in need and tend to their requests, and even having to decide when is the best time to carry out refills during buffets in order to avoid any complains or difficulties for guests while ensuring everything is going smoothly, down to deciding when to carry out the ‘floor checks’ to ensure the floors are tidy, and guests will have good impressions on the hospitality and cleanliness.

5. How did you manage your time throughout this EP journey? 

 Throughout the journey and as mentioned before, time management is a very important that I learned, especially work-basis, while juggling with wanting to spend time at home with family, getting sufficient rest, while also managing to work 8-10 hours a day. Most importantly is preparing and planning ahead, based on my work schedule. The different shifts made me modify and work along my routine. I used the schedule to plan out my days ahead, and on off days, I spend my most time with family as I only get one day off per week. I would utilise my Ipad and draw out a timetable accordingly, so as to ensure I am on the right track of time each day. And at work, time management is crucial too as having to know when to take a rest optimally as rest time allocated is only half an hour, and break for prayers is also 15-20 minutes only, so managing the time along the way was a challenge, but again I refer to my shift, and plan out the best time to rest and pray, and try to be swift as possible. Alhamdulillah, so far no disciplinary problems or any misunderstandings.

6. Your plan for next week (Week 4)

For the final week of my EP, my plan is to be full fledged into all the services, and juggle between all three like normal, so it will test all my skills, knowledge that I have managed to obtain during the last 3 weeks, to put it all together to good use, and see how I perform, and end it with a banger.

2. 

For week 3, I have the opportunity to learn how to introduce families and learn vocabulary related to family in korean. 

If we are female to called

If we are male to called

Aside from that, I also learnt how to count in Korean. 

Example: one; 하나 (hana)

Next, I learnt about how to ask and respond time & date using Korean numbers. This time it is a bit confusing as Korean people read the number or date of the months using Chinese characters.

If in Korean one is ‘hana’, in Chinese character we use one as 일 ‘il’. 

As for my progress so far, I am now able to ask and respond in Korean when being asked about family and regarding time and date. I also got the highest score for every quiz that I have been assigned to. Besides that, I also jotted down some notes from the provided videos so that I can keep practicing on the pronunciation and writing 

3. 

Throughout learning the Korean language, I am always happy and excited because I love to know more about their mother tongue. However, I could say this week has been a bit tough for me. When learning about time and date in Korean, I find it difficult to write and pronounce. Despite having a hard time, I overcame it by watching Youtube videos and practicing using the materials provided. 

4. 

I believe that decision making skill is needed in this elective posting. As for me, I accomplished this skill when I was deciding to invest my money on purchasing a Korean book for beginners to make sure I can improve my vocabulary in korean. Aside from that, I started to watch Korean dramas and decided whether to use subtitles or not. As a beginner in learning Korean, I challenge myself for the first 10 minutes of the drama to not use the subtitles. 

5. 

Now I am on my semester break, managing time is very important and crucial during this elective posting. Since I am taking an online course, I would say my time is quite flexible. I always make sure to complete all the tasks and quizzes given on time, so I can have leisure time to spend by myself. 

6. 

For next week, I plan to learn some vocabulary about daily life and complete the task given on time. 

As for the 3^rd week, I learnt about money and expressions used in shopping. I learnt how to ask for price and how to bargain if the price is expensive. The unit of money used in China is ‘kuai’. For example, 100 Yuan is ‘yibai kuai’, 50 Yuan is ‘wushi kuai’ and so on. I also learnt about colours for this week such as white is ‘bai de’, green is ‘lu de’, black is ‘hei de’ and so on. Learning about colours will be definitely helpful in shopping as I can refer the item that I want to buy using the colour. I learnt a few adjectives such as small (xiao), big (da), expensive (gui) and cheap (pianyi) too. Now, I am able to talk about the expressions used in shopping.

 

I am grateful to choose mandarin as my elective posting as it is not that hard and it is very exciting to learn this language. It is just that I need to practice talking more in this language so that I can get the pronunciation right.

 

I have applied decision making skill even from the beginning by choosing mandarin as my elective posting. I felt learning mandarin is necessary as I will be able to communicate with many people and also able to connect on a deeper level with them in future. Besides that, I have used my decision making skill in using cousera as the platform to learn mandarin as it is easily accessible and the learning materials are easy to understand. Decision making skills is also required to answer the quizzes provided in the course. I believe I have made the right decision in learning mandarin for my elective posting as it will be beneficial for me in future.

 

5. How did you manage your time throughout this EP journey?
 

I have allocated approximately 2 hours daily to complete the all the lessons, task and revision. For revision, I will usually try to communicate with my nephew in Mandarin. He will correct my pronunciation and teach me how to form sentence in Mandarin. There is no any problem with time management throughout my elective posting as I have a lot of free time.

 

My plan for next week is to learn to talk about family members, their occupation and age.

3. Your feelings and thoughts.

I'm happy that by this point, I've learned a lot of Chinese vocabulary. I simply need to review my earlier courses so I won't forget about it.
  
4. How did you learn and apply the skill of decision making in your EP journey?

When I made a list of my daily responsibilities, I used the decision-making skill. I need to be as effective as I can because I have a lot on my plate during this semester break in order to finish everything by the deadline. I might not be able to complete numerous things at once if I lack the ability to prioritise and determine the importance of each work..

5. How did you manage your time throughout this EP journey? 

I've set up a Coursera goal for myself to complete two days a week for this course. Since I have other commitments during the day, the lesson will typically take place at night.

 
6. Your plan for next week (Week 4)

I want to learn the fourth phase of the course within the upcoming week. It's my last week in this elective posting, so I'm hoping to learn more. I hope that this entire EP trip was valuable and will be helpful to me in the future.