~.*Credo in Deum, patrem omnipotentem, creatorem caeli et terra*.~

Thursday, March 16, 2006

*[[ my march holidays:) ]]*

HEY...Anyone interested in volunteering for events in SHINE 2006? Basically SHINE started last year and it consists of around 60 events held throughout the month of July... It reaches out to all youths between 15 to 35 years old. SHINE includes a wide assortment of activities including talent quests, performances, exhibitions, workshops, sporting events and community service projects - basically anything and everything that projects a positive youth image through young role models by showcasing and developing youth talent and facilitating and supporting youth community contribution. Yup, so you can sign up to be a volunteer in organising these events... For instance if you are a volunteer of a certain sports event, you may be in charge of handling score sheets or giving out water bottles or even being the referee, etc. haha, yup it'll be a refreshing experience =) Tell me if you wanna sign up =)

Anyway I've had a very busy March holidays. Can't believe that a quarter of a year has already past.. I must really treasure all the time I'm gonna have in HC!~ hmm quite freaked out by tests...I haven't exactly been putting in much effort into my studies. Sigh. Think I'm still drifting through JC life or sth. haa.

hmm on Sat (11/3), I had a really fun Riding for the Disabled Association (RDA) session! =D It's only my 2nd session there so I was assigned to be a 3rd sidewalker. Didn't do anything the first session of RDA coz I didn't sign my indemnity form and so I just stood around for 3-4 hours to get to know the place and activities better. Basically, I learnt that at RDA, we don't get to ride the horses (sadly) =( heh... Instead, we "sidewalk" the disabled and those who are physically weaker. (Most of them are children, but there are also people up to 50,60 years old...) Riding these horses is a challenge for them coz they have to learn to keep their balance on something that moves all the time on a considerably high level above the ground... so what we sidewalkers do is to ensure the safety of the riders by pushing them into position when we see that they are about to fall off the horse, or remind them to sit upright or hold the reins properly, or talk to them and encourage them to ride and gradually build up their confidence level, etc. It's really fun! At first it may seem like a chore and look pretty boring, but I think it's a different experience every RDA session for each of the sidewalkers =) Like for me, my 2nd RDA session as a newbie already earned me hugs and a kiss from the rider I was in charge of (surprisingly)! =p Frankly, I don't remember her name because I'm so unfamiliar with her >< So I'm really stunned that she actually WANTED to hug me and kiss me for some apparent reason... After sidewalking her, she actually "ignored" her 2 other permanent sidewalkers, grabbed my hand and said that she wanted me to take her to the washroom.... Also, since it happened to be her last session at RDA, she was hugging her friends she made at RDA... and somehow, she hugged me instead of another girl who sidewalked her... really weird and I feel quite bad that I kinda "deprived" that girl of a hug... hmm it's really touching to see a kid having such a connection with you... I'm still wondering why she did that, but I guess sometimes it's kinda nice to leave these things unexplained... heex=) sigh, I really love children... sounds v cliched but really, it's the little things they do that touch our hearts so greatly <3 haha this is such a motivating experience for me! I'm definitely look forward to the sessions at RDA much more now =p

Hmm after that went to St Nicks funfair with Wayne. Met Jason, WenWei, Vincent. Sut Yee and Claire were with their friends... I was really impressed with the funfair! They actually brought in gaming machines from the arcades and also this ride that goes round and round where you can hear girls screaming perpetually... There were an amazing number of stalls for food, drinks and games too. haha... I've never been to such a crowded and lively funfair. Funfairs at NYGH definitely lose out to this. heh.. Anyway, after the funfair right outside the St Nicks sidegate (at the track and field area), this gang accused Vincent of staring at them... He got pushed hard on the head and punched on the jaw! =X Fortunately he turned away in time and the impact of the punch wasn't so great so he wasn't bruised. Also, luckily he wasn't heated up and didn't retaliate so we just backed away, walked back into St Nicks and went to another bus stop. Ah, I'm really shocked that this actually happened! =X WanTing and XinYi were very stunned too... We felt like some TV serial was re-playing right before our eyes coz we've never really experienced anything like this before and only watched it on TV. =X oh man, shocking thing is that it happened right outside St Nicks... wah these pai kias really have nothing better to do >< perhaps they were looking for people to pick on...crazy bunch of bananas lah. bleugh.

After that I went to watch "huangcheng" with WanTing, XInYI, SutYee, Shirlene and Margaret =) Was really drained out by then... so the draggy dramas didn't help at all... The first one was quite alright, the second was too "seven-o-clock-channel-eight-TV-serial-ish" with all that dramatic family problems and complications accompanied by tears and exasperation, the third was alien and I couldn't understand a large part of it. blah, but overall I think it was a good effort on their part. the props rock =) oh yeah and I love the MCs - YaWen, RuiXiong and the RV girl =p Very entertaining. I think the MCs were the best part of the show in my perspective. lol.

Sunday (12/3) - LESPOIR was quite fun... haha I can't believe that I actually managed to get so many people from our class to go - WanTing, XinYi, Deanna, Margaret, Wayne, WenWei and I! =) heez. Was smsing frantically during "huangcheng" to get them to go oops =X lol...but it was worth the smses =) hmmm anyway I think it was more of a matter of SKILL than people being "zhong4 nu:3 qing1 nan2" HAHA. Let's see... coz compared to Wayne who sold about 7 badges and WenWei who sold 3, I sold about 27. Deanna managed to get 2 different people to donate FIFTY BUCKS to her. And all the girls' cans were really much heavier than the guys'....so..... what does this say about girls? ahahha... maybe girls are more TRUSTWORTHY. =D yeah man! muahaha....=p

hmm thereafter we went to Wayne's house to play mahjong, cards and the piano and basically slack around. Quite fun... it was my first time playing mahjong =) heez... I don't think I have comprehended the game fully yet.. still don't understand what the "hua" is for, etc. lol... hmm then after that we played cards and I had to do a forfeit that has since earned me horrible niaoings BLAH. and what the...during the Interact camp Deanna and Christine? went to spread things about what lulu's wife and now WeiXin and my groupmates and some other strangers know about it too -_-""" wah so I get niaoed even out of class... and one of the kids, Rickson, even tried to matchmake me with YiYong, who niaos me about being a maid, calls me Cecilia and niaos and niaos!? #$^#%^@ Am I that nice to niao? blahh. and Jason just niaoed me yesterday about something I don't wanna know during chalet. oh man. Deanna was telling me how HC is crazy about creating scandals. She's seeing so much more of this in HC compared to RV... wahh siao. ok.

13-14/3 (mon-tues) INTERACT CAMP UNITY: It was a really challenging experience... heh. First day was HORRIBLE. really. I'd never heard or seen so much in ONE day before - there was perpetual playing of the games "chasing" and "hide-and-seek", drumming of the lion dance beats on any table found whether in the canteen or classroom, screamings, fightings, manifestations of racism, and sprouting of vulgarities and perverse thoughts. yes the above is a perfect summary of what the kids who attended this camp did... or at least, this is what the kids from my INFAMOUS group CHOCOLATE did. really shocking.. sigh. These children are from the less fortunate/lower-income families... they come from 3 different centres - Tanjong Pagar, Bukit Ho Swee and MCYS. heh ok la..it wasn't that bad an experience...in fact I find myself growing to love these kids as I try to understand them. I realise that no matter how badly-behave they are, somehow - and I emphasise that again - SOMEHOW they are able to get together, cooperate and paint a group flag, and do a cheer (even though it's a pretty simple one), and piece together a puzzle...etc. They are so cute lor... I especially love Farhana because of her inner strength though she looks very weak physically. The worst thing is that she was the only Malay in this group on the second day with 6 other Chinese children coz her Malay friend Kevin didn't come... so she tolerated all racist remarks on her own... and it came to a point when it got so bad that her eyes watered coz the Chinese kids were very insensitive and refused to compromise and sing an English song. In their perspective, she was the only Malay and it was alright for ONE person to learn a Chinese song. They assumed that she knew English songs and since these chinese kids only knew chinese songs, it would be unfair for SIX children to learn an English song. THey refused to see Farhana taking the easy route. sigh...I duno what to say la... but it was very difficult convincing them to sing...well. but in the end we managed to settle on singing 3 lines of the chorus from "Lemon Tree" =) heh..... Anyway, for the cheer, we did the "Chocolate ke-ba-ah-ba" cheer... really simple cheer but we took so long to do it... the first day we tried it, no one wanted to cooperate... There was so much banging on the tables, people screaming and running out of the classroom, fightings, etc that we could barely start teaching the cheer... When we rehearsed the cheer, we could only hear the facilitators' voices... so you can imagine our happiness when we heard these kids screaming the cheer so enthusiastically on the 2nd day of the camp =D heh... it was very encouraging for us that we had managed to get them to cooperate at last... hmm another interesting thing that occurred was during a particular soccer match on the second day of the camp... Farhana was the only Malay from the team Chocolate who was competing against team Strawberry that consisted of more Malays... so halfway when she switched sides, we were very disappointed because we were supposed to encourage the 2 different races to mix around with each other... However, after a while, she actually switched back for some reason.. think coz she realised team Chocolate was stronger and she wanted to help the stronger team heh... but I was really elated to see that she was gradually more accepting towards the Chinese =) I mean, if she was really against Chinese, she would have still stuck to the team with more Malays regardless of who was winning... hmmm, but then, at the end of the camp during the campfire, when Yi Yong asked her if she liked Chinese, she shook her head. er which is pretty sad. oh well... at least she had the experience of mixing around with Chinese kids during this camp... guess it's really difficult to change their mindsets in just 2 days.

15/3 - CLASS CHALET @ aloha changi - cranwell bungalow 2: heh I had a really fun time with the class sitting by the jetty and watching the sunset, the moonrise and the stars while singing songs like tonghua, wuding, etc... so sweet right... sigh. I really yearned for 3 people then.. first person is my soulmate yeahh... remember the time we went to ECP together? Sat on a rock by the sea and just listened to the waves crashing against the shore... and just talking... and eating our potatoes from 7-11 heh... remember how we wanted to take photos but couldn't coz we didn't have a camera? but it's ok, that scene is still stored as clearly as ever in my mind... =) heh. second is zohoh...of course... haha can't forget whatever that we talked about during choir chalet with HC choir last Dec... so sweet... I think that conversation is so precious. It definitely bonded us together much much more. Third person, your presence just makes me smile =)

yay. Term 2 is starting. I have 3 days to pia my homework. =) JC life rocks.
oh yea, anyone interested in taking up NYAA GOLD? http://www.nyaa.org/ I think it should be quite worth it, since I'm already fulfilling the skills and service section. Adventure and sports and residential project needa find somewhere to join lor. maybe YLEP can. hmm nvm.
ANyway here are some useful websites:
http://www.scape.youth.sg/
http://www.youthmc.org/
http://www.shine.org/
http://www.nyc.gov.sg/

HAVE FAITH.
=making IT happen=

~.*hUiYiNg*.~ says Amen. @ | Thursday, March 16, 2006

~.* Jesus is LOVE *.~