I was working hard on SEO for the tuition agency site when Sae Yeoh messaged me in MSN regarding my 2011 Singapore Calendar Planner. I sent her the original copy so that she could make amendments. I was glad that she told me she was going to help out at Sarah Home as well because I was lazy to find out more from Huiting and that Baoyu did not reply my last SMS. I went to bed at 5.30am.
I woke up before 8am and knowing that the team would be late, I took my own sweet time and left my house at around 8.30am. I managed to reach Sarah Home very soon and got myself a small bao at the coffee shop nearby. While waiting downstairs, a cat fell from the second storey by the side and screamed as it ran off immediately. Eventually I decided to go upstairs to wait for them.
As Huiting and her gang arrived, we proceeded to work very quickly. I was stunned when I was told that we would be doing painting and not moving things like Baoyu had told me. I regretted not wearing shabbier clothes along. Baoyu arrived later and joined my team, and we started our usual debating. It was a tough but enjoyable moment. When the old paint started to peel off when it was wetted with the new paint, we saw a greater challenge to scrub them off. The owner of the house was very afraid that we might drag on till very late and told us not to do the extra work.
Lunch was at around 1pm. We went down to the Sarah Home centre for the chicken rice, which was quite dry and plain taste. I was quite amazed that there was another big group of volunteers and I believed they were merely doing spring cleaning for the elderly residents. However, when the leader started his religious preaching, I was disgusted. I would love to do voluntary work in an environment where everyone, regardless of religion, was giving off his best to the needy without any other agenda.
The auntie of the house bought bubble tea for us because she overheard Baoyu mentioning about rewarding herself with it after we finished the painting. As the hardship dragged on, I threw out more craps in order to entertain them. In the end, Huiting and Baoyu took their revenge by making me the cameraman for the group photos. Sae Yeoh thought I was upset over it.
We left the place at around 5pm in the rain. We took bus to Tiong Bahru Plaza and then transit to train. After showering, I dozed off almost immediately and woke up near 8pm. I had fried rice for dinner.
I started doing SEO for the tuition agency site when Sae Yeoh chased me for the photos.
It seemed that nobody, except Mike, could see the hard work I had been putting in everyday, working non-stop to make my life dull and stressful. It took a lot for me to spend a day doing voluntary work instead of working on my own stuffs when I was still financially tight, because afterwards I would have to work even harder. I was of no difference to a robot, except that I could appreciate updates from friends in Facebook that would take a few minutes off my time to keep me away from working.
I worked on the tuition agency website until 9am and managed to also create a Twitter and Feedburner accounts for it. I dozed off for a while until 10am and felt quite surprised that Huiting did not give me morning call. My mum bought noodle for me and the fish cake she heated up in the oven was cold. I went to the toilet twice and I knew I would be late definitely.
Huiting called me when I was at the lift lobby and in order not to be disconnected, I did not board the lift. She told me she was leaving Singapore Polytechnic and since she did not know how to get to her friend’s place as well, we decided to meet. However, I was not sure where to meet her at since she did not know the Pasir Panjang Food Centre. We agreed on meeting at the prata shop, which I knew would take me longer to reach.
I was too tired to walk after having the diarrhoea and thus I went to the bus-stop in front of Amara Hotel instead of walking a longer distance to Keppel Road. I alighted at Vivocity to change bus but Huiting told me her bus did not stop near the prata shop. Therefore, I got her to take cab in directly while I stick to my original plan.
After arriving at Pasir Panjang, I made a wrong move to enter the private estate on my left, which was actually a deadly. Judging from the map, if there was an opening, I would have shortened my journey by quite a lot. I took the entrance at the extreme right and managed to find a familiar path along the canal. Eventually I made it to the playground and I was lucky to reach the destination soon.
After going into the house, I managed to see Huiting and I was quite stunned to see that one of the girls was stylish looking. We got started soon and it was quite messy for the goodies from the sponsors were too many to be lined up properly. We had over four hundreds of goodies bags to settle and I mainly worked on some papers and magnets that nearly broke my back.
We ended work after 2pm and went to the nearest duck rice stall to eat. It was the second time I went there and I was quite surprised over how popular it seemed to be when there was nothing much special. The meal cost more than sixty bucks and Ricky, being the eldest guy, treated us.
We took bus to Harbourfront while Huiting stayed at the bus-stop to wait for her sister to drive over. I was quiet through the journey for I knew none of them, except for the stylish babe did talk to me on the way for our lunch. I waited at the bus-top while the rest of them went to the train station.
I dozed off soon with Lucky after reaching home after 3pm. I woke up at around 6pm and started working on the tuition agency website.
I began the day watching show with my elder brother, followed by the soccer match between Man Utd and Valencia. I thought I would doze off halfway but I did not. I went to sleep at 5am but it took me some time to knock out.
Waking up before 7am, I lazed around and decided to give up sleeping for another half an hour. Since it was early, I decided to meet Huiting and her friends at Tiong Bahru instead of taking direct buses over to Bukit Merah. It was warm inside the coffee shop as I waited for them to finish their breakfast before setting off. We took bus 195 over to block 105 and went for home visiting to distribute some of the buns bought by Huiting to the old residents. After that, we went to the Sarah home centre at level 2 of block 105 before we left to distribute the remaining of the food.
We had a short meeting at the centre before we left in four groups of two. I partnered with Dexuan and we faced some suspicious old people. We were supposed to help Sarah home to do some reregistering of their members and also to conduct a short survey. Starting off was difficult for we were not totally sure of the form. Halfway through, we changed partners due to language problem and I stayed inside an auntie’s house for around forty-five minutes to get the form filled while listening to her long stories.
Someone from the centre bought lunch for us and I was sure each packet cost more than three bucks for there were four or more dishes inside. The two volunteers, Yuqing and Hwee Ping, I engaged through Facebook arrived at around 2pm and 3pm, and brought a friend each. We continued the voluntary work till 5.30pm. My back was aching, my brain was exhausted and I could hardly speak anymore.
It was a good experience interacting with the kind and chatty old folks but it was quite sad to know about dark stories of Singapore through them. Apart from hearing from many old folks about bad things regarding the centre that stopped them from joining the activities, it was a good day.
It was actually a good chance to see Huiting home so that we could chat during the journey but I held back again in case of misunderstanding. It was such a waste since we had been communicating regarding charity work only.
After reaching home, I fed Lucky and later, had my dinner. Soon, I was too tired to keep myself conscious anymore. My brothers took Lucky down for a walk and I did not join in.
At first I thought it was voluntary work to accompany little kids to play and I was very enthusiastic about it. Since my department had to produce one man to attend, I took up the chance.
On the day itself, it was the first time I could wear home clothes, including shorts and sandals to walk around in camp. Soon, I started to hear about more hard work.
Indeed, the trip to the Red Cross home for the disabled was tough. After wheeling one of the residents each just a round outside, I was having a bit of phobia in taking care of them. I hated the slopes. It was not easy to be attentive and careful.
We were then divided to clear a room and the different levels. The room was besides the training shed and there were many heavy and bulky loads to be transported. It had definitely worsened my back once again since I could not announce to the ISM that I was still on status and should not be carrying any heavy load.
The room was freaking filthy and that cockroaches were nesting around already. I accidentally stepped on the tools box while moving a huge table and luckily was not hit by any of the sharp objects inside. After moving the stuffs out to the training shed, we had to sweep the places.
Next was feeding time. Each of us attended to one of the residents and luckily this time I was assigned to an auntie who still could speak a little though not clear enough. My back further worsened by bending forward to feed her. She made me wheel her outside again and then a few rounds near the pond; though it was extra work, but I managed to discover about that area, which I believed none other had been there.
Though it was just a little strolling around, all of the residents seemed so happy. Lives must be boring there that they felt so glad once there were visitors. I could not imagine myself to be part of them in future when I get older and fall sick like them.
I was impressed by some of my group members who were very keen in helping out. Next was the new ISM who had shown so much leadership and especially in his encouragements.
Everyone was released on the spot and needed not go back to camp.
Jianhao, Gary, Alvin and I had our lunch at the West Mall food court. It was a rare get together and among them I only knew Jianhao long enough. The lemon chicken rice sucked and the fruits were disgusting as well.
We went to the arcade centre after that and had a game of Daytona 2 before the tiring table game. I was not sure of the name but the idea was to hit the disc in between the opponent’s “goal posts” to score. I teamed up with Alvin and I was on the left, left palm by the side but some part of it was accidentally near to the “battle ground” and one of the incoming furious discs slipped past violently and caused a blue black on my palm. It was a nice game and both teams won once.
