I am now working part-time at a retail shop in taka. This job is introduced to me by my new friend whom I got to know during the one-day job mentioned in the previous post. Thus, we are now colleagues, as he's working at the same place too, and also friends, I guess. Lol. The job is tiring at first as I wasn't used to standing for long hours. But now I am totally fine with standing. I think either my legs have accustomed to it or they are numb and I can't feel anything. I could even stand for 8 hours straight without sitting down once! I thought that's a feat :p And I get to eat free candies and chocolates which are really awesome!!! Butler's, Hershey's, Lindt etc. Especially I'm a chocoholic!!! Perhaps, no...I 'm sure it's the chocolates that give me the energy and spirit to last me the day.
Talking about this new friend of mine, I am wondering if our friendship would last long. He has had worked for 8 months before returning to the shop again to continue working, hence he knew the system the company adopts and some of the people who are working there. So it gets awkward when I approach him wanting to talk to him since he might rather have the rest to interact with him, not to mention that I only joined the company recently. Moreover, he's an easy-going and funny lad. Unsurprisingly, he's popular. At the moment, the decision I made is not to expect much. I will not create unnecessary interaction lest I might've to face the undesirable disappointment eventually, an experience I wouldn't want to go through again. In such a situation, prevention is better than adjustment of one's mood later. I guess watching One Piece really makes me wanna find my nakama...
I shall focus on earning cash and then spend some on my Wants list, including New Era caps, formal shoes, skinny/ super skinny jeans, Samsung Galaxy SIII / new iPhone. My Wants KIV list includes shoes, ear/headphones, Eastpak bag, spectacles.
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Friday, July 06, 2012
Resolution
Went to work for a day yesterday at a retail store. 10 hours of standing, almost doing nothing, earning $8/h. I must say this is the easiest job ever to earning such relatively high wage. Perhaps the only issue is having to stand at all times. But hey, it's only 1 day! :D
Let me talk about my 2-week job experience at expo. The job is easy, just that the hall is big. Hence I had to walk around 10 minutes to collect all unwanted items from customers before returning to the main storeroom to categorize them and return to the promoters. On weekdays, the crowd is small so we have the luxury of time to slack around. It is one of the evenings while I was browsing some books on sale when a promoter approached me and talk to me, because he was bored too. We started talking and in a blink of an eye, hours flew past and it's almost time to knock off. Thereafter, we talked and time passed faster. As we clicked rather well, it became a motivation for me to coming to work the next day. I was glad that this new friend of mine confided some of his personal matters to me as this would show that he trusts me, after only knowing each other for a total of less than 12 hours in the span of 3 days or so. It is then I realized that working is not only about the money; if you are lucky, you'd meet a fellow friend whom you could click well with and become someone whom you could confide in. And the latter certainly makes you like working more, however dull it may be, because you didn't just gain money; you gain friendship(s). :)
And yesterday, lucky me met a friend with whom I can click well! I really didn't expect this since it's only a one-day job and I wasn't expecting or intending to make any new friend there. After all, we might not meet anymore when the shop closed. It is quite a coincidental one. I was shifted to another location to cover another person who's going to have his break. At first, it was rather awkward since I was a new face there and had to adjust myself to the new environment which, of course, requires some time. There was this promoter standing less that 3 meters away from me as he was manning his stall. So this time round, I approached him and tried to break the ice. In my mind, I was prepared for anything like him not keen to talk to me, as I reminded myself I am going to work for only 1 day. It doesn't matter whether thing turns bad. After introducing ourselves, he shared with me his unforgettable experience in school laboratory lesson in which he cried as he made a serious safety breach. I think one wouldn't reveal his moments of weaknesses easily to another person, especially after 15 minutes only. Luckily for me, I managed to make a friend whom I can click well with in my second job. :)
One thing about me is that I don't feel comfortable asking for exchange for contacts. In both encounters, it is always the other party who initiate the exchange. And I am glad and thankful for that. Haha...
Let me talk about my 2-week job experience at expo. The job is easy, just that the hall is big. Hence I had to walk around 10 minutes to collect all unwanted items from customers before returning to the main storeroom to categorize them and return to the promoters. On weekdays, the crowd is small so we have the luxury of time to slack around. It is one of the evenings while I was browsing some books on sale when a promoter approached me and talk to me, because he was bored too. We started talking and in a blink of an eye, hours flew past and it's almost time to knock off. Thereafter, we talked and time passed faster. As we clicked rather well, it became a motivation for me to coming to work the next day. I was glad that this new friend of mine confided some of his personal matters to me as this would show that he trusts me, after only knowing each other for a total of less than 12 hours in the span of 3 days or so. It is then I realized that working is not only about the money; if you are lucky, you'd meet a fellow friend whom you could click well with and become someone whom you could confide in. And the latter certainly makes you like working more, however dull it may be, because you didn't just gain money; you gain friendship(s). :)
And yesterday, lucky me met a friend with whom I can click well! I really didn't expect this since it's only a one-day job and I wasn't expecting or intending to make any new friend there. After all, we might not meet anymore when the shop closed. It is quite a coincidental one. I was shifted to another location to cover another person who's going to have his break. At first, it was rather awkward since I was a new face there and had to adjust myself to the new environment which, of course, requires some time. There was this promoter standing less that 3 meters away from me as he was manning his stall. So this time round, I approached him and tried to break the ice. In my mind, I was prepared for anything like him not keen to talk to me, as I reminded myself I am going to work for only 1 day. It doesn't matter whether thing turns bad. After introducing ourselves, he shared with me his unforgettable experience in school laboratory lesson in which he cried as he made a serious safety breach. I think one wouldn't reveal his moments of weaknesses easily to another person, especially after 15 minutes only. Luckily for me, I managed to make a friend whom I can click well with in my second job. :)
One thing about me is that I don't feel comfortable asking for exchange for contacts. In both encounters, it is always the other party who initiate the exchange. And I am glad and thankful for that. Haha...
Sunday, May 20, 2012
May-June overseas time
So year 1 sem 2 results will be out in 4 days' time. But, i won't be checking, until i am back to S'pore. Like that time when I was in Vietnam, this is so that it won't affect my mood when I should be enjoying myself overseas! =P
Will be flying to Chongqing in 2 days' time, taking SilkAir airline departing at 12.45pm and will reach at Chongqing-Jiangbei International Airport at 5.30pm. That means I'll have to wake up early in the morning to get everything prepared and ready. Well, at least it's an afternoon flight - no need to waste money on taxi fare to travel if it were in the middle of the night. Gonna visit Fairy Mountain for 2 days during the first weekend. I guess this would be the most enjoyable time it would be in the entire trip. Other site visits include Ci Qi Kou and Dazu Rock Carvings, which I reckon will not be interesting. Also looking forward to free time there with new friends whom I'll be meeting soon. On the last day, the plane will land at 10.55pm. Hope I can catch the last train~
The very next day, I'll be flying to Hong Kong with yanli, yanhong, yukai and engtong! My first time going overseas with them. I'm pretty sure we'll have a crazily fun time together for 6 days! I'm excited for the theme park! Adrenaline rush! Woohoo~! Of course one cannot miss the dim sum in HK. I'm also pretty sure I'll gain weight which I must then shed off asap, in preparation for my IPPT which I must pass before 22 Oct.
On a side note, it does feel like I'm some successful businessman who often travels. Lol...
After these 2 trips, I gonna start work. In a blink of an eye, new semester will commence and life goes on~
Friday, May 04, 2012
Year 1 over
Finally, exams are over! It has been a long wait. Results will be released in 20 days' time. I shall have no expectations for the kind of grades I would get. Like last semester, I shall only see my results when I get back to Singapore from Chongqing.
Next up on my schedule (lol like I'm some artiste), I would be busy with my dance rehearsal. The actual performance is just next Saturday. Hope that I won't make any mistake that will spoil the dance. Dancing on stage is one of the dreams; that it now can be realized, I am really glad.
On 22 May, I will be flying to Chongqing for 2-week immersion programme! I am, of course, going to play and enjoy myself there, with a new bunch of friends whom I have not met yet but I hope, like my Vietnam trip, they're going to be friendly. Besides earning 3 AU, I am more concerned about the places that we're going to visit. Since there won't be any tour guides bringing us around, we have the liberty to make our own itinerary. The fun part has to be the planning stage. Haha.. Gonna apply for my visa on Monday, and then I would have completed all administrative matters for this immersion.
Between now and then, I shall EXERCISE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I NEED to get my fitness back! IPPT window will be closing in 4 months. Oh man~
I think I won't mind going back for a 9-week Basic Military Training again, just to become fitter.
I will be watching Naruto anime during this 3-month break. Yeah! How I miss Naruto! But I am unable to remember which is the last episode I have watched almost 2 years ago. So I think I shall start from either the death of Jiraiya or death of Itachi, whichever is later.
Next up on my schedule (lol like I'm some artiste), I would be busy with my dance rehearsal. The actual performance is just next Saturday. Hope that I won't make any mistake that will spoil the dance. Dancing on stage is one of the dreams; that it now can be realized, I am really glad.
On 22 May, I will be flying to Chongqing for 2-week immersion programme! I am, of course, going to play and enjoy myself there, with a new bunch of friends whom I have not met yet but I hope, like my Vietnam trip, they're going to be friendly. Besides earning 3 AU, I am more concerned about the places that we're going to visit. Since there won't be any tour guides bringing us around, we have the liberty to make our own itinerary. The fun part has to be the planning stage. Haha.. Gonna apply for my visa on Monday, and then I would have completed all administrative matters for this immersion.
Between now and then, I shall EXERCISE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I NEED to get my fitness back! IPPT window will be closing in 4 months. Oh man~
I think I won't mind going back for a 9-week Basic Military Training again, just to become fitter.
I will be watching Naruto anime during this 3-month break. Yeah! How I miss Naruto! But I am unable to remember which is the last episode I have watched almost 2 years ago. So I think I shall start from either the death of Jiraiya or death of Itachi, whichever is later.
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Year 1 Sem 2 exams nearing
It's the stressful period of the semester. Burning midnight oil every day. First paper on Monday - Calculus II. Next paper on Wed - Physical Chemistry! All require calculations. Must take care of units! Then, I have a week break before the next 2 papers on Wed: Biological Chemistry (calculations again, on buffer, isoelectric points of amino acids) in the morning followed by Defence Science in the evening. Finally, last paper on the Friday - Polymer Chemistry which has, again, more calculations to do (rate of polymerization, including step-growth, chain-growth, ionic, radical, as well as stress/strain relationship, Young modulus, Bragg law etc).
CA results just above average only for most modules.
STRESS.
Then again, I must remind myself, just as what I told myself since uni starts, that GPA is not everything. Be content with what you have achieved. After all, GPA is not the top on the list of qualities the employers are looking for when recruiting employees. It is the communication skills that is the most important. Here again, I should not stress myself out too much. Whatever will be, will be. So long as I have put in my best effort for every question, I shall have no regrets whatsoever with the end results. Gonna have Naruto's spirit! Believe in yourself! =D
Friday, February 10, 2012
Year 1 Sem 2
Recess week in just 2 weeks' time. Oh gosh, time really flies!
Gotta start being serious at studying right away!
Physical Chemistry mid-term on the last day before recess week. Jiayou!
Finally finished doing my Physical Chemistry notes today. Spent around 5 hours?!
What's left are Polymer Chemistry, Calculus II, Biological Chemistry.. Gonna finish notes for this 3 modules asap..
Had been busy with Chingay, SNSD and Dangerous Boys, 49 Days since the start of the year. Now catching up on Dream High 2. Maybe I'll be joining Jtterbugs recital performance in May at Drama Centre at National Library. So I should expect many rehearsals throughout this semester.
Gotta be effective in my study methods. Time is not on my side. But I believe it would be worthwhile eventually.
Have faith :)
Okay, tmr Calculus II tutorial at 8.30am. Just finished watching Dream High 2 Episode 3. Gonna watch episode 4 tmr. Then I'll do my notes!
Ciaos~
Thursday, January 05, 2012
ISP Vietnam Dec 2011
It had always been a dream of mine to go on a mission trip and I'm glad I had realised it before the end of 2011. I sincerely want to contribute to making this world a better place for us to live in. The divide between the rich and poor is ever increasing. Within myself, there is a calling for which I know I want to serve - I want to be an active global citizen and help spread the love to the less privileged.
Supposedly, I and a friend of mine had wanted to join this international service trip together. Due to mum's fear of her child suffering hardship, my friend withdrew, and I was expected to go without a friend. Things didn't turn out too bad just because I knew no one there as there are a few of the rest joined alone too. One said she simply wanted to join in this trip to help and so signed up for it while another wanted to get an experience of OCIP. Perhaps I should have known that the participants of this trip must be kind-hearted people, hence they joined. Duh.. So my initial worries of bring unable to make buddies during the trip since I was alone was redundant. The people are very friendly and I felt at ease with them.
Most of the participants are from business school. I had no idea why. 3 others are from my faculty. 1 from Chemical engineering. I shared a room with 2 others, both from business school, one in year 2 and another in year 3. So, being the youngest, they took good care of me. I am really thankful to them! For the first 10 days, I had no Vietnam dong with me as I had not changed my USD to dong, as such I couldn't buy anything whenever we had a supermarket break. My roomies were fast to let me know that they could lend me money first if I want to buy something, and reminded me not to stand on ceremony on this matter. Even though I was not prepared to accept their loan, I really appreciate their offer. My year 2 roomie even wanted to me to keep a note first in case I want to buy something but I returned to him as, well, I still find it embarrassing to accept his kind offer.
To add on to the list of my year 2 roomie's kindness, he peeled off the shell of a prawn for me because he knew that I was reluctant to dirty my hands peeling off the shell and would rather not eat the prawn. How did he know that? I told him frankly when he asked me why I did not eat the prawns. I did try to reject the peeled prawn when he offered me but I understood that he wouldn't allow me to reject it, so I ate the prawn he peeled for me. He asked me if the prawn tastes nice. I answered him that it tastes nice, of course, especially when it was peeled from a friend whom you spent only a few days with together and was willing to do something for you when he could just choose not to bother about this small matter.
Let me blog about what I did over at Dong Thap province, Cao Lanh city of Vietnam. From the information given to us, the suburban ward in which we lived in during the project period has an area of almost 830 hectares, populated with 11 000 people from 2 500 households. 43.4% of the housholds were considered poor. The people earned their living through agriculture and small business. Indeed, on our way to lunch, we had to walked 10 minutes and passed by households which are selling snacks and toys just outside their houses. I guessed that is how they earned extra penny.
On my first day in the class with the kids aged between 3 and 5, they welcomed us by showering us with generous kisses and passionate hugs! I was truly overwhelmed by their hospitality! One of them even aimed at my lips such that I had to move my face away and stop them from charging towards me with my arm stretched! Nonetheless, I was happy that they accepted us so readily and made us feel welcomed. They did a superb job on that! I had forgotten to mention that while we had learnt to say hello in Vientamese - Xin Chao, the kids were already repeatedly saying 'Hello!' to us before we stepped into the classrooms! We should bear in mind that Vietnamese only starts to learn English at Primary 3 and thus the kids totally had no English background. How enthusiastic they were to our visit!
Most of the time in the classroom, I would sit on the floor with the kids while one of us would teach them alphabets at the front of the classroom. The kids love to lie their heads on my laps or to sit in front of me when I sat cross-legged. I guess they were curious about us foreigners who would be visiting them for 7 school days. I am proud to say that my class is the only class that had successfully learnt all 26 letters and sang the ABC song out of the total 4 classes. Teaching them could be tiring but their enthusiastic response of repeating the letter after me kept me focused on teaching them and achieving our goals of teaching them the English alphabets.
Sadly, language barrier was a big obstacle. The kids were all enthusiastically telling me something but I do not understand at all, only able to patronize them with a nod and a smile when they finshed speaking. Luckily, hand signals are universal and kids do understand what we are trying to convey. So yea, hand signals are our main communication tool. For instance, during the time for the kids to play when class ended and were waiting for their parents to pick them up, some play ball and asked us to play with them. In a game of throwing a ball into a basket, we would use hand signal to ask them to stand further away from the basket before throwing, to increase the challenge and fun. They gladly follow what we asked them to, as they understood us.
Over there, I learnt a few Vietnames that are useful during class. For example, ngoi xuong means to sit down, do len means to speak louder and im lang means to keep quiet. Also, I learnt that in order to signal the kids to respond or to repeat what you had said, you must say "1, 2, 3" before they will respond, in Vietnamse of course. So "1, 2, 3" in Vietnamese is "Mot, hai, ba", and you can be assured of a response after saying that :) Besides, we learnt 2 Vietnamese kids songs and we sang with the kids. They were much better than us when it comes to singing these Vietnamese songs; the easiest line for me is "Mot hai ba, mot hai ba, mot hai ba bon nam sau bai", which means "1 2 3, 1 2 3, 1 2 3 4 5 6 7". It is not true that only we are teaching them, the kids teach us, or rather tried to teach us Vietnamese letters too from their workbook. We tried to joke with them by pointing to a tiger in the book, saying that it is "gong meow", which we know that it means cat in Vietnamese, and the kid would be enthusiastic to tell us it is not gong meow, and tell us the correct words which I could not remember. Haha...
Besides doing teaching, we are also involved in renovating classrooms. We did scraping of the old blue paint off the walls, repainted the walls with pink paint and cemented the gaps between the tiles with white cement. The construction could get boring at times but the kids were my motivation to keep myself going and try to meet our objectives of renovating 2 classrooms and constructing 1 new classroom. Really, what we can teach the kids is very limited due to language barrier. The classrooms are we could really contribute and they serve a greater purpose for the kids will be using them - a better learning environment for them. It is through the construction that we did something concrete for the kids, rather than teaching them ABC. Having said that, that does not mean the teaching is redundant for the kids do come towards me and read for me A - Z and 1 - 10 in English, just to interact with me. This shows that they learnt something from us too.
On the last day, the kids kissed us, again. I guessed this is how the kids show their hospitality and appreciation towards us. I must really thank the locals there for their acceptance of us to share our knowledge with them. What made me happiest is that my favourite kid kissed my forearm thrice when I sat beside him, purposely since he is my favourite, while attending the completion ceremony of the renovation and construction of classrooms. Hee! Kiss in Vietnamese is "hon". Ususally we would point our fingers to our face, asking the asking the kids to "hon" - trying to tell the kids to kiss our cheeks. But my favourite, without my "instigation", kissed my forearm, thrice! That would show that he appreciates me for being there, or maybe he knew that he is my favourite. That could be obvious given that I took pictures with him almost every day. Haha!
But, my favourite cried on our last day of seeing each other because he did not receive the gift from YMCA Vietnam as there are not enough gifts for all the kids. He stood still, not responding to whatever we do to make him smile. Moments later, a tear slid down his smooth cheek. I quickly wipe his tear away with my thumb across his cheek. I only wanted him to be happy and smile since it is the last day and last time that I would see him already. I wanted to buy something for him to make him feel better from not having to receive the gift. The problem was I had no dong then. Fortunately, my year 3 roomie was nearby and he passed me 20 000 dong to me so that I could buy some snacks for my favourite from the shop just outside the kindergarten. So i held his litte hand and led him to the shop, carried him up and tried to ask him to point to which snack he would like to have. I was relieved when he responded by stretching his arm out and pointed to me which snack he want. So eventually, I bought 2 snacks for him. Still, he did not smile but I was glad that he accepted my offer of wanting to cheer him up by signalling to me which snacks he want. I felt that he understood my kind intentions although unsure of whether he could understand the insufficient number of gifts to be distributed. Well, after all, he is still a kid. So it is perfectly normal for him to feel sad and cry over not receiving a gift. While there was one other kid who cried out loud, my favourite, surprisingly, stood there motionlessly and we could only tell that he was sad, too, by being in tears silently. Perhaps he is the kind of personality which would endure silently rather than making a big fuss over something he feels sad about.
I hope that there would be a day to come such that we could fly back and visit the kids again!
So there are people out there waiting for our assistance, in terms of living standards. It is not quality of life I am talking about. I feel that we ought to help whenever we could. It is a sad phenomenon when people are so engrossed in their pursuit of luxurious lifestyle and completely forget about fellow friends in low living standard conditions. Of course, this does not mean that being financially poor don't feel happy. In the same way, neither does having mountains of fortune necessary make one happy. The level of happiness and the figure in the bank account does not correlate. The point is that we all should have basic liveable condition and the rest is bonus.
Give wherever we can. You will find that actually we receive much more. :)
Supposedly, I and a friend of mine had wanted to join this international service trip together. Due to mum's fear of her child suffering hardship, my friend withdrew, and I was expected to go without a friend. Things didn't turn out too bad just because I knew no one there as there are a few of the rest joined alone too. One said she simply wanted to join in this trip to help and so signed up for it while another wanted to get an experience of OCIP. Perhaps I should have known that the participants of this trip must be kind-hearted people, hence they joined. Duh.. So my initial worries of bring unable to make buddies during the trip since I was alone was redundant. The people are very friendly and I felt at ease with them.
Most of the participants are from business school. I had no idea why. 3 others are from my faculty. 1 from Chemical engineering. I shared a room with 2 others, both from business school, one in year 2 and another in year 3. So, being the youngest, they took good care of me. I am really thankful to them! For the first 10 days, I had no Vietnam dong with me as I had not changed my USD to dong, as such I couldn't buy anything whenever we had a supermarket break. My roomies were fast to let me know that they could lend me money first if I want to buy something, and reminded me not to stand on ceremony on this matter. Even though I was not prepared to accept their loan, I really appreciate their offer. My year 2 roomie even wanted to me to keep a note first in case I want to buy something but I returned to him as, well, I still find it embarrassing to accept his kind offer.
To add on to the list of my year 2 roomie's kindness, he peeled off the shell of a prawn for me because he knew that I was reluctant to dirty my hands peeling off the shell and would rather not eat the prawn. How did he know that? I told him frankly when he asked me why I did not eat the prawns. I did try to reject the peeled prawn when he offered me but I understood that he wouldn't allow me to reject it, so I ate the prawn he peeled for me. He asked me if the prawn tastes nice. I answered him that it tastes nice, of course, especially when it was peeled from a friend whom you spent only a few days with together and was willing to do something for you when he could just choose not to bother about this small matter.
Let me blog about what I did over at Dong Thap province, Cao Lanh city of Vietnam. From the information given to us, the suburban ward in which we lived in during the project period has an area of almost 830 hectares, populated with 11 000 people from 2 500 households. 43.4% of the housholds were considered poor. The people earned their living through agriculture and small business. Indeed, on our way to lunch, we had to walked 10 minutes and passed by households which are selling snacks and toys just outside their houses. I guessed that is how they earned extra penny.
On my first day in the class with the kids aged between 3 and 5, they welcomed us by showering us with generous kisses and passionate hugs! I was truly overwhelmed by their hospitality! One of them even aimed at my lips such that I had to move my face away and stop them from charging towards me with my arm stretched! Nonetheless, I was happy that they accepted us so readily and made us feel welcomed. They did a superb job on that! I had forgotten to mention that while we had learnt to say hello in Vientamese - Xin Chao, the kids were already repeatedly saying 'Hello!' to us before we stepped into the classrooms! We should bear in mind that Vietnamese only starts to learn English at Primary 3 and thus the kids totally had no English background. How enthusiastic they were to our visit!
Most of the time in the classroom, I would sit on the floor with the kids while one of us would teach them alphabets at the front of the classroom. The kids love to lie their heads on my laps or to sit in front of me when I sat cross-legged. I guess they were curious about us foreigners who would be visiting them for 7 school days. I am proud to say that my class is the only class that had successfully learnt all 26 letters and sang the ABC song out of the total 4 classes. Teaching them could be tiring but their enthusiastic response of repeating the letter after me kept me focused on teaching them and achieving our goals of teaching them the English alphabets.
Sadly, language barrier was a big obstacle. The kids were all enthusiastically telling me something but I do not understand at all, only able to patronize them with a nod and a smile when they finshed speaking. Luckily, hand signals are universal and kids do understand what we are trying to convey. So yea, hand signals are our main communication tool. For instance, during the time for the kids to play when class ended and were waiting for their parents to pick them up, some play ball and asked us to play with them. In a game of throwing a ball into a basket, we would use hand signal to ask them to stand further away from the basket before throwing, to increase the challenge and fun. They gladly follow what we asked them to, as they understood us.
Over there, I learnt a few Vietnames that are useful during class. For example, ngoi xuong means to sit down, do len means to speak louder and im lang means to keep quiet. Also, I learnt that in order to signal the kids to respond or to repeat what you had said, you must say "1, 2, 3" before they will respond, in Vietnamse of course. So "1, 2, 3" in Vietnamese is "Mot, hai, ba", and you can be assured of a response after saying that :) Besides, we learnt 2 Vietnamese kids songs and we sang with the kids. They were much better than us when it comes to singing these Vietnamese songs; the easiest line for me is "Mot hai ba, mot hai ba, mot hai ba bon nam sau bai", which means "1 2 3, 1 2 3, 1 2 3 4 5 6 7". It is not true that only we are teaching them, the kids teach us, or rather tried to teach us Vietnamese letters too from their workbook. We tried to joke with them by pointing to a tiger in the book, saying that it is "gong meow", which we know that it means cat in Vietnamese, and the kid would be enthusiastic to tell us it is not gong meow, and tell us the correct words which I could not remember. Haha...
Besides doing teaching, we are also involved in renovating classrooms. We did scraping of the old blue paint off the walls, repainted the walls with pink paint and cemented the gaps between the tiles with white cement. The construction could get boring at times but the kids were my motivation to keep myself going and try to meet our objectives of renovating 2 classrooms and constructing 1 new classroom. Really, what we can teach the kids is very limited due to language barrier. The classrooms are we could really contribute and they serve a greater purpose for the kids will be using them - a better learning environment for them. It is through the construction that we did something concrete for the kids, rather than teaching them ABC. Having said that, that does not mean the teaching is redundant for the kids do come towards me and read for me A - Z and 1 - 10 in English, just to interact with me. This shows that they learnt something from us too.
On the last day, the kids kissed us, again. I guessed this is how the kids show their hospitality and appreciation towards us. I must really thank the locals there for their acceptance of us to share our knowledge with them. What made me happiest is that my favourite kid kissed my forearm thrice when I sat beside him, purposely since he is my favourite, while attending the completion ceremony of the renovation and construction of classrooms. Hee! Kiss in Vietnamese is "hon". Ususally we would point our fingers to our face, asking the asking the kids to "hon" - trying to tell the kids to kiss our cheeks. But my favourite, without my "instigation", kissed my forearm, thrice! That would show that he appreciates me for being there, or maybe he knew that he is my favourite. That could be obvious given that I took pictures with him almost every day. Haha!
But, my favourite cried on our last day of seeing each other because he did not receive the gift from YMCA Vietnam as there are not enough gifts for all the kids. He stood still, not responding to whatever we do to make him smile. Moments later, a tear slid down his smooth cheek. I quickly wipe his tear away with my thumb across his cheek. I only wanted him to be happy and smile since it is the last day and last time that I would see him already. I wanted to buy something for him to make him feel better from not having to receive the gift. The problem was I had no dong then. Fortunately, my year 3 roomie was nearby and he passed me 20 000 dong to me so that I could buy some snacks for my favourite from the shop just outside the kindergarten. So i held his litte hand and led him to the shop, carried him up and tried to ask him to point to which snack he would like to have. I was relieved when he responded by stretching his arm out and pointed to me which snack he want. So eventually, I bought 2 snacks for him. Still, he did not smile but I was glad that he accepted my offer of wanting to cheer him up by signalling to me which snacks he want. I felt that he understood my kind intentions although unsure of whether he could understand the insufficient number of gifts to be distributed. Well, after all, he is still a kid. So it is perfectly normal for him to feel sad and cry over not receiving a gift. While there was one other kid who cried out loud, my favourite, surprisingly, stood there motionlessly and we could only tell that he was sad, too, by being in tears silently. Perhaps he is the kind of personality which would endure silently rather than making a big fuss over something he feels sad about.
I hope that there would be a day to come such that we could fly back and visit the kids again!
So there are people out there waiting for our assistance, in terms of living standards. It is not quality of life I am talking about. I feel that we ought to help whenever we could. It is a sad phenomenon when people are so engrossed in their pursuit of luxurious lifestyle and completely forget about fellow friends in low living standard conditions. Of course, this does not mean that being financially poor don't feel happy. In the same way, neither does having mountains of fortune necessary make one happy. The level of happiness and the figure in the bank account does not correlate. The point is that we all should have basic liveable condition and the rest is bonus.
Give wherever we can. You will find that actually we receive much more. :)
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