Injured Finger and Wrist

It was a rare morning sleeping throughout the silence till after sunrise. Thursday morning, I woke up feeling tired still after the long rest since I did not catch enough sleep the days before. I went to visit the Chinese physician and got myself eight days of medicine before going to work.

Jingkun and I wanted to give Mei Hoe a belated birthday treat and thus we proceeded to IMM’s Swenson. Daniel joined in. We had great chats as usual.

I stayed inside the office until 7.30pm before proceeding down to the MPH for volleyball. Everyone seemed to play well. Somehow, my team had the upper hand. My legs were wrecked at my third game playing the centre position with other people. I was very amazed by my wrist power. Later part of the night was dull, but I made sure I did my duty defending given no other role.

We left at around 10pm. Kachua gave me a ride home. I realised I had sprained my index finger on the right hand and also over-exerted the wrist.

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Dairy Farm Walk

Yesterday, I wasted the entire afternoon at Bukit Batok ITE, hoping it could be beneficial to me after being arrowed over. At least, I got to spend time with some of the best students.

In the evening, I joined the outing to Dairy Farm. It was the first time I took Diana’s car. It was a short walk and I tried to snap everything on the way, having to run every few minutes in order to catch up with them. It was not a good day for photography somehow for I did not have the feeling at all.

Diana dropped Darni and I at the MRT station, and I felt quite bad for it was quite far away from her home.

It was one of the earliest times I dozed off at around midnight.

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Dinner with Happy Peiyun

I finally got to meet up with Peiyun again after years. Eleven years of friendship was fate too kind to me. We got to Boonlay MRT at almost the same time. She was kind, friendly and simple like usual. We had dinner at New York New York but I finally realised I would prefer Fish&Co after the dinner.

We walked around and she repeated her concern whether I was too tired or bored. She grabbed some clothes and by the end of the night, we went to Popular where she bought me a phone pouch to repay me for the dinner. I did not really want to get it since my current tearing one was bought by my younger brother and I would never feel good to dump it.

Comparing the meal and pouch, I would prefer getting the physical gift to being treated for dinner because the gift could last longer for good memorial; the food went into the stomach and would be forgotten in no time after flushing the toilet.

I felt very uneasy for not sending her home but I supposed she would be shyer if I were to do it.

This friendship I would cherish, for nobody I could think of could be kinder than her.

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Passed Final Theory

I never thought I could do it.

I spent last Saturday battling with Facebook over the five hundred plus photos taken during the camp, and at night, I went to have a nice jog. I was too over-confident over myself for the one Sunday was not enough to study, unless, I was not at home to get distracted. I did not take Monday morning off to study at home, whereas, I had to do relief duties to lose more than half of the time.

I had my lunch packeted into the staff room so that I could multi-task. The weather was hot and I was wet by the time I reached the MRT. In my fatigue, I almost took the wrong train but managed to hop out of it before the doors closed. The walk from Bukit Gombak MRT towards the Bukit Batok Driving Centre was long. My mind was unclear somehow. I forgot what documents I was supposed to bring along for the test and I was not sure of the classroom as well. I sat outside classroom 1 and dozed off without further studying.

I supposed most of the bangalas who took basic theory did not pass and thus, the room was filled with mostly, Singaporeans. The seats besides me were empty at first. At the end of the briefing, an old uncle took the one on my left and started grumbling like as if the world owed him money. He had also applied some weird smelling oil that almost killed me through my nose. While I was double-checking my answers, many people left, including the babe sitting diagonally across me. I was shocked when the annoying uncle left his seat with a “PASSED” on the touch-screen LCD monitor. I kept telling myself I should never lose to him.

I was not very confident of some of my answers and one of them was even a guess. I knew I had done my best for probably not many people had gone through the questions twice like me. I clicked the submit button and I knew my effort paid.

Strangely, I was not very excited over my success.

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Problematic Facebook and Jogged in Illness

I spent the full day of my Saturday trying to upload the photos taken during the camp into Facebook but as usual, it was problematic. After waiting for very long, it displayed error alert and I had to redo again. I tried uploading smaller numbers of photos at one go but the errors appeared most of the time. One very irritating issue was that some of the photos were uploaded but a few were missing, such that I had to compare to find out the missing ones.

I went for a jog in the evening before completing the work. I took a small muffin and my medicine before leaving my house at around 5.30pm. On the way, I realised the medicine I took was for my flu, cough and sore throat, and not simply for my stomach problem. It was too late and I had to endure running in my blocked nose.

It was not my plan to challenge my limit again for I had heard numerous cases of people collapsing while exercising in their illness. This time, I did it again. Somehow, my timing was more than satisfactory even though I slowed down a lot at the big T-junction separating Marina Barrage and Marina South Pier.

Marina Barrage was crowded on this Saturday evening. The sky was clear even though it was gray before I took off. The gradient colour painted delights in me. The strong wind dried my sweat fast as usual. I found myself a space and lay down immediately to rest, and also, trying hard to prevent liquid dripping out of my nose. The cough hurt my throat a little and I had this feeling that I could not make it back.

There were two groups of people creating loud noises on the field. The first group forfeited a guy by coming over to lie besides me. When I was standing by the side, a cute girl from the second group was forced to come over to greet me but she only waved. I was disturbed by a SMS regarding work that I was most fearful of, but I decided to fully indulge myself in the beautiful and lively place.

I stayed at the Barrage longer than usual. When it was 8.30pm, I decided I should rush home to continue with my work. Half of the crowds were still around and new visitors continued to arrive. I left reluctantly in my semi blocked nose, feeling more feverish than the earlier journey. I was delighted upon reaching my destination at Shenton Way for my timing was much faster than expected in my illness.

Death was nothing.

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ITE Clementi Orientation Camp – Intake January 2010

It was the first ever known overnight camp for the students to my knowledge. I had not witnessed an event as exciting and enriching as this. Two days one night were too short for the fun, though ample for the bodies and minds to endure. Hirman, the great one, together with his team of lecturers and student leaders, made it all happen.
Most of the staffs of the Singapore Discovery Centre were over-accommodative, responding well to all needs and they even prepared coffee at night at their own good wills.
The schedule was packed and every moment was fruitfully spent. The orientation group leaders (OGL) were quick to react to fill the time in the middle of switching the game stations. They did their jobs well and responded to the lecturers.
The management made their ways down after work on both days to show their supports. I was much luckier than them since I could stay for the entire camp to interact with everyone, including their seeds – the students.
There was nothing much I could really do other than photo-taking, but I believed my fruits of labour would sharpen the fading memories in future; I hoped the sights of them would bring back true smiles on everyone’s face. Most importantly, I hoped I could help Hirman to sum up the entire event through the photos.
So much for my great photography experience and fun in disturbing the kids, everything came with a price. The greatest exchange I made was my two days of time to do my own work and probably longer time to sum up the event together with the aids of the photos. I went down in my sore throat, cough and flu. The sleepless night before that almost made me float and I managed to challenge my limit again by sleeping less than three hours throughout. I had gastric pain twice on the first day and once on the last evening. My feet were sore and my knees were stiff after two days’ walk.
Hirman had brought back confidence and enthusiasm to this five hundred-plus-strength future of our country. It was the first step, a magnificent thrust, to implant hopes into them by making them understand that there was a big pool of people who really cared for them. It was a great effort to bring out all the goodness within them.
There was no absolute measure for the success of any event. However, it was made obvious with the sight of sick and injured students refusing to leave the camp to rest at home. The reluctance of students to leave the place at the end of the camp proved it.
No event could be perfect; although with the strong support from managements, staffs and students, there were still a number of areas to be improved since it was the first attempt of such grand event. There were some ground rules, which were not lay, and thus, creating some political issues. Some students created big issues for the leaders at night.
If the camp goes on for future intakes of students, many great souls would be torn to bones; but a much awesome and impactful one would commence after all the reflections.
Day 1 (part 1/2) – 200 pic
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.428117630306.368014.653480306&type=1&l=050bd5cd93
Day 1 (part 2/2) – 102 pic
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.428395530306.368073.653480306&type=1&l=92135a635b
Day 2 (part 1/2) – 200 pic
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.428490580306.368091.653480306&type=1&l=627938fb1c
Day 2 (part 2/2) – 19 pic
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.428547915306.368099.653480306&type=1&l=ffcd0d11b3

Loving the Chinese Physician again

Tuesday evening, I stayed in the office until quite late to attend volleyball, not very confirm whether it was on or not since Jingkun and Weitat were not going down and I was too lazy to ask Mingfa. It turned out that only Mingfa, Kok Chiang and Wilson from my side went down. I was more than happy to play with uncle Jiaming and we basically imported a player for each game. I was too sick to do much. We left quite early.

Wednesday morning, I went to visit the Chinese physician again for my cough, flu and sore throat. I had lunch together with Jingkun and Daniel and I was quite stunned when they mentioned going to Mr Prata shop but I did not want to foil their plan. It was quite a tiring afternoon staying inside the administration office. I was very impressed by Mr Baey’s enthusiasm and performance, volunteering himself extra hours to contribute his talent. I stayed a little bit later to check out what Hirman might need but there was too little I could help.

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