Volunteering

Today, i started my first volunteering stint with Rainbow Centre at Yishun. Yes, the link is directly to their volunteer's page, but I figured if anyone were to read this, they would already be having thoughts about volunteering with them, so yes, I'm encouraging you to do so!

Honestly, before today, I kept procrastinating. Procrastinated in sending the first email, procrastinated in the liaising, procrastinated on the date to start, and even procrastinated to say yes to the time slot given to me. I should be ashamed. I am already reaching 23 and I still am half-hearted when I am doing things.

In my defence, I take an hour plus to get there, it is about a 15 minute walk into the place from Khatib Mrt, and my time slot was 8:30 am to 12:30 pm. I'm sure there are other time slots that I can take up if I requested, I would just be helping with different things. For this time slot, I was helping a class with bringing them out, and then accompanying the class for their 'full' school day. And I found this 'job' scope quite fulfilling, so heck it, sacrifice some sleep to experience it.

You know what? I'm glad I got out of bed and honoured my promise to turn up.

To be honest, I am amazed at how the school functions and how the teacher in charge of the class is able to control the class. She knew when they were going to act up and took the necessary action to prevent them from acting up. The times that they acted up, she knew what to do to get them to calm down. Believe me, it takes a lot of patience and concentration. It's not something that can be honed from just practicing over the years. The school used a lot of visuals, and I am super awed by how they tailor the visuals to suit each child, e.g. use of cars as symbols for tasks that he/she had to do for child that likes car. There was a lot of positive reinforcement ongoing there (sorry, I'm taking psychology, its an occupational hazard).

I am even more amazed by the children's ability. I saw a boy actually use play dough to shape various types of dinosaurs, such as the triceratops and apatosaurus (no i don't actually know the names by heart; I googled them - but it just shows how accurate he is in doing up the animal). And he was cutting really complex shapes of dinosaurs that I think I would not be able to do when I was at his age. I concluded he loves dinosaurs. I have to admit though, this class is a more independent. There are other classes where the children can be a little more difficult to handle.

Oh, and I find it super cute when I see young kids holding their partner's hands, especially when it is a little boy and a little girl. They just look so adorable! And the kids accept you so readily. One of the students just readily took my hand when I was bringing her to refill water (its my first day btw)! They would talk to me, and ask me for help, readily accept my help when I go forward to help them, etc. Honestly, how can you not like someone who so readily accepts you, much less a group? And really, would you want to go once and stop going or go when you feel like it when you know that this group of children require a as much stability in their school life as possible?

Well, I wouldn't want to do that. It has something to do with what I am learning as well. In general, children do not go very well with change. Think about it, as adults, we find it hard to deal with change at times too. How would a child be able to adapt more than an adult? Plus, these children already have enough on their plate learning their daily habits. It would be mean to cancel a volunteer session just because "I can't get out of bed".

So, I really encourage volunteering with Rainbow Centre if you like children and are willing to commit long term (about 6 mths). Don't think about ad-hoc, because if you want ad-hoc, go to SG cares instead or smth. You have to be open about the experience and must go with a heart that wants to learn about the children. Because it's easy to be blind to the good of these children when you see their behavioural problems which you otherwise might not see, or see much less in children without special needs. And yet, you could see how capable they are if you opened your eyes as well.

This is the furthest i would go here.

Today, i attended the wedding of an uncle.
Together with the ongoing issue within my own family, i started wondering, just what constitutes a family? Or rather, what constitutes a harmonious and functional family?

Because it feels so far away.

Honestly, it saddens me. In fact, it scares me as well.

What have gone so wrong that we turned out this way?

When one decides to get married, and go through the vows, have they really considered through carefully and have the wedding vows that they said before the altar been drilled into their heads?

Why do people even get married if they do not hold steadfast to their vows and promises to one another? Most of all, how can you even treat the person you married in a horrible way? Didn't you marry this person out of love? How can you even bring yourself to hurt someone you love?

 Its so pretty. Weddings are so pretty. They are sacred too. Why do people go through this whole beautiful life event only to taint it with their selfishness? When two people stand before the altar, they make up one. How can there be more than 2 in the equation? Do these people just fail math or they just have no sense of logic?

How can this happen? How can people just fall out of and in love again just like this? How can a wrong be righted with another wrong? How can one be in the wrong and still remain adamant about righteousness?

Because you lose the right to, regardless of previous wrongs by the other. You lose it right when you broke the vow. And breaking the vow not only translates to a disrespect to the marriage, it also means that you have let down everyone who was led to believe your lies, and people are now given the right to relinquish any respect they have of you through the years and replace it with negative judgment on you.

It's been so long

It's been so long since I came to this spot.

I guess sometimes life really gets in the way.

I piled up so many things on my plate since I got home from Aust that I actually feel overwhelmed on some days. I sacrificed so much of my sleep that my eye bags are out again. :( (ok my eye bags have always been somewhat there cos of my complexion but when I have lack of sleep, it becomes super obvious)

Anyway, most importantly of all, I started up this insta/facebook page on the bakes that I do for family/friends or for selling haha. I think this is the closest I get to my dream and I am really happy that I get to go this far. Super thankful for the undying support from the mr and all my friends who have either supported me through buying from me or really, just talking to me about it. I get so pumped up when I talk about baking and all. I don't know why, I really dont. Maybe it's passion. :D

I'm now starting on the second trimester for my 4th year in JCU. You know, I really like psychology - especially the counselling part, but sometimes, I really wonder if I am good at it. Because if I were really good at what I am doing, then why can't I do the same towards what is most important to me? 

I have also started giving tuition to a P2 student. Actually I find teaching quite fun :D Except I realised that I face a huge issue whenever we come to Chinese. oh my. I guess kids just really don't like chinese. I don't know why as well hahaha. I wasn't a huge fan but I was okay with chinese. Soooooooo~.