PLEASE please please, if you want to see my entry on Rapture (please do), press the previous entry button near the bottom of this entry.
National Day Celebrations for SAJC
8th August 2006 Tuesday
4:02pm
Today SAJC celebrated National Day, but we didn�t celebrate it in school, or hold any assembly party thing, at least not for us. Different CGs went to different places such as Toa Payoh South CC (my class included), newspaper collection in the area and entertained MINDS people in our school.
After assembly and a short briefing, we walked over the long overhead bridge over the CTE to the CC. Now I know where it is, very near to Potong Pasir, so near that I could even see those Potong Pasir triangular-shaped flats from the HDB carpark near the CC.
I was one of the 10 who were to follow the bus that would ferry some of the elderly to and from their homes. The other elderly lived nearby within walking distance. Those 2 trips were the beginning of my day. I can�t chat much because I don�t know how to speak dialect or Malay, and my Chinese is pathetic (don�t I just love that word?). Pretty much tongue-tied. It�s as good as cutting off my tongue. I was forming a cutting scissors with my fingers while sticking out my tongue to describe my situation.
Now it�s 4.22pm. listening to �You Can�t Stop The Beat� from the Broadway musical �Hairspray�. It was the finale song for Rapture! I just love it! AVA club should take orders for VCD copies of the show. Photographic Society should also sell pictures from that day. Good way to make money, isn�t it? I think it is.
4.32pm. I�m getting distracted from blogging. Must quickly do this up so I can go bathe and do homework. I need to make somebody make me work. I can�t do homework or studies at home, I must do it in school because there the atmosphere is more studious. Home is to unwind and relax. School is to study and do work. There.
Some of the old folks are really old. 2 or 3 on the bus trips were nonagenarians (meaning at least 90 years old and less than 100). One of those nonagenarians, her ear hole was so big. Her ears were like Buddha ears. That was scary. But she looked friendly. I wished her �Selamat Pagi�. For the other elderly who were Chinese I wished them �Zao An�.
Yan Shan and I were attached to the 2 elderly in front, the only elderly in the front row. They were later joined by another. All of them were over 70! Mama�s age! Wow! And they were youthful and fit. No walking assistance needed, just like Mama. We chatted with them. They were sociable. I soon started talking, no longer dumb. In a short while I could chat with them. Earlier on the bus Ming Fatt commented on my rather unusual silence (don�t forget I�m a noisebox), that if I knew how to speak in those languages I would be chatting away, or something of the same meaning. Quite true lah. Also, I didn�t know what to say to them.
The first thing we talked about was if they enjoyed the first item which was singing. Yan Shan and I danced the chicken dance with the 2 of them elderly (the 3rd one hadn�t joined us yet). We all enjoyed it. There was one item where the class performing sang �Yue Liang Dai Biao Wo De Xing� (Moon represents my heart). I love that song! The 3rd elderly, a woman wearing the red shirt, loved it too. She was singing along, like me. Haha! She loves listening to music (and hence enjoys singing along). She sung to me some songs softly to share with me some of her favourite songs. I heard 2 of them before. All the excerpts she sung were beautiful songs, nice tune.
We also talked about holidaying in China. The old man we were attached to was from Fujian and migrated to Singapore when he was 11. Our pink t-shirt auntie was from Kok Peng in Malaysia, near Batu-something. The red shirt auntie was from Singapore. All except for the red shirt auntie had holidayed in China before. They enjoy those trips because of the beautiful sights (and cheapness of things there). Our uncle travels in China every year, visiting a new place each time but he never runs out of places since China is so big and has so many places to holiday at.
Our elderly also played games. The red shirt auntie can throw the ball well. Some of the elderly are good shooters, shooting all the balls into the buckets. Our uncle also enjoyed the tic-tac-toe game. He demonstrated to the aunties how to play the game. He was proud of his skills, enjoying his demonstration and the competition of the game.
Michelle helped us to take a photo of us together.
I like the aunties and uncle that we were attached to.
During lunch, the elderly had lunch but we didn�t. Lunch was provided only for them since school had a limited budget. They �pitied� us because we were watching them eat. I was fine. I was letting them eat their lunch finish then we could continue talking. I helped the red shirt auntie get second helpings. In the end, there were leftovers so Yan Shan, Lynn and I finally got to eat something more substantiating than cereal to settle our hunger. (By the way, my cereal is really nice. Lynn was slightly upset and rushed over when she saw me eating my cereal that she loves. I didn�t tell her that I was eating it then. Haha.)
The uncle and the pink shirt auntie won lucky draw prizes. They were happy and had a bit of an adrenalin rush. The uncle at least was triumphant about his lucky draw win.
Our elderly had a fun time in the end. They enjoyed their day and thanked us for the fun.
We helped the bus elderly to their homes, carrying their goodie bags, which contained rice, hot cereal drink and instant noodles, to their homes. These elderly also thanked us and invited us to go inside their homes but we refused politely. The bus was waiting for us and it was not appropriate for us to be hosted by them. The bus driver dropped us off at HDB hub. There, we had our �class lunch� at Burger King. I was searching up and down inside NTUC for a bottle of coke, finding in the end a bottle of cold Pepsi next to the lift. Haizz. Our class lunch never is a full class lunch, the most (or maybe it was a full class lunch) during school hours in the school canteen. Haha.
During our chat, I found out that Jason was hardworking! We all think that Jason is playful, but the truth is that he works hard at home, determined to study or do his homework, no computer games, no TV. Wow. Unbelievable. Haha! I also don�t play computer games or watch TV at home. I slowly flip through the newspaper, eat and drink a bit, go toilet, nap for 3 hours straight if I want to, bathe, dilly-dally, have dinner, chat for half an hour with my sisters, watch MP play computer, used to watch a bit of the 9 o�clock show on channel 8, wash up and go to bed. I hardly do homework or studies. As I have said, school is for work, home is to unwind. My exams are coming up for economics. So how? I�m compromising myself, again.
So Nithya asked,� So what do I do for fun?� Oh, lots of other things. I am a fun-lover. I have fun in school, through all that laughing and those lunch-time and recess-time conversations, and me cracking jokes with my use of language. Tonight, I�m going to watch fireworks at Marina Bay. That�s one way I have fun. I�m glad I�m not addicted to computer or anything, there is this liberating fact that I�m not constrained to anything. But then there�s homework. That is a terrible fact. I�m tied to it and to examinations.
There is a tussle between a class outing at Sentosa or going to ice-skate. I haven�t ice-skated in 8 years at least. I�d love to touch the ice again. But a free class outing at Sentosa, including lunch and the luge, totally paid for by the school, is a great way to catch the class. I want a CLASS outing!
