A New Beginning

A fellow volunteer cum social work seeker was chatting with me the other day.
he recommended that i check out the blog of a lady's journey into social work.

"Do you know her personally?" i asked.
"Nope. I googled and found her blog. She updated a lot when she was studying and finding her way into the field. good insights. but she hasn't blogged for a long time now."
"What happened?"
"She graduated and started working as a social worker. Then I think no more time to write anymore."

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and so it is.
i haven't updated this blog for a while.
but not because i don't have the time.
it's because i have TWO blogs now.
and i have to submit reflections every week to my supervisor.
I was just typing one two days ago and I realised it's almost like i'm getting paid to blog (to my sup).

she looked almost apologetic that i had to submit a reflections report every week,
but I love this part of the job.
Last week she answered my question on "what is the line to draw with the clients? when do we help and when do we hold back?" with another question.

"I'm going to answer your question with 2 questions. What do you expect from yourself as a social worker? and What do you think your client expects from you as a social worker? Mull about it and then tell me what you think in your reflections"

I've certainly gained more clarity just by mulling on the questions. Genius i tell you, these counselling people.

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I've been helping my supervisor write reports as well.
Bless her soul she has been so patient with me.
As i hammer out assessments, she would be like "er....your assessment should follow the key information that you recorded yes? it's like an analysis of the information."
And then the next report I would go into analysis overdrive and come out with some abstract assessment thing, and she would read it and go like "er....i think you can just say (this and that). No need so long."

Every time after a meeting with clients she would ask me of my assessment. And then smile patiently as I start strategizing into systemic changes "the child needs support. the client needs (etc etc etc)".
After some grand theory exposition on systems and changes, I would ask her "so what is the follow up action?"

"The next follow up is to issue food coupons to the client," she would reply, still smiling as sweetly as ever.

If i were on Ally McBeal, that would be a face palm moment.

Of course! In my eagerness to "think big" and systems, I conveniently forgot to feed the client. Systemic changes would be of little use to a starved client yes?

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I asked my colleague the other day how long it took for her to reach home.
she told me maybe about 30 min, but she will time on her way home and tell me for sure the next day.

the next day she came to work and told me "Wah lau yesterday I timed until I missed my stop! I looked up and I was at Lakeside MRT!"

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The best thing about talking with the elderlies,
is that they say the darnest things.
I called one up the other day,
and the first thing she asked was "are you the thin or fat one?"
"er..fat one, fat one"
"Orrrrhhhh, I know which one!"

Grrrrrr....
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some of my colleagues have a grand sense of humour.
seriously witty and funny, in a non-intimidating or put down way.
there would be discussions on how people with "jaw lock" see the doctor (do they pretend to be biting into something the whole time in the bus?),
how many times a year we have "eat your family day",
and what "garden elegance" dress code means (grasshopper brooch?)

Then there are lots of pranks going round.
people on long hols would get their cubicles wrapped in raffia string (admin pple: "so THAT"s WHY we always run out of raffia string!")
there would be plans on whatsapp to call our centre manager "Ms xxx" and stand up when she walks in so that the new interns would get nervous in her presence,
and some of them got tricked into preparing a song item when they first joined ("they told me to prepare to sing my favorite hymn!") as the HQ HR would usually introduce new staff at corporate gatherings.

The HQ HR, by the way, flashed the wrong photo of me when they introduced me at the corporate event.
Genuine mistake, not prank.
They were very apologetic after that. i thought it was pretty funny.

So now you know what social workers do in the office.
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I was looking at my own support structures the other day,
a social work assessment thing (yeah i remembered to feed myself first),
and i realise being out of the country has a way of isolating and cutting off all your friends.

i guess at a certain age,
you just can't afford to lose touch anymore.
people just get too busy with their families and they are gone forever.

it didn't help that in cambodia we got way too busy.

Maybe that's what steph meant when she said all the changing of countries made her wonder where she really belonged. it's like she didn't belong anywhere.

I suppose it is time to start anew.

New job, new church, new club, new hobby.

It is the year of the jubilee after all...where everything starts afresh.

Jubilee

We just had the last training session for the program.
I miss it already.

It's a beautiful experience to learn something new every session,
be it about human behavior or techniques in close up communication (aka counselling),
together with a roomful of people with the same heart.
Full of questions,
full of enthusiasm,
full of passion for going out to journey with a family in difficulty.

Every break time I'd go around to get to know more about others.
there are counsellors, missionaries, aspiring social workers...
each of them having either a fascinating occupation or passion or interest.

The one thing i keep hearing from social work practitioners,
is that in this journey you get to know yourself and grow as well,
and more often than not it is your demons you conquer first as you come face to face with the issues buried in your own life surfaced in someone else's problems.

If there's something else i learnt today as well,
it's that i'm woefully inadequate.
Ethical boundaries are often grey
(what do you if a husband confides in you about an affair and he says you can't tell the wife? how do you balance confidentiality to the husband vs truthfulness to the wife?)
and things are never clear cut.

it's pretty scary,
going into something and feeling completely lost.
But i suppose again,
i am reminded it is all God's grace.
God's grace that the door opened even though i know nuts,
God's grace that He will pull me through as i wade in murky waters.

The lesson from Good Friday is simply:
Abide.
Abide, then advance (His Kingdom).
And so again i constantly remind myself to get back into the presence of God,
to cling on to Him,
because otherwise i'm just so going to sink in the muddy waters.

ít can't be a bad thing to put yourself in a situation,
where it's either you have God or you die, metaphorically or otherwise.
there's no "me and my abilities" to fall back on.

Massive gamble.
massive faith.
and Abraham believed God.
and Ewong, with her inadequacies and insecurities and small faith, believed God.

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I suddenly remembered that it's the Division U contest today,
and spontaneously decided to take a cab down to catch it.

The taxi ride was so cool.
I jumped into the front seat and chatted with the driver like he's a friend giving me a lift.
It helped that he is a sales man during the week so he's really chatty.

Half hour and $16 later,
the speaker i so wanted to catch was already on stage.
Members of the audience are not allowed to enter the venue when a speaker is on,
so i was kept outside the door.
grrr.
didn't see him in action at all,
but i could hear him.

in any case,
there were 3 more speakers coming up.
2 of which were also high level speakers.

The peak of speeches for me are entertaining inspirational speeches.
So hard to get it right,
but when you do get it right,
it's like reaching the peak of a long mountain hike.
 a moment to savour.
it's not going to happen everyday.

I witnessed a speech today that came close to that.
highly entertaining,
with a good memorable message.
not the highest level,
but close.

i thought about my own speech coming up next week,
and it pales so much in comparison.
mine generates deathly silence.

i wonder if i should boost it up a little bit,
then again,
what's the purpose of me making the speech?

my goal was never to win the contest.
it is just a message that needs to be heard.
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Week 3 of training coming up!

Crazy Times

The craziest thing i've done so far in my 4 months back,
is evaluating 300 video clips in a week.
That's an average of 40 video clips a day,
with each evaluation spanning 4 pages.

When my fellow trainers and i took the job
we thought it would be simple one line evaluation for each student,
and now we're all having our daily schedules (and sleeping patterns) messed up by this massive task.

the punchline?
there is ANOTHER round of 300 video clips AFTER the training sessions.
*sob*

I was completely exhausted even before my first training session,
and sure enough after the first day my body rebelled.
It had quietly tolerated the sudden surge of stress the past week,
and suddenly now it is getting exposed to 4-7km walk on heels, carrying laptop and piles of books up and down stairs, and standing for hours in sweltering heat. While talking enthusiastically.

If my body could talk, i bet it would have screamed at me.
vulgarities.
It couldn't talk, so it did what it could.
I fell sick.

And so started a week of training while popping panadol and cold tablets.
It was soooo crazy.
Amidst it all I got PMS somemore.
So add on another bout of symptoms.
Lagi best.

One of my trainer friends once mentioned to me that he had a cold once and still went for class.
and that was the moment he knew he was in his dream job.
because "usually people can't wait to take MC right? but i still went even when I was sick!"

What he said kept ringing in my head.
Because for all the physical discomfort that was accumulating,
I surprised even myself by how much I still enjoyed myself in class.
In fact I think conducting the training had healing effects on me,
I'd start the day with a sore throat but end with the throat fine (and then flu would arrive)

I had 15 classes in all,
and it was only the last class that i finally felt the effects of the sickness and exhaustion and "dragged" myself through it.
The rest i thoroughly enjoyed,
even as I gave the lesson which includes a self introduction 15 times.
I know myself so well now.

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The Interview

The interviewer from the unnerving "i-know-what-you-did-last-summer" interview told me they'd let me know if i got through within two weeks.

As the days went by my hopes started diminishing.
Surely they would have called by now if I got through.

In recent weeks I've had visions during prayer and worship and prophesies as well,
and on one level I was quite sure where God was leading me too.
But still no call.
So i was quite confused, and frustrated, that there would be another round of waiting and uncertainty.
Have I heard wrong? surely not? So many times? In such intensity?

on one night i was doing devotion and the lesson was essentially "to commit to God and His vision, and not the ideals and ideas".
I prayed and ask for God to strengthen the fire in me,
that I would continue pursuing the vision He has bestowed on me come what may,
despite the confusion, frustration and uncertainty ahead.

The next day, which was the very last day of the 2 weeks,
the interviewer called.

Turns out there isn't even a 3rd interview,
she offered me a position right there,
while asking somewhat apologetically if I could start in May together with another candidate.

I was like "May is perfect! I have a training job right now till April!"

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And so it looks like things are finally falling in place now.
Despite the physical "torture" i'm putting my body through,
I'm enjoying every minute of the training stint.
I've been dreaming of something like this since forever.
I would have done it for free (maybe with a more manageable load),
and i can't believe i'm getting paid a pretty cool amount for it.
God has a way of granting us little treats here and there.

As i start my new work as well,
I go in with "fear and trembling".
that is good, because then i go in God's strength and not my own.

Social workers may not have much standing in society,
but what they see every day is not for the feeble hearted.

Not many people give social workers much credit,
but i'm in awe of them,
especially the ones doing this with God's leading (and not just out of a good heart).

To me they are the true soldiers of faith.
there is a joke saying that when social workers die and they meet St Peter in heaven, St Peter would tell them "you were a social worker? come right into heaven my dear, you have already seen your fair share of hell."

They are the ones going into the darkest dungeons of society armed just with the lamp of God,
it's a complete honor to join their ranks.

I've been volunteering with the organization I'll be working with,
to find out more.
just recently i found out that in the volunteer training class I'm in,
the guy who introduced himself as "oh i work in this organization, in the corporate side.",
is actually the CEO himself.
And i only knew because i was flipping through the AGM the other day and there he was at the front few pages in a suit writing the CEO's note.

And the guy seated next to me,
happily chatting with me every week about his wife and 3 missionary daughters,
is the Executive Treasurer of the Board.

You look at these two guys and you would never have guessed that they are high level management staff.
completely down to earth, humble, serving.
and taking saturdays off to VOLUNTEER with the organization they RUN.

I'm in privileged company.
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Week 2 of training coming up!

Gladly Take, Gladly Give

The one with the Interview

Went for an interview last week
it was the most interesting interview i've ever had
it almost felt like a counselling session.

if there's one revelation i've learnt lately
after attending several volunteer training sessions
is that social workers and counsellers are masters of close-up communication.
they are fascinating.
public speaking and performing require understanding audiences in a mass level,
and there are tools to bring the audience wherever you want to bring them.

close-up communication is a whole new field
it's like being hynotized into sharing your deepest thoughts without even knowing it.
It's like saying "I just ate laksa" and they are able to read through the lines and know what you did yesterday when no one was looking.
Terrifying, but superb.
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300 kids and good o shoes

I was so unnerved by the interview
it took me a while to compose myself for.....300 kids. with brand new pump shoes.

the dress code for training was court shoes.
so i thought court shoes meant like badminton court shoes you know?
but badminton court shoes look quite weird when you are not playing badminton yes?
turned out court means legal court...court shoes are what lawyers wear...not what Ronald Siloso wears.

So i went out to get myself some court shoes.
and the worst possible day to get used to brand new shoes is to run a 4 hour active session with 300 hysterical kids.
At the end of the 4 hours my feet were burning but adrenaline took me through.

All my kids were P2.
they truly showed me what sheep without shepherd means.
Some teachers were really fierce to control them, and some were just really funny (not intentionally)

"XXX, go behind! stop squeezing with people in front!"
"I said 4 rows! 1,2,3,4. (points to 5,6,7th rows) What is this?!!!"
"I said 'face me!' XXX, where you going???!!!"

the kids themselves are really adorable.
I got really great "it's not about winning" kids, i got complain "teacher she shout at me!" kings/queens, I got at least a couple of crying kids.

And over to the other side I could hear SY lecturing her own batch of 30 kids, "Is this what you call respect??"

Earned myself five 5-cent coin blisters on both feet at the end of the day.
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 Area Contest

The area contest was on on Saturday. They combined 2 areas so there were like 9 speeches to sit through.

The silver lining was seeing Mike again.
As usual he gave a creative, thought provoking and power speech on life and death.
unfortunately he got 2nd in his area.

The contestants in my area were really good.
I was slated to be the 2nd speaker and the first speaker had a msg almost identical to mine.
As I listened to him I was thinking "oh oh".
It's like comedic coincidence at its best. Identical messages one after another.

The 3rd speaker that went after me gave a very honest speech about his difficult childhood.
that's pretty amazing too cos I also talked about youths with a difficult past in my speech.

It's uncanny how we all had a common thread running through.

Only the last speaker talked about something completely different,
but even then he delivered it well and it was quite entertaining.

Yeah so I was in priviledged company. What an honor to be among contestants who spoke beyond self-improvement.

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the night before I was feeling quite restless.
no feeling.
So i worshipped before continuing my practice.
In my worship God reminded me that he actually gathered 8 clubs (instead of the usual 4) together to listen to Him. He reminded me to think of the audience, and how in the world did it become about me?

I started to feelz the speech again.
Cos God is right (as usual...hmmph).
It was about the message that God has for the audience,
it was about a message that needed to be heard.
It wasn't about me feeling bored or restless.
I was but the messenger.

Two amazing things happened after i delivered the speech.
The first was that during the break 6 cambodians actually came up to me and introduced themselves to me.
It's quite rare to find cambodians in singapore and here were half a dozen! a community of them!

the 2nd was when C, the area governor who was with a badly handicapped fellow toastmaster throughout the contest and taking care of her the whole time, told me

"I loved that speech. I heard it twice and I still love it. It was a message that needed to be heard."

The club president asked me whether i was nervous when they were annoucing the results.
I shrugged my shoulders.
not in a "I don't care" manner,
but it really didn't matter to me.
I was but the messenger, my duty was only to deliver a message, wherever the message is meant to go.

I won the contest.
So next month it's going to get heard again at the Division level.
I am, but a messenger.

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Smoking uncle

I haven't been able to catch up with Smoking Uncle for 2 weeks now.
The last time we visited him
he stunned us with a "You want to pray or sing songs, anything you want, all can"
This coming from the uncle who complained bitterly about evangelism last year and made sure everyone knew about it

I haven't joined the team yet when they kana the complaint
but i can sense their nervousness talking to him
cos maybe don't know whether will kana complain again

I of course never stepped on the bomb so I ventured to say whatever i want
while YM taps my knee nervously to shut me up when she thinks i'm near igniting something

it's a move of God I think,
really.
combined with comedy of errors.

like how we managed to raise the topic of prayers again quite by accident.
I was with WJ and she thought it would be ok (her first time visiting so she doesn't know the boundaries) while i was slightly panicking inside on whether we were gonna blow something up.

If YM was there she would have tapped our knees i think but she wasn't there.
So WJ boldly asked.
and the uncle said ok, but not this week.

The next week, I was with YM. And i asked the uncle whether he wanted prayers.
amazingly i didn't know the chinese word for prayers. So i asked YM, and she flusteredly whispered back "better not".
So i shut up but Smoking Uncle overheard, and that's when he stunned us with  "Prayers? Yes sure. You want to sing song also can."

Two weeks passed and I haven't had the chance to visit Smoking Uncle.
Last Sunday when we went I was worried he has forgotten about it.
maybe CNY period he was more open, and now it has been too long and not open anymore.

Imagine my surprise when the first thing he said when he saw us was:
"you haven't been here for two weeks. Come let's pray. You are suppose to pray for me."

And so we prayed for him. In Chinese! I was like a P1 kid. How do you say things like "bless, in jesus' name etc???"

Jesus must have been chuckling, wondering what in the world i'm praying about.
有心就好 right

Reenz was there as well.
the funny thing was YM was still threading carefully,
cos she doesn't want to accidentally blow the fuse.
While Reenz and I were free reigning.
So YM was quite busy with tapping knees and pulling us back in.

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Big Ass-ignment 

After the euphoria of the week died down,
I wondered what i was going to do this week.
it was the holidays so training assignments wouldn't come in.

and though i've been doing really fun things and busy with them,
they are not necessary bringing in dough.
I wondered if i did the right thing turning down assignments on Fri and Sat,
so that i could be in good condition to deliver the speech and also attend volunteer training.

Seek first His kingdom and righteousness,
and God will provide,
i consoled myself.

in the meantime,
let's see where i can put time in to get some short term dough,
while I wait on for the interviews,
which are beginning to test my patience.
at least a no is a no and i can move on,
but it's always "wait till this date. If you don't hear anything, it means no."

So with a heavy sigh, I planned my sechedule for the following weeks.

Monday morning,
I have barely woken up,
and I received a call for this BIG ASS-IGNMENT.
HUGE.

Not just huge in terms of confirmed gigs (and dough),
but it's also in training tertiary students in public speaking which i absolutely love.

God. Will. Provide.

Common Face

Went to visit cute Auntie today.
She started complaining about the "wang ba dan" group that gave her a flyer to stay home and wait for chinese new year goodies but didn't turn up.

"You gave me this flyer!" she passionately waved her finger at me.
"no no no...auntie.....not me. This flyer is not from our group and not from our church."
"it's not you?"
"no no...not me."

And then she started talking about the group from our church that went to clean her house,
and they haven't visited her for a long time.

"It's you! Why haven't you come for a while?" she passionately waved her finger at me.
"no no no..auntie...not me. I came two weeks ago but you were not home. but anyway, I didn't come to clean your house."
"It's you!" she went to grab a photograph of the group shot they took.
"Yes auntie these people are from our church. But they are youths. I'm old. Not me."
"it's not you?"
"no no...not me."

She went back to talking about the "wang ba dan" group,
and how she called our centre to enquire, and they told her it's not from them, but anyhow they haven't visited for a long time.

"It's you! I called you!" she passionately waved her finger at me.
"no no no auntie...not me."
"it's not you?"
"no no...not me."

S says I have a common face. Everything also me.
no choice....太美就是这样。:P

Crazy Weird

After Splendid Saturday,
I came down with heat exhaustion.

"Stay at home also can heat exhaustion?" the brother asked.

Actually i think i may really have gotten heat exhaustion from sleeping (exhausted) in a very hot room. The weather is terrible these days...and i thought Cambodia was hot!

Or maybe running for the bus in this weather wasn't a good idea after all...hmm....

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Had training assignments in the EARLY morning this week.
Not only were the sessions early,
there is a huge park between the school and the mrt station that i had to walk ROUND to get to the school.

on the first day I checked out the map at the MRT station.
it was different from my google map. it looks walkable. Brain says let's do it.
Halfway there i realised the MRT map was wrong and my google map was right. Brain says We're screwed.

I sped walk ROUND (ROUND!) this huge park.
1 primary school, 1 secondary school and 1 petrol station later,
i finally reached the school I was training for.

and all this with a backpack containing a 3kg laptop and water and umbrella.
It was like an army road march.

Best thing was I had to do it ALL OVER again the next day.
These time I wore slippers and brought along my heels.
I'm the most super unglam trainer ever.

I surprised myself with my energy and enthusiasm though.
I was up at like 5am (i usually sleep at 4am)
and I didn't even nap on the hour long train ride.

It felt like juggling again.
these odd hours, carrying loads of barang....
but just having fun the entire time.

I used to dread relief teaching as well,
but i've grown to like being in class with the students.
Still have a lot to work on if i become a real teacher,
but I'm just surprised by how I've grown in how i interact with students.

Old already.
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Not only did the days start early with the training,
my evenings were packed with meetings and attending talks ON training.

i haven't felt like this for a while.
It felt like...I was in my element.......
in fact i was so much in my element,
I was doing a personality test on the way to a trainer's meeting that my results became E (extraverted).
I redid the test in the quiet of my room another day and it went back to an I (introvert).

All these training stuff brought the E out of me.....

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I ventured into the enneagram stuff for a little bit this week.
it's quite fascinating....and it was really fun for a while to see all these patterns and similarities in pple i know...this guy is a type 8...she''s a type 3 etc......
it does tell you quite a great deal about yourself.

I wasn't a whole lot comfortable with the pyschological and spiritual side of it though....
got "dan tien" somemore...

the most incredible part was that i attended a free talk with some trainer friends,
and then bumped into toastmasters friends and even a unicycling friend!
i guess birds really do flock together.
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Things have suddenly started moving forward quite abit this week.
suddenly got calls from training companies after months of silence....
and even a job application that i've semi given up hope on suddenly called. (and got me to do a personality test before the interview)

it's a little overwhelming but it's been the best week since i came back.
not only are responses coming in,
these are responses that actually make me feel alive.

And reading all these personality tests things (because a trainer friend is so passionate about it he got everyone to do it and got everyoone excited about it) helped me understand why.

the hard part now would be to choose a path to go.
the essence remain the same though.
i will walk wherever i am able to glorify God.

Godliness when i'm lost (Look to Ruth). Godliness in failure (peter). Godliness in temptation (joseph). Godliness in success. (daniel)

There are many people doing many good things out there.
Not so many are upholding the name of God unabashly though (albeit sensitively).

May I never forget,
that doing good for the sake of doing good (or myself) is one thing,
loving people with the love of God is something else.
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best quote of the week:

"Do you often get moods of depression suddenly like your personality type indicates?"
"yeah...i suppose. But i always thought it was PMS."
"Yeah, but XXX (guy trainer) gets these bouts of depression too. So yeah, it''s definitely not PMS for him. So i don't think it's PMS, it's just your type."

Splendid Saturday

after a week wrestling in the darkness with PMS,
something seemed to have clicked yesterday listening to Ed Chan's sermon on Ruth.
Something about her just quietly going about getting her stuff done with Godliness.

Perhaps i've been too uptight with certain expectations after being back.
"Why Christians here like that?" seemed to be my predominant thought, and i allowed it to consume me.
I really need to learn from Ruth. Just quietly go and do your thing. With Godliness.

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Today was a really packed day.
Early start to the morning at 7am.
I haven't been up before the sun for months now.
And then it was back to back appointments meeting lots of people, not all of whom i know.
Usually things like that drain energy out of me,
and with the early start and packed day,
i was wary that i'd be do drained before the day ended.

It was amazingly refreshing though.
I'm half concussed now,
but still spirited.

First up was volunteer training.
I wasn't sure what to expect since it's the first training session,
and coming soon after I just kana screwed (again) by volunteer mismanagment at another centre,
I wasn't particularly thrilled.
And so i wasn't even upset when us volunteers arrived and waited 15 min outside the locked gate.
my expectations not very high sia.

Thankfully, it was all just a misunderstanding.
Turns out there are actually 2 centres of the same name at 2 sides of the same block, and we were waiting at the wrong side.
Luckily the training coordinators solved the puzzle of why everyone was late and rushed over to the other side to get us all to come over.

The 5 hour training session was surprisingly refreshing, energizing and time just flew by.
On our table were 1 psychology student, 2 law undergrads,  a husband-wife team who are parents of 3 missionaries, and WJ and myself.

In the room there were also a medical social worker, and this guy who is super pro government it is very funny listening to him (and he wasn't trying to be funny). I was trying to figure out if he is a master comedian and doing a paraody. It's like one of the elections where the MP turned up for a neighborhood Halloween party and everyone thought it was so funny to have this guy wearing a PAP costume and behaving just like an MP. Funny until they realised he was really an MP doing a walkabout that is.

The diversity in the room was united by one single factor,
we all wanted to know more about the poor and help the poor.
and we were willing to spent 6 hours early morning on Saturdays to do it.

The trainer taught us about the ecological theory today,
of how people are affected by their environments.
"micro, macro, eso, exo, meso" ...sounds like some bad word like that.

best thing was we were filling up the feedback form at the end of the session
and i forgot the name of the theory
so i just wrote
"I learnt about the ecosystem today".

I think someone else wrote "The bee hoon is not tasty."

We had a lot of discussion time on how we viewed things in life.
and it's very interesting listening to the viewpoints of different people.
it helped me see how much of my view point is influenced by the bible,
and for things not explicitly stated in the bible, what are the principles i can draw from it?
what is truth?
Is truth relative?

There was one view on cohabitation which i can fully understand where they are coming from,
and if it wasn't for the bible I'd agree on it, because without the bible, marriage is more of a custom and tradition, which can evolve with times.

but seeing the world through God's framework helps me understand why I cannot agree with it. not becuase God says cannot, but I understand why God says cannot, and I agree with it just seeing general examples of unbiblical family and structures and the problems that arise from them.

this is not to say I argue vehemently for my beliefs,
it was just an interesting exchange of idea session,
to understand what different people think,
and to solidify your own convictions by thinking through why you don't agree

Looking forward to the next training sesson.
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After that it was a mad rush down from the west to the central area for a gathering.
We almost missed the bus and the bus stop was freaking far,
half way through i figured we wouldn't be in time and decided to tease WJ who was in front of me "Go WJ go! stop the bus for us!"

RUN she did.
and she really boarded the bus and got it to wait for us, so we must dash for it also otherwise we'll hold up the whole bus.
the bus driver waited a while for us and we boarded the bus panting and exhausted.
"you really ran??"
"I was going to give up, and then you shouted for me to go for it! So i kept running!"
"I was TEASING you!"

I havn't ran for the bus in years......
It was really cool meeting the folks from CG 5 years ago.
I was trying to tell them normal greeting means shaking hands, not touching my stomach.
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From central, it was now back further west to Boon lay no less for another gathering,
this time with people I didn't even know.
It turned out to be a really great gathering,
young, energetic friendly peeps,
delicious home cooked chilli crabs,
pple helping to clean up,
chatting and getting to know each other a lot more.

It felt right. Just like cambodia once more.

two of them are in my elderly visitation group.
one is super passionate about sharon au and ginger.
the other i've been whatsapp-ing for months and finally only got to meet now.

Oh and more people seem to be getting interested in Toastmasters.
I'm going around being a Toastmaster evangelist.
One day let's see where this brings me to.