National Day

Well, most of the time, I look forward to 8th August for the half day, only to be informed 5 hours before the day itself by Kevan that Nathan (curse him) had volunteered the team to help ferry old folks from the Kwang Wai Shou Home to the school for the celebrations. Hoping that it would not eat into too much of the mana of free time, the ferrying was actually pretty okay. Many of the old people were pretty active, needing no help getting on the bus, and most of our job consisted of assisting the wheelchair bound and hoisting their chairs onto the bus. All were really enthusiastic about a chance to go on an outing, albeit a short 4 hour one. Directed by a number of energetic workers at the home and volunteers, we got them ready to go within a quarter of an hour.

This wasn't the first visit to the school for a few of them, having been invited by the school to National Day celebrations in previous years to join the celebrations and give them the chance to leave the home. Encouraged beforehand to strike up a conversation with the elderly, I asked the man seated next to me his age. I guessed he was around 70, and I was surprised when he told me he was in fact, 89. It must have shown on my face as he added "Don't look like it do I" in Chinese. The school traditionally has the youngest and oldest person in the school to cut a birthday cake for Singapore, and the man must have felt gypped that the honour of cutting that cake would not be his, being just one year younger than the oldest in the group who was 90.

Apart from getting the wheelchair bound ones up the stairs, everything else went without a hitch, and no extra time was taken up, though I hung back a little to help serve lunch to them. My fears that Ms. Mara would still bear a grudge against me when she caught me writing after the time ran out in last term's exam were all unfounded.

Matthew invited me to his house after school ended to attempt to teach me how to play DotA properly. Amazingly, I won the first match against him, but it probably was because he intended to use me as a lab rat for his new Mecurial build, which is a terrible hero in one on one combat. He rectified that by routing me 14-0 in the next match. Just after it ended, his dad came home. In panic, he had me hide in his room until his dad was busy, then having his brother open the door for me to get away.

The actually National Day passed quite uneventfully actually as I spent most of the day camping in my room revising/escaping dad to avoid becoming a runner boy as he drilled a few holes for a few things mum wanted put up. Watching the parade live from my grandparent's house in Tiong Bahru, I could hear the fighter jets roar above my head a short two seconds after they were out of sight from the TV cameras. The idea of staging this year's celebrations on a pontoon stage in the Esplanade Bay was a terrific idea. They should this every year from now. Oh wait, there's still the Padang...

Offered to help FL in her speech/expository/whatever concerning crazy fan girls and the millions they spend on them. Somehow, all I could think of was movies and merchandise, nothing else. Finally ground out something, and had it sent to her a few mintues ago, though it might be too late for her to use it.......




Hours Spent Mugging : 18