School's out!
In an attempt to make as much of my holiday as fulfilling as possible, I'm going to try to document my days on this blog. I also have quite a bit of backlog so yes, going to try to clear all that whenever time and creativity permit.
The academic year ended with our final speech comm presentation last
thursday.
It was probably one of the most intimidating assignments I've had all year considering the super high grade weightage it carried, our scary-ass lecturer (she's pretty awesome though) and the topic we chose to present on.
I'm missing a lot of details but long story short: my group and I were undecided on the topic till about three weeks before the presentation and even after deciding we didn't really work on it until three days before the actual thing. Furthermore, the topic we settled on was terrorism- a topic so broad and controversial that it seemed we were digging our own graves. No worries though because there's a happy ending! We went back for our feedback session the following day and sealed our content grade with an A hehe.
S/O to my homies, kim and che, for going with my topic and for being so kickass at researching and presenting.
To celebrate having endured a year's worth of mess comm, we went for some maki-san therapy. Whoever invented the smoked cheese sauce...you're a genius and my tastebuds thank you. Also dragged the girls down to lush with me after dinner because following our marcomm campaign, days of watching lush youtube videos and an undercover boss episode I was a little over obsessed with the brand. Had the full intention of either buying a mask or shampoo bar but a little voice in me told me to wait and add it to my birthday wishlist for friends to fulfil. (:
As mentioned earlier, went back to school the following day (friday) for our feedback session with ms sharon! Our original appointment was at 1pm but ms s. double booked so we ended up going at around 10am. Nearly died of exhaustion.
Had a short burst of energy while walking back home so decided to go for a swim. It's always worth getting a little burnt when you have the luxury of a whole pool to yourself. Got home and cooked up some leftover-dinner-lunch before concussing and taking a nap.
Met jeremiah later on in the evening! I haven't seen this dude in about 10 months so it was really nice catching up with him. Had some surprisingly good curry rice at lenas before we caught deadpool. Never really expected myself to catch the movie because technically I don't meet the age requirements yet but...jeremiah does and the people at the cinema didn't bother checking anyway so yay. I'd give it a 8/10 recommend just because even though the plot wasn't terribly amazing, ryan reynolds pulled deadpool off SO WELL and I had quite a few laugh out loud moments.
This could be a totally separate post but since I'm talking in chronological order:
Saturday was a really challenging day.
It was another PIE community involvement day and this time we were going down to IMH.
I definitely don't have anything against people with mental illnesses. I've worked with children with autism and also wrote a whole essay for school on how stigma against people with mental illness is uncalled for.
Somehow, with us being given very little instructions on what we were going to do (it's all part of training us to adapt to situations quickly) and the idea of interacting with people who were very much older intimidated me. It didn't really help that I was the one tasked with leading the team and fatigue from school was still lingering very heavily in me too.
Initially filled with a lot of anxiety and apprehension, I managed to go through the day's programmes surprisingly well and I thank God for opening my eyes to see brokenness that exists around me.
Diving into a little more detail, what kev had told us earlier on in the week was that:
- we were visiting a male ward (30-50 year olds)
- we had to prepare programmes for them (sing-along session + games)
And that was it.
How does one even begin to understand what is suitable to conduct when there's no prior interaction with such an audience and just HUH?
I felt really flustered after meeting up with the team that day and I just felt so bad for not being able to give super clear instructions/being sure of myself and what I was saying. We had quite a few songs prepared and I really am grateful for glen for being able to know the chinese songs + being able to play them because I struggled just trying to do 'peace like a river' HAHA. Had to do a little snack shopping before heading over and along the way we managed to finalise a few more activities we could do.
Upon arriving we had about 30min to prep and prac before the staff workers arrived. Headed off for a short introductory talk before we were told that the ward we were going to was a women's ward instead.
When we walked through the door into the ward, the ladies had such bright smiles on their face. They wished us happy new year and we went round shaking hands. Shortly after, we began our sing along session. Despite most of them not saying much/mumbling random strings of words earlier on, when a song we sang struck a note of familiarity with them, they heartily sang along.
Following that, we moved on to have a colouring session.
I sat in between two really lovely ladies with whom I managed to converse quite a bit with.
The lady to my left asked for my name, told me it was beautiful and asked if I could draw a house for her. She asked for a more than one window, for a sun and some clouds. I asked if she wanted a flower and she said yes.
Later on she asked me to draw her. She wanted blue eyes. I started to colour her hair in black and she casually commented that her hair was 'chocolate' and not black.
I asked if she liked animals. She said yes and proceeded to tell me about her four dogs. Towards the end, she requested for me to paste many star stickers all over the works we had created together.
The lady to my right didn't really draw. She preferred writing.
"Heart"
"Smile"
"Control"
But then I noticed a treble clef appear. Soon,
"Music"
So I asked if she liked music and she excitedly told me she had learned the recorder and the piano in her earlier years.
Most of the ladies loved the pandan cake that we had brought. They weren't such great fans of our drink choices though. The lady to my left told me that the osmanthus white tea = grimace + thumbs down.
We didn't spend much time together. Probably only a total of an hour before it was time to say goodbye.
Then we took a quick trip down to the children's ward to see how things were run there. It was quite shocking to hear that some children with autism get sent there because it's definitely no place to help them flourish/develop. Hoping that more parents and caretakers would be aware of this and have the means of sending their children to specialised schools!
By the end of our visit, I was really poofed but still had worship prac in church after. It had been more than a month since I was on duty so it felt quite nice to be back. I definitely think there's loads more I can work on technically and aw man I definitely gotta learn to be more confident. Come on isabella, you can do it.
Valentine's day was pretty much like any other sunday. Church followed by chinese new year visiting at marcus' house!!!
I guess that brings my up to date to today. Which shall mostly just be explained through my snaps:
Zhi en had been talking to me about his school assignment for quite a while and it finally went on exhibit so I dropped by laselle to take a quick peek! Looking through all the artsy stuff really got me reminiscing of O level art and it also made me realise that as much as I love and appreciate art, I was never destined to be a pure
art student.
Didn't spend too much time there though so decided to take a walk through bugis before heading back home. Headed to bugis junction and an innocent "ooh there's innisfree, let me take a peek" ended with "I'm now a member of innisfree" HAHAHA but my current skin condition is really bad plus I really like their brand image, ethics and products so I guess my purchases were justifiable :D (that's just what I tell myself). Browsed through a few overrated shops before ending my walking trip at kinokuniya. I think I'm beginning to appreciate the smaller bugis outlet now that I made a proper visit.
But yeah I think I've been rambling for far too long about details that aren't very necessary.
That concludes the first edition of BELLAdventures!
