meeting place: clementi mrt

bad luck NO. ONE : it rained mercilously even before the kids arrived. the sand castle building activity, 'searching for pebbles' at the playground and the walk to the mashland were cancelled.

:(

bad luck NO. TWO: while doing outdoor cooking under the pavilion, i carelessly knocked into a can of hotdogs. there was still a substantial amount of hotdog juice/water in it. edmund saw that coming and stretched his hand out to catch it. BUT it was too late. voila! i was reeked of hotdog smell. it stank! even alan was wondering what the patch of water was doing on my back. =P

bad luck NO. THREE: my sturdy umbrella went missing. later we discovered one of the childcare teachers mistook it and even left it on the bus. haha. hopefully alan managed to get back for me.

bad luck NO. FOUR: i only had a miserable two bucks in my wallet. luckily i'd two nice souls around me. (: thanks so much! free mac lunch again. heez.

bad luck NO. FIVE: i think im clumsier by the minute. i nearly knocked into a bucket in the middle of mac. yuup the roof was leaking. haha. thanks to edmund, i was safe from another wet accident.

bad luck NO. SIX: i spilled water from my own water bottle onto myself. gosh i was having water-related problems.

bad luck NO. SEVEN: javier bought a bottle of coke from a vending machine at clementi mrt station. it read on the machine: open slowly for maximum satisfaction. of cuz being nice, i pointed out to javier. so he did what i advised. BUT i think the drink got a little TOO excited andit started to overflow. OOPS! i felt bad towards the cleaning aunty. =X see, yet another water-related incident!

okie enough of bad luck incidents. haha.

bottomline is that i miss those little ones so much. issac the apple ofmy eye. ryan the little chatterbox. celeste the extremely quiet one. yanali the hotdog fanatic. junhao the smart alec. rachael the cute littlegirl. owen the mischievious one. felicia the i-miss-you girl. calvin thewater spiller. shir hui the 'where's polly?' girl. and the 4 other kiddoswhose names im struggling to recall. =P

more imptly, thanks to christine, lingling, alan, john, javier, ethan, shawn, edmund, gary and joel for giving me 3 lovely and memorable days.thanks for letting me relive my childhood days. thanks for giving me this opportunity to immerse in sheer childishness and innocence, without getting smirked at. (our skin has grown thicker during that 3 days. heehs =P) .

.

.

.

after lunch, i headed down tog with edmund to the Simei Care Centre for thementally disabled at simei. clementi to simei. =S

edmund and yinyee are among some of the nus students who are pioneering this project under the president's challenge. they are assisting the patients or residents at the home to make cards and sell them on a large scale. i must say they are beautiful. (:

'this project was created to provide opportunities for psychiatric patients working in a safe and secure environment, allowing them to discover theirown potential and creatively, which will improve their quality of life.'

i was left feeling intrigued by a comment made by one of the inhouse patients.

' wo men bu xiang you bing, diu ma? - 'we dun look sick, do we?'

taken aback by her matter-of-fact remark, i just nodded my head in silence.

yup they look perfectly normal to me. it made me feel so small as i was feeling rather afraid before stepping into the room. i was expectingto see people in hallucinations, breaking into loud outbursts, etc. like the ones i saw on television shows. little did i know that some of these people though are on kept in this home, are actually quite fine. they are not violent in nature, just that they are learning to control their temper or that they are suffering from other ailments that cause their outbursts or cause their mental state to be unstable.

yinyee has won my respect and admiration for her enthusiasm in this project. she has been travelling from bukit batok to simei every day!

this supposed be a penguin! hahaa. xD