Today is a MUST BLOG day because it's been an eventful day.
This morning when i alighted the car, I saw Rachel Lim across the road, walking into the school. Was pretty eager to say hi to her, (since i mistook someone else for her last fri), so I walked rather fast when crossing the road. Of course, I crossed only after the traffic guard told me to cross. Unfortunately, a car that was speeding did not stop before the pedestrain crossing! Feeling a little sleepy after the car ride, I was actually crossing the road sub-consciously. Halfway through, I don't know what stopped me. I just halted all of a sudden and the car zoomed right before my eyes. What a close shave! Imagine the consequences if I had not stopped in time. When I turned back, both Layting and Szemin were in shock. lol!
The best joke of the day was during Geography lesson. As we all know, Eening is a shooter. In some point of the lesson, Mr Lim called upon Eening to answer a question. Then he called Eening the markswoman. For a moment, Joanne (who was sitting next to Eening) and Eening were shocked. Puzzled, Mr Lim questioned about their shock. At first, they didnt explain, but Mr Lim just said randomly, "Haha! Don't tell me Eening's boyfriend is called Mark!" And indeed, he was right! HAHAHA! Only till he said that then I realised the coincidence. It was super hilarious! haha!
After school was CIP at AWWA, an organization for autistic children. It was really challenging because it's very hard to communicate with autistic children. Frankly speaking, I was quite scared at the beginning, cos I was afraid that I wouldn't know how to deal with autistic kids. In fact, I'm alrdy shy when I face normal kids in reality.
In our first activity, whereby the kids were supposed to mix and match the different body parts and clothes that were cut out by some of us, I was attached to this little boy. He couldn't speak. So I took some choices of the same part for him to choose. Even choosing was challenging, cos you gotta lift it up for him to choose; he won't choose if you just lay the pieces on the table. Worse still, he didnt even pay attention to me. When I talked to him, he kept looking away. I felt was at lost and didn't know what I could do. Luckily a lady (a volunteer i suppose) was there to help me. After some time, he got attracted to the scotch tape on the table and kept playing with it. He became more and more restless too. He began to scream and each time, the scream got louder. Seriously, I was quite scared cos I didn't know what I could do to control him. Worse still, he can't speak, so I wouldn't know if he's feeling uncomfortable or what. Eventually, it got so bad that he screamed non-stop. Fortunately a guy came forward and spoke to him, then he finally kept quiet. Yingci was like, "whoa! he's really good man!" haha!
Next was my group's item. We came to realise that our lines may be too cheem for them to understand, so we quickly simplified the lauguage of our script. Our skit was quite successful (and I also succeeded in making a retarded ending), but we weren't exactly good at capturing their attentions. Well, as you know, it's hard to get the attention of autistic kids.
So we moved on to our song item. We gave out small percussion instruments for the kids to play along and they were really high about it! HAHA! Rosalind played 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star' on the piano as the rest of us led and shook the insturments. Only then we managed to capture more of their attention. The next song was 'London Bridge Is Falling Down'. Rosalind and I created a bridge and let the kids run through. I was glad to see that the kids enjoyed themselves more in this activity.
Lastly was the Art and Craft activity. They kids were given potato, carrot and sponges of different shapes and sizes. They were to dip those into paint and press them on their paper. This little boy whom I helped was REALLY HIONG! HAHA! Initially he was still following our instructions. Then he began mixing the paint colours. At last, he got so hiong that he dipped his hands into the paint and did hand prints! HAHA! What impressed me a lot wasnt his creativity nor artistic talent. It was the love and patience his mother had for him. His mother was actually standing beside him. When he first dipped his hands into the paint, I quickly stopped him cos I was afraid that he may dirty himself or he may touch other places unknowingly. But his mother told me not to stop him cos she wanna see what he could do. When he got really dirty and messy, not only didn't his mother scold him, she even continued encouraging him and stayed with him. I was quite touched. From there, I've seen the nobleness of parental love. Given a disabled child, she has not given up in him at all. Instead, she was still full of patience and determination in guiding him through, cos of the love she had for him. I guess what we, the volunteers, need is to give these people more love. It is through love that we get the patience and care.
Though I'd say I've not done well in this CIP, I hope I can do a better job the next time. (Oh, the next time would be the actual thing!) Besides learning from today's experience, I also got to know my groupmates better! For instance, I didn't know Peisan is such a crazy person! HAHA! Rosalind's as resourceful as Lixian! Of course there's also Zhenping, Lydia and Xiaoao! I really had a good time preparing for this CIP with you guys! You guys are really nice and humorous and CRAZY! HAHA! Hope we'll get CRAZIER in our Calcutta trip! (:
