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.:.Sometimes fate can't stop meddling.:.
Sometimes i walk in the rain
to wash away all the pain;
Sometimes i walk under the sun-streak sky
to remember the fun we had under the sun;
Sometimes i stroll under the twilight sky
recounting those little nothings you once said
.:.Sometimes love can't stop growing.:.
It's time for me to move on.
Moved. Catch me if you can.
More on MSN. =)
Rene.
Christmas eve this year was spent with the girl in the picture above. HAHA. Qi asked me out for a movie in the morning, together with AH PUI at Cine. I was glad that i didnt have to spend my xmas eve alone at home. Anyhow, we caught The Golden Compass. It's quite a good fantasy story! Ah Pui became our source of entertainment during the show - SHE GOT SCARED VERY EASILY! Along Orchard road, we crossed paths with a number of NYJCian. AH PUI was commenting "why do u girls keep seeing nyjc ppl". HAHA. Ah Pui arh Ah Pui, NYJC is a huge community, and Singapre is so tiny! HAHAHA. Hmm, I wonder why didnt she see her LTA colleagues. That's all for the past week. Received a couple of well-wishes from my FRIENDS and COUSIN. Got Gerald's christmas ppt slide and Jeremy's ecard. Thanks guys, cute animations. HAHA. And for those interested, I'll be Santa's good girl and stay home during christmas.... IN THE NAME OF.... COMPLETING MY PILE OF HORRIBLE HOMEWORK! Sigh, it's very much confirmed that Qi, Sok, Aman, and Fei are leaving college. I'll miss them! Counting down to: 26th Dec - Girl's talkout session at Marina Square with the dance gang....Awww, i will miss them. 28th Dec - OSLE team gathering at Mrs Gan's place! I'M MISSING EVERYTING THAT WE'VE DONE ALREADY! 2nd & 3rd Jan - ODT Black and/or White production (MARKS THE END OF MY DANCE TORTURE SESSION) Anyhow, any of you interested in watching my performance? Student price $30. Reminisence of the days that we left 33 pairs of footprints along the trail we tracked....The same orangey setting that we once saw over the peak....
Dance started yesterday, and HELP, i'm dying in the hands of HIM! Dance intensive will begin this coming Sunday, so people, you will be seeing less of me from then! Sigh. What saddened me the most was that I won't be able to make it for OSLE gathering on the 28th. Seriously, because of dance, I have to give that probably last gathering a miss. Because of dance, I've missed so many OSLE outings. Because of dance, I seldom join OSLE for dinner. Because of dance, I HAVE NO LIFE NOW! Can you imagine dancing for 8 hours per day? RAHHHH. Alright, I'm having dance again. FREAK, i shall be determined to dance well and not succumb to HIS scoldings. RAHHHHSS. Bites!
Nevermind, OSLE Chiangrai photos made my day. Esther asked for my help in buring the photos into DVDs. So, here's a sneak preview of them. I regret telling you guys that we've sorted out the photos such that the DVD only contains 4GB worth of photos. That would me that we've excluded some photos.
That's my GRADE 4 class! Serene, WangFei, Desmond.
Gerald's niang pose! I've been complementing Gerald niang-ness throughout the camp duration!
That's Gerald's OKAY LAI pose. HAHAHA. Okay, that is Jeremy with his string of Grade 1 kids.
So, there's only Gerald's and Jeremy's photo up there. That's because they've asked me for the photos online, so I could easily retrieve them. LOL.
Lets101 Quizzes - online fun quiz Oh why?!? It reflects my personality rather accurately! I wonder who created this sort oif quiz. Must be a freaking genius!
HOME SWEET HOME! 14 days away from home is no joke!
I miss every bit of city life!
BUT...
I'll miss the kids in Chiangrai more! They're my darlings!
24th November marked the beginning of Project Denovo Chiangrai Trip 2007! The start of Denovo's j0urney, however, started early in the year, and the Denovo spirit will continue to burn...And there we were, all out to make a difference in transforming someone else's life...It's that feeling of nostalgia in me that I'm typing this entry on my BLOG.
A handful of us gathered at NYJC at 3.30am on Sunday morning for the shifting of the logistic boxes. We're were all so excited about the trip! Mum and Dad accompanied me to school first, and then we drove down to the airport. Sadly, we weren't heading for T1 or T2, but the BUDGET terminal instead! How nice could it get? Haha. Anyhow, we checked in our bagpacks which weighed gozillion tonnes, and yes, we exceeded the baggage limit. What does this mean, it meant that NYJC would have to fork out another S$1000+!! Mr Kwek came at 5am to send us off. He did something embaressing though. He had initially thought that those ACS international students were from NYJC and started talking to them. HAHHA.
The tagline of the Budget terminal, was therefore, ENJOY THE DIFFERENCE. No joke! It's everywhere!
There we were, arriving in Chiangmai at noon. The van ride up to Chiangrai was somewhat enjoyable. I guess that it's the excitement in us that didn't trigger us to dread the 4 hour van ride up. We were split into 3 different vans. I had some screw loose mates in my van, and we did truckloads of 'out of the world' stuff.
We spent the first night at MAG, and that was the first time we were exposed to the FREEZING COLD night! We thought that the weather was not as cold as what the teachers exaggerated during the briefing, but lo and behold, the temperature plummented drastically after the sun set and in the early hours of the morning. It was that cold! There were 'smoke' when we spoke over breakfast. HAHA. Oh course, being such a crazy bunch, we decided to play with the 'smoke'. We bathed in ice cold water too! Pat on the back everyone, we survived that terrible ordeal!
Homestay began the next day. It was a pleasant surprise for me, as it is for the rest i suppose, that the living conditions were way better than what we have imagined. Bandoi village was made up of concrete houses with complete toilet facilities. Not bad for starters. Guess what, they even have television sets in their house! Not forgetting handphones! Our host family welcomed us warmly and dinner was sumptious! The girls in the family were adorable! My homestay buddies, namely, my dearest Francis girl, bimbotic Hew Wai dearie, and Nisha darling couldn't resist doting on the girls. We even cajoled them to finish their dinner! HAHA.
The teaching experience was indeed an eye opener for many. Language barrier was indeed a major issue. I was disheartened on the very first day and I can't help but realise that the Grade 4s didn't possess the interest in English at all. It was difficult to break the ice between us and them, given that we didnt speak their language, nor did they have a good command of English. What I've learnt is that, however, a smile could do wonders. Things got better as time passed. The kids began to open up and eventually, the ice what held both parties apart started to melt. I shall not go into the lesson details, lest my avid readers fall asleep..jpg)
That's 2 of my students. The girl on the left could actually speak Mandrin. I was tongue tied to find so many Chinese speaking students over at Nam Lut Primary School. I wouldnt have thought much about self-motivation until Mr Mao told me to have faith in myself. That positive attitude that he encouraged my Grade 4 team pulled us though the entire teaching period. Honestly, we dreaded after the first day, given the communication hinderance between the kids and us. At the end of it all, I'm proud to say that I LOVE MY GRADE 4 CLASS. I guess what triggered that negative feeling on the very first day was that I didnt have much faith my self confidence. It was from the lessons that made me realise that I could actually do a pretty good job teaching children! Haha, so, in the end, it was me who did the lessons for 4 days, with Des-mon Dexi driver and WangFei assisting me with logistics and classroom activities. =) 3 cheers for 3 of us!
Teaching days ended with the bat of the eyelid. Time just flew past quickly. I'm glad that the children enjoyed the mass dance that our team had created for them. They seemed to love the YMCA dance alot. Y..M...C...A...yoyo! Lols. Our homestay ended off with a Cultural night on our last night at the village. I'm sure that the kids in Bandoi Village enjoyed themselves. All 3 performance put up by us went rather smoothly, considering the lack of practise. I felt that the indian dance was good. Good job loves: Mr Mao, Ms Hazel, Yiu Leung, Jingyi, Jeremy and Myself! *Quoting from ben* I have a disclaimer, THE WEATHER WAS FREAKING COLD AS WE DANCED and I was freezing! Never mind, in the name of our cultural exchange =)
Very soon, we bid the village farewell the very next morning. Many of us teared at the sight of leaving the children. The kids were torn between hugging us, crying, taking photos, and getting our contact numbers. Mizhu didnt want to let go of me when she finally realised that we were going off for good that very morning. She began to tear =( Sigh, I miss her tuckloads!
Camp went on pretty well, aprt from the fact that logistics weren't as organised as it should be and that there were many last minute changes to the schedule. The toilet facilities at the camp site was somewhat better then at the homestay, given taht there are shower heads there. The drawback, the WATER IS EVEN COLDER, and the MORNINGS ARE FREEZING COLD! I would consider the mass dance session a success as the kids were all enthusiastic about it. Adorable people! However, I didnt enjoy the food as much as i did at Bandoi. Something made my day on the first day of camp =) Grins! Fiona, PM me on msn and i'll fill u in! Lol.
The farewell for camp was rather unique IN THAT SENSE that we had to walk and shake hands with everyone in the circle. It was melancholy sight. Even guys in Denovo teared! Awww.
Lafu homestay came next. The weather was not as cold, thankfully! However, the living conditions were slightly difficult up in the Lafu village. OHOH, we took an hour worth of elephant ride up! That means, we had an hour worth of SCREAMING ROLLER COASTER RIDE UP! We were looking over cliffs and valleys. SCARY, but worth the scenery! The houses at the Lafu village were made of rattens or wadeva you call that. Thsoe conventional kampong houses! There were pigs, piglets, roosters, hen, chickens, puppies, dogs roaming all over the place. HAHA. It was fun though. YL and company witnessed the chickens mate. LOL!
The stars ARE PRETTY!! The stars AGREED to shine. HAHAHHAA! Anyhow, we woke up at 4.30am the next morning to take a steep climb up to the sunrise view point. Exhausting and draining!!! Unfortunately, it was cloudy so the sunrise didnt turn up as beautiful.
Here's a jumping picture that we took at the view point. I love my girls =) Where are you RENA dearie?!?!
R&R was MARVELLOUS!! We had 2 full days of free and easy shopping. The guys in our team really took great care of us! Thanks a million, love ya! Lols. Kenrick sounded and acted as our DADDY, and yichong our MUMMY. HAHHAHAHAHAHHA!! Shopping with the girls were great, although it is rather difficult to shop in a big group. Ms Hazel joined us on the 2nd day =) WEEE!! I bought loads and loads and loads of stuff, so much so that my backpack weighed 16.6kg! HAHAHAHA. Daphne and Jeremy fell ill on the last day. Take care my darlings! I'm glad they felt better today =)
OHOH, one thing that i must say, the guys are SOO SWEET!!! They bought all the girls in my shopping group a necklace =) We got them a cap each in return =) YAYNESS!!
alright, this post is freaking long! YAWNS, gotta go! Toodles!





