Tuesday, January 26, 2010

I can, only if you teach me how.

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Hello long lost friends, long time no see no talk no play.

Really miss you all - big time.

& what's new, disliking schoool as usual. Grahz.

Okay, maybe I just dislike it when I'm back home from school - then all the sian-ness and fatigue start setting in. School's actually fine I guess? Learning something new each day, something interesting at least. Laughing at lecturers and friends. Just saying hi and goodbye to acquaintances - yeah another thing I'm getting sick of. Just hi and goodbye, SIGH. What's the point?

SHOULD I GO FOR ANOTHER YEP? THIS TIME I'LL BE LEADING IF I DO. YES/NO?
-It's kinda scary though, especially when this sem is hectic like crazy!

RARZ.

Okay, this week's gg to be exciting! Threee 21sts! :DD

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Whoa, school life is really hectic. Timetable is like crap, screwing up all my meal times. Mondays and Thurdays are 10am to 4pm, 3 lectures back to back, sometimes being able to squeeze out half an hour between the second and third lecture where most of us will chiong to queue for lunch and then just gobbling down our food after that. Likka typical Singaporean, chiong chiong and chiong. Dislikes!

Talking about typical Singaporean - there was one day I was on my way to westmall this week. It was around 9 plus pm already. I had to change train at Jurong. The train at the middle platform has already arrived, with only like a few people in the cabin. But once my train door opened, people inside just ran out and towards the train at the middle platform. It was so funny I just laughed to myself. I also saw two guys who ran and bumped into each other. It was freaking hilarious lolol! I think they felt quite embarrassed too. It's very nice to people watch (y) Makes you think of how people see you as, too. (y) Sometimes I'll ask "am I like that too?"

Okay back to how sucky school life is - I think this sem's workload is like crasy. So many things to memorise ): First week of school and there was already 2 mini projects to do. Grahz. I'm so glad I'm taking reporting stats which is a bloody slack module.

Went for a chalet on Friday night. It was a very bad choice to have gone, since I already know the guys are soooooo childish and always bullying girls. It was quite hilarious though. The girls were all hiding in the room with the guys outside planning pranks. So we were like guarding the door, trying to defend ourselves. It was quite funny how we retaliated, we messed up the whole room, packed up our stuffs and were all ready to escape out of the chalet. In the end we just opened the door, the guys barged in, some went mad anyhow hug people and some just roared like some beast, the rest just sitting and getting too bored of all the waiting. LOL. So in the end the girls, we just stayed at macs and bitched about the guys. Seriously, this chalet was one of a kind. So without sleeep, I was tired the whole of saturday and I just wasted it sleeping zzz. I dislike it when I waste my time like that! Anw, I was planning on going to windsurf on Saturday afternoon. But, PERIOD. Period's a bitch, it always ruins my plans! GRAHZ. ): Seems like I won't be taking part in this year's ITWC anymore ): ): ):

Well, two weeks into school and so much has already happened.


I think I really need this. People are telling me things I'm not even aware of and it scares me sometimes.




Sometimes I wish I'll feel angry instead of feeling disappointed.

WHUTEVER.
Just whack (:

; TEN FEET UNDER

10 Dec 2009 (Thursday)





Took Cebu Airline and left Singapore for Manila. At Manila airport, we had to check out first and then check in again for the flight to Bacolod City because it wasn't a transit flight. Then we had to eat our lunch at Manila airport. Although it's the capital of Philippines, the airport isn't very tourist friendly. There were very limited food. I remember damn vividly I ate Siewmai with yangchow fried rice (it's not cheap, it's like around $5 I think?). It was yuckyy, at least in most of our opinion. Hahahah, seriously, never going to eat siew mai there ever again (although it's just that food place). Bubble tea was just syrup with a lot of colouring. Okay, because that's the airport (which should be q an atas place), we had q a bad first impression of the food in phillippines. So anw, took Cebu airline again. Reached Bacolod City at night. There, we took about an hour's ride to Bago City.

Okay, here, we had a very very very very very good first impression of the people there and our NGOs (Today's Responsive Youth officials). Our mini bus stopped at a community centre where we had our welcome dinner, prepared by the NGOs. Whoaaaaaaa, it was super grand! The place all nicely decorated and all, airconditioned, table cloth, just like how the inside of a restaurant should look like. Good food, huge fish, nice desert, good egg soup. Wha, atas to the max. Never would I have imagined them to be that hospitable to us. Even the vice mayor came and gave a speech. Is that up or up?

After that sumptuous dinner, we walked to where we would be accomodated for the next 17 days. That place was located in the City Hall. Yes, that's where all the government officials work. Surprisingly they have a really big room, likka army bunks with about 10 double decker BEDS, 2 toilets, 2 showering cubicles, very big kitchen cum dining area, a living room where we hold our meetings every night, quite a few fans and a lot of mosquitoes. Doesn't sound like we're on a YEP trip right? The NGOs were super friendly and hospitable and we can totally see that they do appreciate us a lot even before we have started on the programmes.

11 Dec 2009 (Friday)

Woke up at 7.15AM with breakfast already prepared by the NGOs (I can't emphasize more but they are seriously damn nice to us). Can't remember what's for breakfast but it was quite a heavy one. Definitely something with rice. After breakfast, we began touring the city. We visited the hospital (with not many patients inside) and all the nurses were very young! They created santa claus out of raw materials like bandages, plasters and all the stuffs found in a first aid kit (unfortunately no one took a photo of it, ooops)







Next up, we went to the waste management centre. It's quite awesome how the city makes an effort to be environmental friendly. It's like, they aren't very well-off, why should they even care a hoot about the environment? Respect.









This man, he appeared everywhere! Seriously everywhere. At the Eco centre, the swamps, the schools, the villlages.

Went to visit some resort where we had our lunch (again prepared by the NGOs). Slacked abit.






Our ride


In the mini bus, damn windy! shiokz

Visited a High School next.





Again, we were being warmly welcomed. We were invited to sit on the stage while students performed for us below. Kinda weird isn't it, it's totally opposite of what we usually do. But anyway, the students there really know how to dance! And they damn hip hop one lor! We were supposed to teach another school of students mass dance, but after watching how they performed, we decided to not do the mass dance at all. Because our mass dance was really too elementary. After that we joined them for some games. And after the whole thing, the students just went around asking us for our names and email address machiam like some hollywood star, hilarious. And yeah, they do they facebook accounts hahahahaha.







Next we visited the museum (Hero's house) hahahaha. History and more history.





Went back to city hall. Dropped at the market, walked back to where we stayed and had dinner which was also prepared by the NGOs. (Rice again yes)

After dinner, we went to some huge quadrangle for the Torch Festival! We had front row seats, everything damn grand lah. Torch Festival is likka day where the city lights up their christmas lighting. They had this very huge group of people holding a torch each and dancing and walking towards the quadrangle. It was damn cool lah, likka chingay like that. And there were floats! Their floats damn cute also. It's really a tiny float on a lorrrry. Oh, and there was a blackout during the whole torch lighting thing hahaha. And after the whole thing (which included many many performances and speech made by the mayor and some other ppl) there were fireworks! Omg the fireworks I've seen there was the best fireworks I've ever seeen! They machiam put like freeee like that, damn a lot, filling up the whole sky! And it was damn near to us, like it'll just make us catch fire if it dropped any lower. Whaaaa, one of the best nights!







Ohyeah, we ate balut that night. Although it looks disgusting, it actually tasted quite nice! Like half was half boiled egg and the other half was fully boiled egg. lol.




12 Dec 2009

Woke up early to do some mangrove planting! No peektures because our hands were all dirty and busy planting. It was quite fun hahaha and then we started throwing sand at each other, and turned out being q sandy all over. Toured the whole mangrove area.

Back to city hall for lunch! Ran through the programmes for the upcoming days, rehearsed the skit, dry run the games yadah yadah.

Next up was Crocodile Farm! Okay, very exciting there because the crocodile was seriously HUGE! GIGANTIC! I don't know what they feed it with, it's really big. And when it swings its tail the disgusting water which looks like milo will splat on you hahaha. So we just kept screaming and shouting lolol. Fun!



After which we went to some grassy place to wait for the Chinese Ingret (some white birds which is known to be q rare) to fly from China. Literally, word for word. We just sat and waited. And the birds, they eventually came, and there were helluva lots of them! Flocks of them. Many many. It was q a dangerous spot to be, directly underneath the flying birds. Bird shit was almost unavoidable, and yeah, a few people got bombed. Hahahahah.


(this is just one of the many flocks of birds)


nice sunset!

Back home for dinnnner, then meeting at night!

13 Dec 2009

Went to an orphanage today. The orphanage is managed by an English family (dad, mom and 2 daughters) if I'm not wrong. It's quite cool cos the dad, who is the head of the orphanage is also a pastor. It was a good Sunday morning, so we attended their Mass. It's like AC chapel, the same songs! The mass was conducted in English because yeah, the pastor is English. After that the kids performed for us, had a tea break, then we started on our carnival games, consisting of a few station games. It was, very very very tiring playing with kidz but it's worth it because they really looked like they had lots of fun. Was supposed to the a few skits but we didn't have enough time so the whole thing was scrapped.



Back to City Hall for lunch, then headed to an Elderly home where we sang christmas carols just to entertain them and played some memory games. Okay, the game part was quite a flop because they dont seem to be interested. Old folks are damn cute! Anw, tried interacting with them for a while after the whole thing.




















14 Dec 2009

Went to an elementary school, 2 people from the team to one class. Me and wk taught the grade one students math first and then English after lunch. Well, being grade one, they didn't have enough basic knowledge on English language for them to even understand us. Thankfully they had teachers who were kind enough to do some translation. After some time, we gave up teaching English and taught them origami instead. We ended up folding 30 over cranes and boexes for each and every students. So yeah. Tiring to teach kids, really. After the education part, the whole school gathered to play mass games organized by the NGOs- in the blazing hot sun! We just had to help facilitate. Hahaha, very interesting and violent games such as jump and snatch, find your own slippers game and yadah yadah. Returned back to city hall with a fever and a very bad sore throat. ZZZ.




The rack with many gifts attached will be lowered and the kids gotta jump and pull the packeted gift down. It's a pretty violent game, really.


This is the rack w packaged gifts.


The violent 'find your slippers' game LOL.




15 Dec 2009

Day 2 at the same elementary school. This time, we taught the same class science. Okay, we didn't really teach, we just demonstrated some sci experiments like the one on surface tension and erhmz, pin hole vision. Hahaha, okay again as grade 1, they didn't appreciate the phenomenon too well. After that, started on Santa Claus costume making. After which the whole school gathered for the best santa claus costume contest and my class won! Whoootz :D Gave out some soft toys and old clothes and stationery that have been donated at the end.

















Some weird looking spyder.








The boy in green is damn cute and he rmbs my name! HAHA.





After lunch, we set off to a day care centre. Played basketball with the people over there and they are really good at it! (y) Taught origami and sang christmas carols, yadah yadah.

Back at city hall, my cooking team a few others went to the market to get groceries for the next day's dinner! The NGOs were there with us to help us bargain and blah blah. The wet market is almost as good as the wet market here in Singapore. It's all pretty clean. Went back to have dinner and after that a few of us went for a run around the city hall area! :D Then we discovered a really dark spot where we can view the awesome stars! So we just laid down at the side of the road and star gazed. Caught 2 shooting stars within 30 minutes! :DD Awesomenesssss! After that, we had the police to escort us back to our place because it was really late already. HAHAHA. Yes, we have a police safeguarding where we stay every night. & they're really naice to talk to! (y)

16 Dec 2009

Went to another elementary school today. Played the usual mass games such as the snatch the slippers game, pear eating game, and the longest line. Hahaha. Distributed lunch to the kids at the elementary school - it was just rice with nooodles, all carb and nothing else. Sighz. Then it was our turn for lunch. It's kinda sad that the kids are only eating rice and noodles, whereas for us, we were having rice, noodles, veg and meat. ): Finale after lunch, the snatching game as usual.











Went to the high school where we were supposed to spend the next 4 days painting its library. Recee-ed the place and talked to their students and teachers.






(the library before)



Went back to city hall and it was my turn to cook dinner, together with weifen and boonchin. Hahaha, it was hilarious because all 3 of us don't really know how to cook. But turned out, everything went well and the food tasted awesome :D We cooked Tomyam soup, steamed chicken and some veg! :D

Ran after meeting, yay healthy living (we ought to run because really too much food consumed over the past few days).

17 Dec 2009

Started drawing on the walls of the library at the high school. We were quite efficient, we managed to finish drawing everything in one day and painted a few of the drawings within a day. A few of us also helped in gardening! Hahahha, quite fun but damn hawt.





















18 Dec 2009
Continued with painting! (day 2 of painting)




caught stoning/slacking. Very tiring one hokay.




Masterpiece of the guys -.-

After dinner, we went to some river side place near our place. There was a party going on ( it's a every friday party I think ) So we ate all the BBQ stuffs, cakes, and everything naice even though we already had our dinner before that. We also had a lot of San Miguel Light beer because it's damn cheap! Only one dollar per bottle. Gaspz! There was a lot of photo taking that night and also a few people talking giberish, hahaha.

















19 Dec 2009

Back to the high school for refurbishment. Continued with the painting. The guys, wf and I did carpenting! We made a book shelf out of planks of woood! :DD Damn fun but damn tiring, especially when sawing.








Painting of the shelf!


The only water source (sometimes there'll be no water)






This is what the extra paint was used for hahaha. The people who made the bookshelf!

After a hard day's work, we went to watch 2 very interesting shows after dinner. First was the cock fighting which is a well known event in the philippines. Next was the macho gay show which was quite retarded. Basically they just make a few guys go up the stage, dress them up like girls and make them drunk so that they'll do and say retarded things hahaha.









20 Dec 2009

Final touch up on the murals.





Lunch, ensued by a high speed assembly line production inside one of the office at City hall. Yeah, we did some packaging of goodie bag for the under previleged people at the various barangays (villages). The goodie bag includes a pack or rice, sugar, canned food, detergent, instant noodles and whatnots. Yeah, we were extremely efficient, very fast! (y) Hahahaha. After that, my other cooking team (me mingjie and edward) went to do marketing for the next night's dinner!





Ran at night after dinner again!

21 Dec 2009

Placed the book shelf in the library, arranged all the donated books nicely on the shelfs. Placed a table in the library. Placed a clock in the library. That was about it in the morning.








After that we took the bus to Bacolod City to play with the underprevileged kids (specially hand picked by each school). Met them at Jollibee, the famous fast food in the philippines, then played with them at the playground haha. Went to a nearby shopping mall where there's a bigger play ground, those with ball pool kind. Yeah it was fun! The kidz were really violent though. We had McDonald's after that. Hahaha, a taste of heaven after 11 days! We practically rannnn towards McDonalds like some mad kids because we were only given 10 minutes to buy whatever we wanted.











Went back to City hall and it was my cooking team's turn to cook agin! This time I'm grouped together with 2 pro chefs so the food was awesome! (sambal sotong, sardine, dabaicai and mushroom chicken soup! up ttm!)

22 Dec 2009
Last day at the High School. It was turnover day! The mayor, vice mayor came down. It was quite grand ah, there were speeches made, thanking us. Then a few performances, and then at the end of the turnover ceremony, there was goood food! :D







Mayor giving his speech


Johan giving a speech





















After that, we went to visit a slump area. Conditions there were really quite bad. But it's still not the worst yet. I guess the NGOs didn't want us to go to another area which is really run-down.



it's a damn narrow path with pricky plants at the sides.



















23 Dec 2009

Followed the TRY officials together with both the mayor and vice mayor to distribute the goodie bags and clothes to the underprivileged people in various barangays. I feel like, we're really there just to show face, not much of our help is actually needed. But ohwelz. hahahah.



















Can't really remember much of what we did after that because I didn't take down any notes for this date. Oooopz.

OOH, we made bo bo cha cha that night - so that we can give it to our host family the next day. Hahaha. So we cut the yams and sweet potatoes, made our own coconut milk. The coconut milk making was hilarious. We had really make from scratch, putting coconut flesh into a clean piece of cloth (NEW BHBH T SHIRT) and squeezing out it's juice. Yeah, that's how tedious it is.

24 Dec 2009

Christmas eve! It's also the day when we went for our 3 days 2 nights home stay! :DD At first I was very sad because I was grouped together with 2 other very mean guys (johan and guowei). Although they went to a very atas family's house, but omg, I can't imagine my 3 days with them seriously. But thankfully, I somehow got out it, instead, I joined weifen and yawen for homestay! YAY :D We were allocated to stay in Stella's house (one of the very very very nice TRY official - she cooks damn well! ) Wheee, she let us sleep in her daughters' room. There's 2 queen sized beds, and the room's airconditioned! :D

Okay right after we went t her house, we put down our bags and went on a trip to Bacolod City, that's about 40 minutes ride or so. So anw, we went there to shop for groceries and also on the way, we did our own shopping! :D Cheappppp stuffs. Ate at chowking. hahahaha, funny name.




























Back at stella's house, we were being introduced to what I would think of as her entire extended family. Maybe not entire, but there were sure many of her relatives staying at that same 'village'. Ate abit of dinner and then we were off to City Hall for the Christmas Eve Mass. It was b-o-r-i-n-g. Because the whole mass was in Tagalog, so we didn't understand. We just sit when everyone sits, and stand when everyone else stand. Hahaha. After Mass at abt 1230am, there was fireworks! So yay, that's Christmas already! :D Went back to Stella's house to have Christmas dinner/supper. AWESOME MANGO FLOAT! I LOVE HER MANGO FLOAT OMGZ. We had brownies and pasta and some BBQ food. Whootz!



















On our way to Mass with May, Stella's sister I think?






During Mass


After Mass, met engshaw yihan and eli.









Oh, Stella has a cat called HITLER. Looks just like him. But the cat's a female :D








25 Dec 2009!

Christmas Day! :DD Woke up really late because we had a really late night and Stella, being really nice decided not to wake us up early when she herself woke up at 8am to prepare for the celebration - Christmas and also the Baptism of one of her niece, Bulak.

I think we woke up near noon, had a quick breakfast and went to find Stella at her sister's house (which is just a few houses away). & Then we had our lunch there. Yeah, we were damn full from breakfast already but we still ate anw :DD The rest of the day we just mingled around with Stella's family, using her computer (w internet access!), walking around her house vicinity, playing with chicken, chicks and ducks, and watching the sunset!











The pig which we saw dead the night before.











The baptised Bulak! She's super cute when she frowns! hahaha














Beer after dinner!


Stella's drunk friend who speaks funny English when he's drunk lol!






26 Dec 2009

Hoho, last day at Stella's house ): Really damn sad although we only stayed with her for 3 days. Woke up in the morning, had breakfast, went to her neighbours' place to watch cock fighting, and pluck coconuts! Had our last lunch with Stella and then a lot of photo-taking before we left for City Halll! ): ): ):











Home-made rock melon ice cream! SWEEET!




With Stella and her family :D

Went back to City Hall, met up with rest there. Dined. Went to star gaze at a dark basketball court and talked under the starz! Awesomeness really. Then I took a ride behind a motorbike! ZOMGS (y) Scary like shit. It was the police driving anyway hahaha so he toured me and mingjie around City Hall. (y) Upz! Yeah, there were 3 of us on the bike at the same time. :DD
Then team Christmas supper after that - thanks to the welfare cell :D

27 Dec 2009

We had to depart from Bago City and take a plane to Manila ): That means it was the end of our trip with the TRY officials. I totally didn't expect myself to feel so sad because it wasn't a very long stay and it's not like we became very close friends or whatever. But I felt so sad when we had to say our goodbyes ): We had a farewell lunch prepared by the TRY officials. Omg the lunch was the most awesome lunch ever! We had crab, and a lot of other super nice food. They totally love us, and we of cos love them back! :DD Packed up, cleared the room and we had to leave for real ): Sadness really.

Before we left Bacolod City, we visited two other places for us to buy food and souvenir back home. Totally just zham everything on the food so I can bring back home for my family hahaha. Took a plane to Manila after that.

Manila is very different from Bago City. It's very very developed. It actually looks abit like Malaysia. The buildings were very European-like. We checked into our guest house, where we shared rooms with other people haha. It was q interesting! Went out for dinner, shopped for groceries and went back to the guest house.

28 Dec 2009

Went to visit a few places. The churches, market, watched sunset by Manila Bay and lastly visited the shopping mall! :D Went for spa at night hahhha. Not very good though.

29 Dec 2009

Shopping at Asia's biggest mall (SA mall or smth). Didn't buy much, except for krispy creme donuts hahaha. Things there aren't cheap at all. It's more or less the same as the price here in Singapore. Chionged back to the guest house to take our luggages and chionged to the airport, and there, home sweet home (:


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OKAY IM VERY LAZY TO PUT IN ANYMORE DETAILS AND PEEKTURES. I'LL PROLLY DO SO THE NEXT TIME LAH HUH. PICTURES ALL ON FACEBOOK ANW. :D

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