First and foremost, a short introduction to myself. I am Low Xi Qian, a year 4 chemical engineering student in NUS. Have been in CSC since my 2nd week of Semester 1 in year 1. So i can boost that all are less experienced than me except for Lixian, Lijie, Cheng hua, Chloe etc. not many thou. hahaha. And i will like to take this opportunity to clear up the yahoo group confusion (if u are in it), i am not a year 1 student, i trying to act young (as claimed by jasmine...). Luckily, Jasmine helped to clear up the misunderstanding or i might be classified as a non-official touch member....
In case some of you dont know who am I, ya, i put a photo of me and one of the touch elderly above. I am on the left of the photo ( in case u all cant tell which is the elderly....)For this blog entry, maybe I just want to touch on my feelings since I started visiting Touch. I was all along from Yishun Students' Care services, another RVP of CSC, then I tried Hospice Care Association, another RVP and now, I am in Touch.
Talking about Touch, I didnt join Touch initially because it is so damn far from my home la!!! The moment i heard it is at Kallang Bahru, i was immediately turned off. Thus, the first visit in Touch was during my third year of NUS, which I went with Kailun, Joo chuan, Yiwen, denise, yuncai, mdm phua, chloe etc etc. where all the old birds are still flapping around. After the first visit, I found Touch quite near to my house, jus a train to Toa Payoh and then a 10 min bus ride! hahaha.
It is until recently that I start to visit touch more often ( after Jasmine took over). Gradually, like all the other volunteers who had stated before, I started to like to come to Touch.... How to say ah? I like to hear what the elderly got to say, I like to hear what they had experienced during their lifetime. I like to hear what they went through during the World War II. I like to hear when they said I am "yan dao" etc... Initially, I visited Mdm Tan ( the elderly who has quite a bad vision) and mdm Lim (my fav elderly till now), but as time goes by, I started to visit Gan Po and Mdm Lim ( canto grp). Although I dont understand Cantonese, but I liked to visit Gan Po, because she in some way resemble my late grandmother alot. And looking at her, it reminds me of my grandmother. And amazingly, after several visits, I knew that Gan pu becomes a widow at quite a young age (ard 36 if i am not wrong) and she singlehandedly raised up her children by selling soft drinks. My grandmother has similar experiences as well... And i really like the way Gan pu sits. She sits with such great pose, her back is damn straight la (unlike Mdm Lim hahaha) and one look at her, one can tell that she went through a lot. I really respect her for this point.
As for Mdm Lim, my favourite elderly, we have so much to talk about. Our favorite topic will always be Mdm Phua Lixian, aka 881, aka Scholar, aka Singer and Dancer etc. We jus enjoyed talking about Lixian and I ALWAYS like to emphasis how lixian bully me etc (which is true...). And furthermore, Hokkien has always been my second language, it comes to me so naturally that i could ratter off any thoughts to mdm lim so fluently. ( btw, Chinese is my first, English my third language...) And mdm lim seems to have so much to talk to us. :)
Some last thoughts about volunteering.. Maybe to the elderly, we are so called "good-hearted, kind, nice" people etc etc.. but I join volunteering cos I like to volunteer. I like the feeling that i have made an impact, i have bring a smile to the people I come in touch with, be it Yishun Kids, HCA patients or Touch elderly. Volunteering is like drug addiction as well, once you have it, you just keep coming back for more... Jus ask those old birds and you will know. Volunteering dont ask for returns, and when you did it, you normally have great surprises in the visits. :)
With regards,
Xi Qian
