Xiong Ah! but all Worth it! ((:

Shall start off with self-introduction. (: Margaret here, year one volunteer. (: first session with T.H.E seniors was last year's MAF celebration. Missed quite a number of sessions during the hols cause i was working.

Okay, be mentally prepared, this will be a long post, i described alot. First blog, so i am not too sure of the Cans and Cannots, so sorry if i said anything offensive etc..
.....................
I am in the Chinese/English group today. Went to visit a new elderly, Mr Tan! (i havent even visited all our seniors thou. so i am not sure which Mdm XXX, Mr YYY, or Mdm ZZZ u all are referring to sometimes =P)

Janicia and Li Xian at the NTUC Fairprice, and they explained to me that they are getting some cleaning materials for Mr Tan, our new elderly. blah blah blah... and then.....

Li Xian: Later when you go in, must be careful, the elderly's house is very smelly that Janicia almost vomitted.
Janicia: Hey, dont scare her lah
Li Xian: No, i am just trying to prepare her for the worst

Okie, seriously, i wasnt really sure how bad it is, so i am still fine with the whole thing. Was quite curious to know how bad is the place. then De Rui came. Okie, it's better now. Since there are now 4 person in the chinese/english group. (:

And Janicia and Li Xian had some strategy...
"okay, once we step in, the first thing to do is to open all the windows and immediately after that, open this (Glade Air Freshener -Lemon Fragance), then we shall mop the floor.. wipe the windows... and clean up the toilet."
........
Okayyy when the elderly open the door for us, i feel that his place is better than what i expected. At least he dont have a lot of things in his house, so it makes the clearing up much easier, i thought. But yes, there is an unpleasant smell in the house. Yeapx, the place just need ventilation.
Before we stepped in, he was trying to tell us that there is a group that came on Wednesday, swept the floor, and cleaned up the house.
Once i stepped in, the first thought that came to my mind wasnt how dirty the place was, but... "Whadda.... Apparently, the wed group did nth larhx!!" Okay, not trying to be sarcastic, but seriously, you see you see! O_O did they even try to make the place a better living condition for Mr Tan.. NO! okayy... maybe Mr Tan's house was much worse than the present state, but.. -_-"

So, we opened up the windows and the freshener. So everyone's task..
De Rui: Clean the toilet.
Janicia: Wipe the windows.
Li Xian: Mop the living room
& me: Clean up the kitchen


Thoughts flow into my mind when i was cleaning up....

I saw Mr Tan just sitting on the bed and staring into the space, or maybe he was observing what LiXian was doing. If he is alone at home, windows all closed, door shut, what can he do at home? just sit at one side and stare into space? No one to talk to.. And i didnt see any TV set around. Or maybe there is just that i did not notice. But. my heart just goes out to him.

Okay, i am doing rough work, but this time more aggresive that the other time at Mdm Ong's place. But nope, i dont feel tired, i feel a sense of achievement. We can see the floor turn from grey to white, window from opaque to clear, toilet bowl and floor from brown to white. Dirty to clean! Actually, Mr Tan has pretty tiles. The white tiles should be what it should be like! (:

Everyone is working hard to make this place a better place for Mr Tan! (: okay... although i must admit that we used up alot of water. But like what De Rui said. 要做，就要做得干劲利落，不然就不要做！(it means, if we want to do, we must do a good job, cannot anyhow do. If not, then dont do at all) I agree, so we try our best to scrub all the dirt and lazy stains away!

Hmmm... did we take pictures of the before and after of the house? But i dismissed the thought as soon as it came. i was telling myself "Eh, Margaret, you do this for Mr Tan, not for recognition, dont need to take the before and after to show everyone what we done right. Just clean up the whole house and 你已经是最棒的。 We ourselves know how is the before and after can already, no need to tell the whole world." hahas. what a thought i have while scrubbing the floor.

Li Xian is so brave and tok-gong. While i was trying to help her change the dirty water in the basin, there were many dead bedbugs found in the basin of water. okay, the situation was much worse than i thought. There were a few live bugs when i was clearing the cabinet below the sink too. Another thought.... okay, i know they are sure RANDOM thoughts i have today. "gosh! Mr Tan already so skinny, the bedbugs still like wanna 吸干 him liddat" okay, hope sth can be done to kill off ALL the bedbugs.

Finally we are done with the clean-up. Janicia and Li Xian tried explaining to him the Dos & Do-nots. Sadly, we realised that Mr Tan cant see clearly. He did not realise the stains on the floor was due to his worn-out slippers. But we shall get him a new pair! and change a new set of bedsheet too. (: Although the presence of 'that unpleasant smell' is still there, the situation is much better than before. We shall all hope that the next time we visit his place, we are choked by the LEMON FRAGRANCE. heex! Jk.
t's time to leave Mr Tan's place. He thanked us. He looked into my eyes and sincerely thanked me. >.<>

Best wishes,
Margaret

Again, i apologise for the long long post, and sorry if i left out any crucial information. And sorry for all my random thots i posted up.
Joo Chuan, english/christian name doesnt mean i am from the ang-moh pai lorhx. see! my english is cui! =(

Wah!
We are almost mistaken as loansharks today!

When we were on our way to Mr Ong's (new resident) apartment on the 4th storey, we were first greeted by "O $ P $" and his unit number on the wall. Khoon Hong and I looked at each other with shock; I wonder if Khoon Hong did arrived early in the morning to paint the wall.

The gates of his unit were mildly splashed with paint as well. We tried knocking on his door "knock knock knock".. but no one answered. We started to ponder: Is he avoiding the loanshark? We made Jian Cong stand directly infront of the peephole as he APPEARS TO BE the most innocent among us! But apparently, Mr Ong did not open the door...

So, we proceeded on to Mdm Tan's apartment. As usual, we were greeted by her friendly smile and warm greetings. She was as hospitable as usual (this time serving us with Yeo's Winter Melon packet drink). We chatted with her and she shared with us about her past job, as "sort-of" labour worker. Her hokkien was quite pro and i didn't really catch all the things she has said. But I could understand that her job was rather tough and admired her for her diligence.

After visiting Mdm Tan, we went back to Mr Ong's apartment again. WAh! This time Jasmine Chu Ma..and Mr Ong finally opened the door! (No lar.. actually she called his phone; He couldn't hear our door knocks previously). As we realised that Mr Ong has difficulty moving around, we checked his fridge to see if he has enough food in his home. To our astonishment, we realised that almost all his food items were expired! One of the pear was 50% rotted!

We immediately brought Mr Ong to the nearest NTUC to stock up his food. At the same time, we accompanied Mr Ong to make a new pair of spectacles. As Mr Ong was choosing his specs, Khoon Hong and Jian Cong also frantically seize this opportunity to be "zhi lian" by trying on as many different specs as possible. Jasmine was helping Mr Ong to take photos of himself with different pairs of spectacles as he "bai post and twist". I felt that Mr Ong is quite "in" and has good taste as I personally like the specs design that he has chosen for himself. On the contrary, the specs that Jian Cong has tried on was, in particular, horrendous.

Hah, for all those ppl who have visited Mr Ong today, the show he has wanted to catch so badly is:

Golden Age (Magazine)
Magazine programme which specially tailored for everyone in the golden age.
(retrieved from MediaCorp website)

hmm.. i wonder why he would prefer the show over the companionship from angels(us)... ((:


Eugene Teh

A New Name!!

Dear Volunteers...

For those who don't already know who I am, which I hope not... I'm Jasmine, Chairperson for CSC TOUCH Seniors RVP.

I would like to anounce our new name over here at our blog, for the benefit of those who aren't one of our volunteers and hence isn't in our yahoo group.

We will be called T.H.E seniors from now on. T.H.E stands for Touch the Heart of the Elderly in short.

The dots in between the "T.H.E" were introduced to further emphasize on the meaning behind the name.

So from now on, we'll be called "T.H.E. seniors", when you all write follow this style k... We can still be called "Touch" for convenience sake, since the first word of our name is still Touch (as in Touch the Heart of the Elderly, not TOUCH Community Services).

Hope everyone will grow to like the name!! =)


Jasmine...>",<

Visit on 8th March -- POPIAH MAKING SESSION

Hiz everyone...1stly, let me give a brief intro of myself :)

I am Jin Hui from Business Year2...I join Touch since Year2Sem1 and I really enjoy the time spent with the Touch seniors =) The reason why I join Touch is because I enjoy doing voluntary work and it gives me a sense of satisfaction by helping them. Not only that, sometimes we can even learn something from them too! hehe...For e.g., though they are living by themselves in a 2-room flat, we can see that they are still very cheerful and contented ya?...hmm oh ya, I have visited Touch seniors only for a few occassions as sometimes there are other commitments such as tests, project meetings etc etc. But no matter what I will try to make some time for the seniors ^.^

ok enough about myself. Yesterday's visit was a very interesting one...something which I never tried before...that is -- making POPIAH!!! wahaha...Yes this was my very 1st time making popiah for myself and for the elderly. And it's really fun and meaningful...Many were so hungry that they could actually afford to eat sooo many of them haha...Yeah can see that everyone enjoyed and have lots of fun when making the popiah =D...Also, it's really great to see the elderly so happy about it heex.

All in all, I think it's very important that we should continue to care for the elderly and chat with them as often as we can ya? hehe...ok last but not least, i think we should give a big thank you to those who made the effort to buy the popiah and stuff *clap + cheers*...

~~ChEeRs~~

Jin Hui