- See more at: http://blogtimenow.com/blogging/automatically-redirect-blogger-blog-another-blog-website/#sthash.vFPYnxsz.dpuf T.H.E.seniors(shifted - dont post here): March 2013

Sunday, March 31, 2013

30/03/13  晴天

                   It has been a long time since I last blogged. Today I met a lot of newcomers and all the "lao jiao" were missing in action. The feeling is kinda weird though. As usual we were split into teams and proceeded to the beneficiaries' flats. The first house we visited was Mr Ong hse? I guess so this is the first time I visited his house and I neva realli asked who he is. And btw my group consisted of Yu Lin and Jie Min. We volunteered to clean up the house although it appeared clean to us. If we don't clean up the house there's nothing much we can do except chit-chat with him. And indeed we were having "冷场" for most of the times as we lacked of topics to talk about. To be more precise we were stoning and staring at each other. We later knew from him that he is going for a surgery this coming Wednesday and is having fears that his operation might fail. He already went for an opt earlier and hence he really understand the dangers of the operation. 真是命运弄人, 除了给予精神上的支持,我们只能慰藉他。I guessed he knew we were lacking of topics to converse with him and  hence he asked if we wanted to watch tv show. While watching tv show, I noticed that he was looking troubled probably worried about his operation. Before we left , we wished him all the best for his operation and a speedy recovery.

                  The next one we visited is Mdm Chow Moi. Before we even greeted her she was already laughing off enjoying herself =.=". Ever since the first time I visited her she was always so hilarious maybe tad's y she still so healthy cuz laughter is the best medicine. 也许笑声能冲淡一切忧愁,是健康的最佳良药。And now I initiated to watch tv with her and she realli meant it.We watched the ‘煮炒来咯3’ and perhaps the dishes are so tempting that she was so engrossed when we told her we need to leave.

The whole day was a slack and fruitful one as we got to know of many places in Yishun that have great food to fill our hunger. To remain cheerful is the best key to maintain a healthy lifestyle. To end my post, I would like to sincerely hope that Mr Ong have a successful operation and always remain cheerful. 天天天晴。。。

Regards,
Shawn

Nostalgia

What's up everyone!

For this week's official visit, I covered VM duties for the first time, as well as facilitation. I must say... YI'AN YOU WERE MISSED. VM is never an easy job, I wonder how she does it week in week out. Was slightly stressed out because I'm scared I'll mess up the groupings, being the disorganised person that I am. And I eventually did, when I failed to forsee the fact that some volunteers cannot speak dialect well and I paired them with elderly that cannot speak Mandarin. Luckily with a few twist of fates here and there, the problem was solved. So, this emphasizes the fact that there are many amazing people in T.H.E.S. Yi'an may appear fierce, I always tell her to be 温柔一点, but when you see her, do remember that she's the one doing the hard work pairing you with the elderly you're supposed to visit, and say hi when you run into her in school hahaha.

My group consisting of Criss, Joscelin (小 Jo) and myself first visited Mr Tan. He was hospitalised recently, and was discharged ahead of schedule. He complained of having some specks of blood in his urine, so we told him to drink more water and see the doctor if the situation does not improve. His apartment did not require cleaning, so we sat and watched 砖石夜总会 with him. During the commercial breaks we chatted, and talked about world affairs like the impending war that will be breaking out in Korea, as well as the Fisherman Island conflict between Japan and China. We also asked him whether he has any special talents after watching the magic tricks on tv, and being the humble and wise man he is, he said he didn't. Hahaha I'm sure we are all curious about it and hopefully he'll show us some tricks or skills he have learnt over the years!

Next, we visited Mr Chiu. He is recovering well from his surgery, and now he is now able to go to the hawker centre to get breakfast on his own. Yet at times, he still seemed a little tired and frail. We spent the bulk of the time cleaning his apartment, as well as to clear any expired food items. Our only interaction with his was also to watch television programmes with him. He was looking forward to watching 黄金年华 as always, and when he said that, there was a tinge of excitement in his facial expression. Other than that, he appeared very sian. His condition and surgery really took a lot of energy out of him. We should try our best to cheer him up in coming weeks.

During debrief, boss 940 spoke of having the feeling of nostalgia for this week's visit. She described this like regaining the feeling of being first-time volunteer at T.H.E.S, and how she fell in love with our RVP when she first started visiting the elderly here at Kallang Bahru.

I felt the same way too recently, especially last week during the unofficial visit where I visited Mdm Cheong and Mdm Ho. These two awesome ladies, muahahah, happened to be one of the first two seniors I have visited in my first two visits to T.H.E.S.

My first impressions of them are still vivid in my mind. The senior volunteers sort of described Mdm Cheong until like very scary, but no. Mdm Cheong is the cute commander everyone knows. She goes around helping other elderlies too. And Mdm Ho is ever the cool 大姐大, and she will always be remembered as the one who called me a 'playboy' back when my hair was longer and dyed (fortunately or unfortunately she has forgotten this fact).

If you all are interested, this is my first ever post in this blog: http://touchseniors.blogspot.sg/2011/09/hello-everyone-17th-september-was-my.html (I have not stopped writing blog posts ever since hahaha.)

From then on, I went on to build many memories with the other elderlies, and every visit comes a different experience.

Now as I look back, I really think that the journey thus far is simply amazing. Amazing elderlies, amazing volunteers who are like-minded and share the love of volunteering. And when I first visited, I did not expect myself to join the Committee. I am glad that I did, and I am thankful for the guidance that everyone in and out of the comm have shown me.

Was telling Criss, whom I started out this journey with, that seeing the current batch of volunteers coming back week in week out to visit never fail to give me a sense of relief. He then said that this is always a good thing.

And I know 不管发生什么事, 至少我还有 T.H.E.S 这个家. :)

"要是你迷失方向 想找個地方流浪
家永遠在你的身旁"



阿乐

Sunday, March 24, 2013

The 34th of March

Dear Volunteers, 
as mentioned during yesterday's unofficial visit, my group (Luting, Lena and Wei Jiang) and I saw "34th of March" on Mdm Tan's calendar. SEE BELOW




And the reason why this is so...... is not because of a printing error.
If you look closely enough, the date is actually 24th of March but it was being folded and it overlaps with the underneath page (31st of March); and thus the 34th of March was formed!

As to why this is so, Mdm Tan told us that she will only tear the pages of the calendar off once a week . This is beause she is unable to see well and the red colour of the Sunday's page will be more prominent as compared to the usual one (green colour).

Like Jeremy (not Jocelyn oops) says, every visit is a new experience and this is indeed something that we've learned about Mdm Tan, despite visiting her many times.

Speaking of which, we will be having our Major Outing 2 on 31st May! Do make that day free:) Below is a pic that we took during our recce yesterday:) Cute Pony..



Kok Seng

Sunday, March 17, 2013

Life is like a box of muah chee


16/03/13:
This is a packet of muah chee I bought from the pasar malam on my way home. There was a time when they costed only $1 per packet... Now it costs double. Today's visit kind of made me crave for some muah chee. Not much photos to upload in this post, so I uploaded this hahaha.

My group consisting of Yi'an, Yu Lin, Jennifer and I visited Mdm Tan. When we arrived at her apartment, her granddaughter was around too. She was thoughtful as she bought Mdm Tan some food stuff so that she can eat them when she's hungry. She left shortly after that, then we proceeded with doing basic maintenance of the apartment.

When we were done, we sat around Mdm Tan like kids surrounding their Ah Ma, listening to her stories. In between each topic, she would keep offering us drinks and snacks so that us ginnahs won't feel hungry. My Hokkien after all this while did not improve, I could only pick up some of the things that Mdm Tan was talking about, so I am thankful for my groupmates who helped translate here and there.

On certain topics, Mdm Tan would end up lamenting about her old age and failing eyesight, and we would try to be more tactful as we converse with her. But when we talked about things like listening to music and food, her eyes would light up.

Mdm Tan likes listening to the radio once in a while. In the past, she used to listen to operas in Hokkien. She mentioned some famous singers' names, but we don't know who they are hahaha, our parents would probably know. 

She also narrated the plots of some operas for us. One involving a young emperor who went incognito and met the love of his life. He wanted to marry her and bring her back to the palace to live with him. However, due to complications, the lady passed away along the way back. 

"帘外芭蕉惹骤雨 门环惹铜绿 
而我路过那江南小镇惹了你"

Mdm Tan doesn't have any preferences for the food she likes to eat. She did mention that she really likes muah chee, but cannot eat it too often because it is bad for digestion. Which led me to remember that the last time I visited her was the 冬至汤圆 mission day, she also said something about muah chee that time. When we offered to make her some in future visits, she refused profusely. Not sure what's the reason, maybe she doesn't really wanna trouble us?

When we were about to leave, we suggested taking a group photo with Mdm Tan, but she refused. We respected her decision. 

When we stepped out of her apartment, she was all smiles. Each of us held her hand as we said goodbye to her.

What a morning it had been for Mdm  Tan. Her granddaughter visited, and volunteers kept her company. She was all smiles.

From: 冬至汤圆 Mission Day
When I was young, muah chee costed $1, but it was always my family buying it for me. Now it costs $2, and I am now old enough and have the means to get it on my own. It also means that I now have the ability of giving, to the people around me. Giving, not just in terms of giving muah chee, but also to help people and create smiles.

My current recipe of muah chee is to make the same dough for 汤圆, boil it, and then dip it into ground peanuts. If you have a better recipe please share! 

Who's in for a muah chee mission day? :)

Year 2 的大爷
Jeremy

Life throws up some more surprises - First post by "Year 3 de"

And after the usually luo-suo and naggy year 4 de finishes his post, I'll put mine up! Will also fill in several updates about Uncle Lee's birthday celebration (though my pictures are going to be less awesome than those from Kai Him's awesome DSLR).

Pin Jin, Wen Hui and me went first to Mr Ong's house. He was still quite troubled over the accident claims stuff, and actually had a bit of trouble adapting to daily life because of the anxiety over this. Think he had breathing difficulties and couldn't really sleep well. The 3 of us had to keep telling him that its alright and to persuade him not to think too much about it; we watched 钻石夜总会 with him and tried to laugh it away. I think it still weighs heavily on his mind, but am very glad our presence there did cheer him up a little!

Mr Ong is due for an operation on 3rd April...lets wish him well, and if possible, maybe visit him after his op!

After that, we went to Uncle Lee's birthday celebration. The first thing that we kena-ed was: requests to sing 唱首情歌给谁听, 吻别 and other songs and, for the guys, renewed calls for a 孙媳妇 -- until the year 4 de came along and saved us by bringing a whole load of sushi. Pin Jin also, with his 南北+ apple. We ate alot and also gave Uncle Lee a huge board with our birthday wishes, courtesy of QJT Miss Wee's preparation. I swear Uncle Lee looked so touched he could have cried!


Uncle Lee's epic 66 大寿 birthday cake


Preparing more songs for us to sing

We all left very happy, and for me, I was especially touched when Uncle Lee told me later on: out of the 5 wishes he made, he specially reserved 1 for me, knowing that I got an asthma attack last Monday. Heart felt like being suddenly tenderized by meat softener ><. And I really really couldnt forget that moment.

After visit, we had debrief, and I still couldnt help but feel a little concerned for Mr Ong. Just a shoutout for those who will visit him in subsequent few weeks to soothe his fears about the taxi claims thing yep (or to just make him glad and turn his mind away from it). 

All the best to Year 4 de for your Malay project too! Had fun videoing you and Fang jie.

-Year 3 de (Weilie)



life is full of surprises

Life is full of surprises.

Just when i thought i am going to have a really bad last year in nus, i made a step that changed my year completely. 940 invited me to my first visit on 29 september, and from then on, i knew i had something to savour abt my uni days for the rest of my life.
Just when i thought ruifang was a sweet and demure lady when i first met her, i realised how auntie and loud she can be. HAHAHHA no im joking. rui fang is awesome. and this post is specially for her.
Just when you thought you figured this is kai him typing and you thought you are gonna get a long post, you are wrong cos imma keep it short and sweet today. anw fang po po (ruifang) was very awesome because she helped me with a malay video project that i did today.

I teamed with my gf (first time visitor) and fang popo and went to mdm cheong's we did the usual chores. the highlight line of the day was EPIC to me cos my gf was trying to fill the pail with water and the flow rate was quite low so mdm cheong being mdm cheong said: "开这么小好像小便这样!" omg i was so stunned by that line haha. yea so after that i filmed a short convo with her that will be shared with you guys when its done (2 weeks time).

next we went to mr tan's and i realised that he also knew how to speak malay! haha so we did a second filming. time was short so thats all we did. after that we went to mr lee's place! celebration details i believe will be covered by other bloggers in finer detail haha. photos are up on fb group page so do check out the happy times we shared today.

and of cos, life is full of surprises so no one expected me to be so nice to praise fang popo but shes much too awesome hahah i really owe her a lot. although i call her auntie everytime she still knows im just kidding and helped me so much today in translation and appearing in my video too. of cos also must thank my jiemei li jia :D so apparently the recent trend (much thanks to uncle lee himself) is matchmaking in kallang haha so guys take note!!!!

Life is full of surprises. When you thought this post is going to present some big surprises..... there are none.

-year 4 de kai him (after being called this for a few months im so gonna miss being called that sigh)

Sunday, March 10, 2013

The Saturday Morning!


梁文福- 细水长流




Living in Singapore, such a hectic society, we have a rather routine life - wakes up, work/school, back home and sleep. We have very little time set aside for family, and most of the time we don't even get to eat on the same dining table. This has became a norm.
Volunteering is not all about giving, it is the true reflection of ones society. When we always say that we are helping, why not look in the other manner where it helps us to understand ourselves and our society better?

This is a building where the elderly live on their own in a one room flat. (Blk 61)



The smile that is priceless!




A short excerpt from Kai Him:


"i looked at mr tay. sipping on his kopi, and i sat down with him, trying to read his mind. observing his small little gestures and movements. then i thought of my grandpa again. how i wish i could have a kopi, or a beer with grandpa right now. just like me sitting next to mr tay, each of us enjoying our own beverage. we dont talk much at all, but we are both happy, and blessed to be in the company of one another, and the beverage. 

suddenly, i stood up and gave mr tay a shoulder massage in the middle of the coffee shop. he said it's "song" but im pretty sure it's of not much use cos i didnt dare to apply too much force. i dunno what else to do, but to channel some of my love that i could no longer deliver to my grandpa to mr tay. today i was very generous with my gentle pat/rub on his back, i held his hand in my palm, more tightly then previously while i led mr tay back to his place." 




Every elderly has their own story to tell, each varies, some from a well to do background, some from humble families. But all of them have a common experience of WWII, which makes them. It may be a little morbid to say this: "A war makes everyone unites." The community spirit that was born after the war, where people care about one another in the same kampong, cannot be found in the hearts of the youth in singapore. We have never been through any natural or man-made disaster, and we don't understand the pain of loss, not only your family but your friends etc. As you interact with the elderly there, you will get my point. They are so bonded that they even know people who is living in the next few blocks! 

Now, looking at the individual elderly we have, I have learned many things from them.

Starting with the most popular elderly (female): Mdm Ho

Though she is a going to be soon 90, when we speak to her, you will not feel that there is any age gap or have any awkward moments. I have classified her to be the "modern" ah mah/ ah po. She was the first elderly that I visited when i came, her cheerfulness always fills the whole room up with happiness. Sometimes it feels like she is entertaining us rather than us help her. It is kind of sad to hear that her health has deteriorated since few years ago, the once healthy and active senior became an elderly who can't even stand up long. 


Looking back at the photos, it is kind of sad to see those familiar yet unfamiliar faces. Those who did not follow through. It is a tough job to balance life and school work, everyone understands even the elderly. However, when the elderly realized that particular volunteer is not around they will feel sad. A quote from Mdm Ho: "Everyone ask me to help them to find girlfriend/ boyfriend. At the end, they found it themselves and then forget me this old woman." She said it in a joking manner, but i can sense the sorrows inside. If you are still reading this blog post, do remember to visit them once in a while when you are free. You do not need to do the cleaning, just chat with them and they will be very happy to see you!

CNY 2013 "Handsome boy", Jeraldine and Mdm Ho
My first ever visit.

SMILE!

It is also nice to have lunch with the elderly, we can chat as we eat. This is the way Singaporean communicate. We talk over food! "Foodiomunication"


Sorry guys, I kind of now at a loss for words to describe the experience and T.H.E. Seniors. I feel like copying the handsome boy say: "Yay, so fun!" I will leave the pictures to say the reminding of the story!


Mr Lee, our newest and youngest senior. An active senior volunteer who is good at cooking. Richard recommended me to learn from him how to cook chicken rice. However, i think he prefer 美女 to be his disciples. 

Mr Tan, a knowledgeable man who likes to watch TV as leisure. Though always saying that they did not study much, the stuffs they know is enough to overwhelm us! He is just a wise man that you should look for if you have any issues, and you are interested to know Singapore history, he can be your SS lecturer!

Mr Lin, a simple man and his simple days.

Mdm Chow, the one with best vision, if you know what I mean, and like cam-whoring!.


To our seniors who are going through a battle with illness, stay strong! Wish them to have a speedy recovery so that we can visit them once again!


The last look of GB, I will miss you for 1 month and hope to see all the healthy elderly once a again!


Ticket for Major outing! when will be the next one? So excited....

Woon Yong












Saturday, March 09, 2013

2/3/13 - Clay Day!

Today, our group went to visit Mr Tan and Mr Lee. We went to Mr Tan's house first. When we arrived at his house, Mrs Tan was frying nian gao. We didnt do any cleaning as Mrs Tan said she just did the chore a day before. So we just sat down and enjoyed the niao gao that Mrs Tan said our academic results will be 步步高升 after eating it haha! Mrs Tan told us that she likes rabbit so we decided to do rabbit sculpture using the clay. With the creativity of our volunteers, the rabbit holding a carrot was done! Tadaaaaaaa
Very cute right!! But too bad this is the only photo I took that day! Still got a blue dolphin made by Camy which is not shown here (can see from previous post).

We then moved on to Mr Lee's house. Mr Lee got caught that he was smoking as we could sense the smell of cigarettes outside his house!!! He didnt admit it and told us he was not, but it was too obvious! haha! We then chit-chatted with him and started doing our names with the clay. We also did his name and we took photos with him with those clays. Mr Lee said he will stick them on the wall when he is free hehe. Mr Lee is humorous, cheerful and talkative, he said he is still young so he doesnt need us to do the chore yet and will surely ask us once he needs haha!

It was really great to spend our Saturday morning with the elderly, they are like our friends and make our Saturday morning to be fruitful and enjoyable. :)

p/s: This post is boring without enough photos. I will take more photos next time to make the post more interesting as I think photos can tell anything hahaha!

Monday, March 04, 2013

ang ku kueh


okay let me give u a warning im never gonna post pictures on blogspot again omg super hard and irritating zzz. so pardon me for the messed up formatting in this post cos, i already spent half an hour sorting and it just cannot be done :((( please dont mind the mess!


I had not been to kallang for about a month plus, and i feel so happy and comfortable to be back! saturday was only my second visit in recent history and i had a good time (:

                       

yulin, jennifer, wenhui, pinjin and chunhai were in my group, and we first went to mdm ho's. believe it or not (i find it hard to) this was my first visit to her place other than once during facilitation. i've heard abt her and her fav ah hua haha (who obviously was mentioned again) and also cos kaisheng (yang meh meh) told me he go to her house for food/drinks hahahaha.. but anw she started off giving out hokkien instructions to us and the team started to disperse into cleaning basin, dusting carpets, mopping floor etc. i stood around trying to act busy but couldnt find anything to do cos i couldnt uds hokkien!! but eventually i spoke with her in canto and got to converse a bit (: 

of cos the impt mission of the day: soft clay! ehh.. we didnt know what to do, and i saw that we had red clay and green paper... so i tot ang ku kueh!!! it was not that bad okay after moulding it further it only lacked the pattern on the surface before it looked so real i would be afraid mdm ho will bite into it! haha okay nonsense it was quite bad. yellow clay = siew mai? white clay=charsiewpao? tangyuan? oh gosh all's abt food! 

but in the end chief sculptor wen hui led the way and we made a snow man! it was not easy to play with the clay cos somehow it sticks easily and thus no mistakes allowed :( eventually our 3D snowman turned out ugly :( i wish we had better skills man. maybe we didnt know how to handle clay also. 








and later on we folded some flowers and frogs etc and put it tgt so it looks less lonely. wenhui and chunhai also helped to fix the gate! if you have been to her place you would know it was difficult to open her gate (left door) as the wooden planks were touching the floor. but the two manly guys fixed it all :D while the feminine ones (yulin jennifer and ME) folded paper flowers etc omg. mdm ho noticed too and laughed/scolded me hahhahahah. i felt so useless at a certain point of time cos the art product was ugly, really  but she kinda had to display it in her house. i hope next time we can do something much nicer for our elderly so that they will proudly display it instead of displaying it out of courtesy and actually its not very pleasing to the eye. at least the gate's fixed!!




         


   














we then moved on to mdm cheong's. when we reached her place, the other group consisting of the very noisy year one de jeraldine, multi talented knows 400 languages xueting,  very tall can qiang jing tou and can wipe windows de 绿茶 lijia, and i havent found a nickname for her yet kiahyeen just reached so we all about 8 of us made the place v noisy haha. did some cleaning here and there and i washed some stains off the toilet floor for her. i was arrowed by year one de =.= to mop the floor but i enjoyed it too!! haha. the rest of them snacked and drank some cny goodies and listened to stories and looked at photos (: time was running short so we didnt make the clay thingy though.

i feel happy to be at mdm cheong's place again becos she is very energetic and happy to see us and i am too! when she sees me she will exclaim: 香港仔!! in canto haha. she recognises me as the one from hk. and since jeraldine and xueting (what language does she not know??) also speaks canto she conversed for a while in canto. i feel very bad when such situation occurs cos i know the rest does not uds or only uds a bit, just like how i dun uds hokkien and feel lost. sometimes i try to reply in mandarin so that everyone can get into the picture, but i noticed that mdm cheong likes to speak in canto! the first time i visited when she found out i was cantonese she scolded me for not speaking canto to her until so late. haha so i guess she's kinda happy or proud or comfortable with her roots in that sense and i hope i get more chances to speak to her in the upcoming weeks :D

my feedback for the clay session is perhaps for this kinda activity  we should start with 2D and not 3D which is much more difficult imo haha.









overall i really enjoyed myself in the company of elderly and friends on saturday morning.


oh and one more thing, when i was talking to mdm ho, she asked if im year 3, okay the answer of cos you will know im not cos im year 4 hahahha and she would ask me if i had a gf. similar to how uncle lee likes to spy and ask on the volunteers if they are seeing anyone. i think its very heartwarming to actually be on the receiving end of such questions, it kinda made me feel like they do care a lot about how we are doing and thinking for our happiness etc. and there had been a handful of "requests" by our volunteers for me to bring my plus one one day for a visit. although it might be out of cheekiness and kpo hahahhaha but i'm happy to feel the concern from you guys too (: i'll let you all know again when it happens! 

and since we are on the topic, i would like to say that for young singles out there hahahaha there are quite a number of good catches (in my opinion) in t.h.e.s. and sometimes there might be some shit stirring going ard and stuff but dont be disturbed by that and keep your eyes open O_O haha he or she might just be around cleaning toilets wiping windows with you on beautiful saturday mornings. 

and to my dear dunman high junior miss teo who exclaimed that if its me blogging she'd need to scroll a lot, i hope i granted your wish. cheers pals! 
- year four de kai him aka 7000.

year 1 so much youth huh



















come here eat only right!!






















new QJT in the making???