What a Bum!

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I have a confession to make: I feel so much like a bum today!

Firstly, I made my way late to work today, very late. I have a group of close to 400 volunteers visiting one of my centres today and I was asked to go down to lend a helping hand. They were expected to arrive about 11.30am but most importantly, the group which I am supposed to supervise, was to arrive only at about 1pm. So my initial plan was to report to work as usual, then leave for the centre with another two colleagues from another department, who were going there to take some photos. But yesterday night, I received a call from the centre's coordinator telling me that the group of volunteers which I will be supervising, will be arriving at 11.30am instead.

To make things worst, I am not sure why road works were even allowed after 11pm and the pounding of the road went on on till maybe about 1am? With the din going on, it was just not possible to sleep! Needless to say, I have problem waking up the next morning (in fact, I have problem waking up EVERY morning). So, when I woke up and looked at my watch, I seriously felt so tempted to just go back into slumber. So, I decided to leave direct from my house to the centre slightly later, at about 9.30am (since I foresee ending late at the centre), to take a 1.5 hours bus ride to the centre (excuse, excuse). But again, I overslept and had no choice but to rush down in a taxi and reached there at 11am.

Well, I was still early but my two colleagues from the other department saw me and somehow, I told them I came from home... oh no! That becomes very clear that I started work late since they did not see me in office. I felt so so guilty about it... why have I become like this? Maybe, it is coupled with my recent lethargy but again that might be an excuse... anyway, I felt so horrible the whole day and just can't believe why did I ever do a thing like that? I felt so much like a cheat!

And then, I also felt so USELESS today. I was told to go to the centre to help out and even though I kept asking what my specific role was, I was just told to supervise the volunteers. Deep inside me I am thinking, how am I to supervise when I am not even from that centre; how do I know what is to be cleaned, where do I find the cleaning equipments, where do I find the decorations, who is the staff in-charge etc? True enough, I ended up floating here and there having nothing much to do because the volunteers were doing such a good job coordinating themselves. In fact, there were several times my legs hurt from all the the walking but I can find no good place to rest... I couldn't rest in front of my volunteers because already I am not doing much and now I am resting in front of them. I couldn't rest in front of the centre staff for the same reasons too... so I rested a bit in where else but the washroom... Occasionally, I continue to walked about aimlessly, feeling useless and have nothing to do. Time wasn't helping me either and was ticking by so slowly.

Then, since I wasn't in a good form today, I also had difficulty interacting with the volunteers. At one point in time, the coordinator from the centre came up to me and asked me to "PR" with the volunteers. Me?! PR?! An introvert?! No choice la, duty calls, at least there is something for me to do now. But no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't do it... I have been feeling restless in recent weeks, felt horrible about my late-coming and now, have to be functionally extroverted... you can't imagine how much of a failure I felt I was when I could not interact with the volunteers and kept kicking myself when I realised I did not even smile or appreciate them. Sighhhhhh

What a bum!

My headache aches so much now...

Ooo, but I want to thank God for blessing the project and for blessing us with good weather and that no one got hurt during the outing to the zoo. It was starting to rain just minutes before the volunteers arrive and I started to request for prayer from my colleague in my office and thank God, the rain eventually stopped. So glad that the beneficiaries had fun at the zoo.