Missing the Good Ol' School Days

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So far, today has been an exciting day. Recently, I have received quite a number of calls from groups who want to volunteer and so I had to schedule meetings with them to explore further. Since I am going to be out of office, I thought that it might be a good idea to schedule all these meetings on the same day so I don't have to travel in and out of office so many times. So, I went to schedule three meetings today and told my boss that I will not be coming into office today, since I will be running all over the island to meet people.

A Day @ the Campuses
Then, this morning, I realised that all my 3 meetings are going to be in different school campuses. I was to be in NUS in the morning, then in SMU in the afternoon for a volunteer project site visit and finally ending in International School Singapore at Orchard Road. Boy am I dead beat after a whole day's meeting and running around the island. Haven't had lunch, so have settled myself down at Mac's in Orchard now, eating and blogging :)

Thanksgiving
So far, the day has been exciting and fun. Since I was going to meet people in school campuses, I decided to dress myself to "blend in", hahaha aka dressing in jeans and shirt la. And I thank God for blessing my day so far, everything just happened and went smoothly, buses came on time and there was ample time for me to hang around a bit with the different people I met, travel around and yet arriving on time at the various locations without having to stand around dragging time. Meetings went well and I was exceptionally extroverted today, having fun meeting people and talking to them (somehow, I just feel that the healing I have received from my church's New Life Encounter retreat has helped me to let go of my unforgiveness and bitterness, so much so I am experiencing "new life" now; surprising change).
Reliving the Good Old Days
Anyway, it was cool taking bus 151 again to NUS. The good old feeling of sitting amidst people studying and sleeping on bus as the wind blows at your face (seems that things never change from the time I was a student in NUS; majority of bus 151, if not all, seems to still be non-aircon bus). Wow, boy, NUS sure look so different now. As I made my way to the Arts canteen, I realised how different and spacious it looks now. But the ice lemon tea still taste the same! Realised the stall owner is still the same guy but he looks so much older with white hair. As I sipped the ice lemon tea, I just found the taste so familiar and it was almost I was back in the old Arts canteen again. After meeting the student volunteers, I was in the mood of reliving the good old days in NUS and decided to take a little short walk around, before heading to my next destination. Ah, the familiar stairs after stairs (no wonder they call it NUS, the National University of Stairs. No wonder I was so much slimmer last time). Haha, I must be really be in a bad state because I turned breathless easily after a while, climbing all those stairs.

I decided to pay the Social Work department a visit and say "hi" to my lecturers. But then, I soon find myself going round the whole faculty looking for the department, because it moved. But the walk was wonderful and as I climbed the stairs and walk past study benches, the memories of walking along the corridors with friends and sitting around, talking with them while waiting for our next lecture, all came back into my mind. Oh, how I miss my studying days! Eventually, I found the Social Work department at AS3 but then alas, my lecturers were all not around. Sigh... guess I will come back another time. OK, off to SMU. As I waited at the bus-stop, I just can't help but tell myself again how much NUS has changed. The place is so much of a farcry from the NUS during my time and the whole place was bustling with activity; you have people walking in all many directions and the roads were busy with big orangy-blue NUS buses plying it. So different, so different.

These 2 Bags?
Took an hour's bus ride over to SMU, another uniquely different campus. Met my volunteers who were supposed to run a stall to collect second-hand items for our organisation but it seems that when I reached there, the stall was not up yet. Sat around for a while and managed to meet the team leader. He's a nice guy and somewhat was apologetic that the stall wasn't running because all his team members were busy with project meetings etc. He then led me to the students' CCA room to retrieve the stuff and to meet his other team members. I really appreciated their wonderful gesture and effort in this project. But somehow I hope I did not make the students disappointed. I went with them to the students' CCA room and realised that over the past two days, they have collected only two bags of clothes, a pair of shoes and some books. They seemed disappointed with the result and I kind of regretted that I did not encourage them for their effort and if I am not wrong, I remember saying something like "so are these the only these 2 bags?", pointing at the bags and asking if I can bring them back with me. I hope I did not make them feel disappointed because I really do appreciate them for their effort, putting together the whole thing, even though the results were not as ideal as they would have liked it to be.

They are all wonderful people and I guess that's what I really appreciate about my job; the ability to meet nice people who just want to do their part for charity. But then I guess I was caught rather unaware by the 2 bags since I had expected 2 large bags of items and we have arranged for our trucks to come by to collect them. In the end, I had to call to cancel the trucks since it was only 2 small bags and the person doing the collecting would have to rush all the way from the west. But having said that, I still appreciate them and just regretted if I made them feel bad about the results. Did sent a sms after leaving the campus to encourage them on and they have also done a wonderful job initiating an interesting project with a local company to help us fundraise.

Last Stop
The last stop for the day was at the International School Singapore and it was wonderful meeting the nice teacher at the school and discussing how we can engage her students in community service work with our organisation. But I must say it has been a tiring day of meeting people, but yet it had been most interesting, especially seeing how things just fall into place, meetings going well and most of all, marveling at the healing work God has done in my life through the retreat, so much so things are so much more different now; me more confident of speaking to people and relatively more extroverted (or at least functionally so). I should hope this will last...

Prayer for Wisdom
A friend had messaged and he seemed terrible troubled about the recent death of someone who he does not know very well. Somehow, he seemed troubled about the fragility of life and seem to be really troubled by it. May God bless me with the wisdom to know what to say and how to encourage him later. So, meanwhile, will continue to sit here in Mac and wait for him.