Back from Cambodia, back from chalet (prematurely). I figured I'd have no mood to stay at chalet all the way.

I guess I'll start with cambodia, I had so much to post about on sunday, but it's tuesday now so I have less. Anyway, no doubt it was a fulfilling experience, apart from all the good and cheap food.

The rice and soup programme on the second day was a chance for us to interact with kids at a childcare centre, most of these kids were from broken families and stuff so they didn't exactly have the parental love that most kids had. The start was a little awkward, everyone was looking around wondering what to do. The girls started playing games, so the guys went out and started getting chased around by the kids. Before we knew it, we were carrying kids on our backs and running all over the place. It's amazing how quickly the kids warmed up to us, they actually jump on whenever they get the chance. It was a really..warm feeling interacting with these kids, I mean, how often does a 16 year old get an experience like this, even in Singapore? When it was time to leave..of course, everyone was sad. Despite only interacting with them for a short period of time, we had been attached to the kids in one way or another. We wished that we could do more.

Road building went much better than expected. We pretty much had to lay the foundation of the road by pouring soil which came from fields that are usually quite a distance from the road itself, so we brought the soil to the road in buckets, manual labour haha. As the day went on, you could see that everyone was pretty much dying. But there were random occurences that always hieghtened our spirits, like the random mud crab or small village kids coming to help or rather to play. We managed to finish the foundation on the last day and it was really really fulfilling. I still remember how we were told that it would be an achievement to complete 50m of the road.

Last but not least, there were the english lessons. I don't think I've taught in front of a class of like 40 before, so I was quite nervous. The good thing was that I got to teach with choo, so it was much much easier. The lessons that programmes had planned were used up in the first 2 days, so we found ourselves planning the lessons every morning or after lunch an hour before the lessons. On the last day, the two lessons that we taught went well, the last one was by cao yun and noon so I was facilitating, and I was hoping that it would end off with a bang. I was facilitating this table of students with sherwin, and I was talking to this one student when another one asked a question, I thought sherwin would answer so I didn't but then he started talking to the student I was talking to. And then that student that asked the question went all quiet, and I knew he wasn't like that from the past few days, so I felt super guilty for ignoring him and I went to talk to him, and that was when he started opening up and everything I guess. He told me that we wasn't angry at us, rather he was sad because he had been scolded by his mother earlier in the day. One way or another, I got to know more about the..social situation in cambodia, in a way. He was saying that he wanted to come to Singapore but he couldn't, so I said that he could always study hard and aim for a scholarship. But he told me that he isn't one of the top students, and the top students, who are usually both rich and smart, will never ever talk to the poorer or less intelligent ones like himself so he couldn't ask them for help. I don't know but, I guess I felt really sad, seeing how I always had my friends to turn to for help when I needed it. But I really admire them for their diligence, one student I had goes to public school from 7-12, goes home for a break from 12-1, and then goes to private school from 1-7. Their public school is free and their private school costs $5 I think, so..you can imagine the look on his face when I told him that I'm from a public school and how much my school fees were. 5 days seemed torturous at the start, but it passed so quickly and once again we were left wishing that we could do more.

Not forgetting, the other 19 who were there with me. If I had gone with some other people, no doubt the whole thing would have been totally different, but I really enjoyed the trip with you guys. We were given 2 weeks as compared to the usual 6 months to plan the trip, and we pulled it off =) I'll definitely miss the people, lying on the field and staring at the stars, the super good food, gathering round the campfire and singing our campfire songs, and the carefree feeling I got when I was there, like I've been cut off from my life here.

O level results, less than desirable. After much thinking, I figured that I probably only have myself to blame. I've known all along that my chinese wasn't that good to begin with, yet I only did the minimum to get by. I do regret, even though it's pointless. And I guess I'll take h1 chinese this year, at least I know choo and peng are taking too, and like what choo said, it's so that I won't be totally cut off from chinese, so maybe it isn't such a bad thing after all.

darren
Between who you are and who you could be
Between how it is and how it should be