June 28's session report

JunWei: "The blog is very sentimental leh! I feel like crying everytime I read it!"

What?! No more setting the writing mood by listening to Clifton's "Lost in a cave".

Three of us arrived late on July 28's session with good reasons, except me. The punctual ones played Uno with the young kids in a small library with books ranging from "Principle of internal medicine" to soccer books. The older boys had a lecture about sex education at that time. Seven members came. Two new angels (Kash and Hsu Qi) came but you are not going to see a part II of "The arrival of a pleasant surprise.." due to Daisy commenting it was lame. Once bitten, twice shy.

Next week onwards, tuition and games will be implemented on alternating weeks. Tuition will be given this coming week. The purpose of this plan is to create a balance between play and studies in our sessions. Spreading this balance between play and studies outside their session times is also a desired outcome.

Two camps for the boys are going to be held this year. Here's straight from the horse's mouth:
"Hi,

There will be two camps that will require our help. The first one will be held in 24 October 07 to 26 October 07 while the other will be held from 10 Dec 07 to 12 Dec 07. For the first camp, since it is near to our exam date, I have already told the MCYS staff that we will only be able to help them come out with games for them to execute on those three days.

However, for the second camp, I'm thinking, other than coming out with the games, maybe we can also go down for one to two days and join in the fun. Camp is supposed to be fun and thus I think we will enjoy during this camp. Right now I need some games ideas for the first camp. If you have any ideas, you can post it onto the tag box on our Blogspot http://www.ntuwscd.blogspot.com/ or you can just email me. More brain storming will be done during the next session. Thanks alot! "
Do help if you can.

After the session was closed, a spontaneous suggestion was made and we drove out for supper at BoonLay market with JianWen treating us. Thank you Jianwen. A tentative movie outing has been planned after next thursday's session to watch Ocean's 13. We wont be expecting JianWen to treat us again. Adieu.

The arrival of a pleasant surprise and a jolly good time

Friend - "Hey dude, its a shame we will not be able to show any movie because they said they don't have the stupid projector for playing dvds lor."
Someone - "Oh god!".

I made that up. But it summed up our concerns of being unable to fulfill the boys' movie request. Last week, Answar, one of the boys, keenly suggested that we screen a good movie and we tried our very best to meet his wish. Circumstances destroyed the boy's wish. The staff said they had no projector for playing DVD movies. We only hoped for their understanding when we told the boys about it. We did not want to look like all talk and no action. However their reaction to this news was only a casual reply from Answar, "Lobaanng ah".

So we ended up playing a fun card game thought of by Chin Han, our unofficial Game Master. But before we go into that, lets address the arrival of the pleasant surprise that crashed in singapore from heaven(well its actually Netherlands). She was the first to arrive at the Boys' Home and was like a fresh warm wind blown from the summer heat in Europe, carrying all the sweet moistures across the vast continents and showering thunderously on us there and then. We were delightfully wet with bliss. They say good things come in small packages, but good things also come in the form of Daisy. To thank her for coming, we shall aptly name the blog cat "Daisy" until another angel crashes from heaven. Please feed and play with Daisy while you can. Thanks alot.

Back to seriousness, five people came today for the session. We do hope more would come. We didnt see any volunteers from the other blocks today. Does this indicate our level of dedication and enthusiasm for the boys? Maybe... *shrugs innocently with a tilted head*. Jianwen told us that since the number of volunteers are growing lesser with time, volunteers from different blocks might be merged in the future. Blk D and E, for us. This is due to the new hall point system. In the past, alot of points were given to WSC volunteers but today, not as much.

Now back to the game. The card game we played worked like this. Every player received equal number of cards and the players would decide on a theme for the game. Two groups were formed. The capable Chin Han managed one group while the four of us were in the other. The theme our group picked was animal sounds. So, each of us had to think of an animal sound and let others know what we chose. Wayne picked donkey sound - "Yee-Haw", JianWen picked chick - "chip chip", Daisy picked pig - "Oink", I picked cow - "moo", Markus picked woman(not sure)- "ren?", the boy beside me - "meow", WenXiong - "Aahh"(dunno what animal), another boy - "Pok pok pokeh" and the boy with smouldering Italian facial features - "woof". Each player had to put down a card turn by turn and when two persons had the same card number, whoever said the other person's animal sound first won the duel and the loser would have to take the winner's cards. The rest of the cards remained on the table. The game resumed from the winner afterwards. Therefore, to win, one had to clear his cards.

There were plenty of hilarious moments as this game required lightning-fast thinking reflexes and a good memory. People would say the wrong animal sound or utter incoherent noise probably because their mouth moved before their brain could send the proper signals. Haha. The loser, Markus, had to do a forfeit by dancing to music, "Last Ketchup", from a handphone speaker. He was shy and after pulling Wayne, who graciously accepted, into the hot seat, they did a short couple dance together. For a moment, I thought Wayne must have taken dancing lessons before. Hmmmm.

Today's session went well largely due to Chin Han's splendid game and the boys' openness to our game ideas. Adios.

Countdown to the blockbuster movie screening

Some of the movies that we will be bringing for them to decide are The last Samurai and Happy Feet. Dunno whether the rest will be bringing too. JianWen might be bringing gay porn haha.

Family Day, Jun 16 2007 slideshow

Volunteers acting cute!

Hello dear reader! This is the virgin post! Interested to know what a Family Day event for Boys Home is like? Interested to know what we did? Move your eyes to the next paragraph. Sentimental slideshow has been removed due to legal reasons. If you want to know what they are, ask us. Us - senior vol. If you want to view it, leave message at chatbox.

On that particular saturday, six of us went to assist in the event. JunWei, JianWen, Wayne, Chin Han, Hsu Qi and me. The Family Day is an annual event with the objective of promoting family ties between the boys and parents. We expected it to be for all the blocks but discovered later it was only for our block. Block D. Last year, the WSC members had organised the event single-handedly however, this year, an events company was hired to organise. This year's event was also much smaller in scale compared to last year's while more money was spent to hire the events company. Next year, we know who the Boys' Home will ask to organise. Just kidding!

Hoping to cultivate better bonds, the host facilitated games where parents and their children formed teams. We helped to form teams with boys whose parents were unable to make it for the event. Although I would not say it was a total blast of fun from start till end, it was moderately fun. We took some pictures discreetly to kill abit of time. There were also performances. Some of the boys performed a Tamil dance and 2 Malay songs. The energetic Tamil dance had creative choreography. The three dudes kept surprising with their every next move. I was hooked, at least. But, two of the three didnt appear to have the confidence to strut their intricate dance sequences on stage. Anyway, it was entertaining still. In one of the Malay songs, Haizal played rhythm and arpeggios to a ballad which had two english and two malay song parts combined together. One of them was "Every breath you take" by Sting. The singer sang well with good vibrato and the guitar sound played by Haizal came out bright and pleasing to the ears. But the second guitar played by their friend sounded off-tune to the music. It sounded muddy and ugly. Later I asked him about it and he told me one of the guitar strings had broken at the very last minute and there was no time to restring. But anyway, it was again entertaining still. We also got some game ideas from the event. JianWen took home the paper sheets used in the games for future use.

It was a different experience interacting with the boys away from the claustrophobic and intimidating "prison walls". Bye.