Hello all, just something that I'm blogging about on my own blog. Which I thought I could share with the rest of the cheerios. Something to ponder on..

Have been thinking and reflecting on the stuffs that I've been doing the past holiday, especially the session did I did with yuhua primary school on "Right Attitude" and "Self-leadership".

Suddenly, it occurs to me, that who am I to teach children "Right Attitude" when I don't possess much of these traits. Especially, when I'm having such an all time low in life now. I feel that the whole world owes me a living. There and then I was in the school preaching, to become a better person starts from having the right attitude. See the irony! =/ I don't believe that I'm doing something of such contradiction.

Then, there was this methodology that I taught, “Life is 10 percent what happens to me and 90 percent how I react to it”. Which is an obvious logic that very few people may realised. Frankly, when I 1st saw this phase. I don't know what it means at all. Then I was told and this is how I understand it now, 10% of what my life is now is how it is and not something we can change or do something about it. At the same time, we have a freedom to control the other 90%, but it is how were to react to it that would make life better. Which is very true.

Then, there was this other example,

"If you think you are beaten, you are
If you think you dare not, you don’t
If you’d like to win but think, you can’t,It’s almost certain you won’t
Life’s battles don’t always go to the stronger or faster man,
But sooner or later, the man who wins
Is the man who thinks he can."

That made me realised, understand and stand firm principles and morals of how I am as a person, (as, my believes initially were kinda shaken and I'm in doubts) and after this reflection I will continuing improving as a individual.

These are simple teachings to our younger generation, and apparently it has been forgotten. It's a form of renewal and confirmation for me, and an answer to my doubts with myself. If I'm clear and understand what I'm doing, I'll do it. If I think I can, I will.

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Nostalgic.

Base at thomson: It's a feeling of nostalgia when I stepped into our base (at Thomson) yesterday. The crossing of the road, opening the door which always locks us out, and walking up the steps. I can safely say it was a haven for me, a place where I seek shelter in times of trouble and unhappiness. Of course, I had my happier times there too.

Nostalgia:
1: a wistful desire to return in thought or in fact to a former time in one's life, to one's home or homeland, or to one's family and friends; a sentimental yearning for the happiness of a former place or time

In case you didn't know, I was with CCI back when our base was still at Outram Park. That was when our base weren't cosy at all, and the walk to the toilet was pretty scary at night. Now the feeling of base moving to Clementi, somewhere else, brings back thoughts and memories of Upp Thomson Road base. No doubt I'm happy that moving our base to somewhere else is a stepping stone of expansion of CCI, I must say, I feel sad that we won't be sleeping on the floors of base @ Upp thomson anymore.

The first time I stayed over at base, I was with 5 other men. Hahahah. But we didn't do anything. It was with Raven, Wei Jie, Justin, Stanley and Biao Yong back in CFA 1. That was rather a long time back. October 16 2005 if I did not remember wrongly.

I spent mornings there, just before programmes to collect stuffs for our school projects. I spent afternoons crying in base because there isn't any sales coming in. I spent nights there, just before our camps so that the next morning we wake up, we'll cab down to the place together with all the equipments.

I remember one particular event where there was 3 full day of programs and we were rushing with the handbooks. Khai, Justin, Evelyn, Angie and I think Hong Ting was there, stapling the booklets together while I was busy typing on my laptop because I had 4 marketing journals to hand in the following day. I fell asleep on the sofa couch, and when I woke up in the morning to get ready to go to the program, I realized all of them slept on the floor while I fell asleep with my laptop on the sofa.

And then there was the other time before TFC IV where Philander, Khai and I were in base. Philander was so fed up and worked up that was my first time seeing him upset. Tearing pieces of paper and throwing them away, and swearing us to secrecy. Hahahaha. These are internal secrets.

CCI has brought many fond memories and has been a large part of my life. It's here where we meet extremely enthusiastic people, it's here where we meet all kinds of people from different walks of life. Base has been a second home for many of us, especially the full-time staffs. And the walks to Prata house, or Thomson plaza would be sorely missed when we move to Clementi.

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Ops MAYhem...sweet battle

With people working through the night and until the sun rises, we Cheerios are doing the right thing. Ops MAYhem is the most awesome battle we've fought so far in CCI. A few stunning things we've done and happened during the battle. Let's review...

- an incident report submitted to a school for a girl who banged her head on a tree brunch
- a morning with 7 cheerios seated in a school canteen, only to find out that the program has been cancelled due to thunderstorm
- chaotic morning during the P6 camp at CRC
- cheerios complaining about the professionalism of EFIs and yet getting so much money
- teacher singing praises about Clemence's facilitation
- the lady who was crushed by a tree at Bukit Batok Nature Park affected 2 of our programs
- aaron koh vomitted at woodlands stadium during Junhe's physical training.. hahaha
- base flooded with people and stuffed with humans' perspiration during most of the final prep session
- overnight cycling had to be postponed due to the tension of the war
- a team of cheerios doing monkey biz with 60 students at st john's island
- Lynnette left a toy dinosaur in our safety vehicle after the bukit batok P3 camp
- a school principal talked to Philander and Chenglong for a long time after a program
- students got themselves leg cramp after a 10km cci amazing race challenge
- 2 student leaders scolding each other with vulgarities in front of Timothy
- Cheerios sleeping inside Esplanade concert hall while students watched JuzB's performance
- teachers anxious to bring program's timing half an hour earlier, compromising some of our plans
- Yanlong's stress moment when he bang himself on the window after a phone call
- Benwei's lame jokes is stil as lame as ever
- a team of cheerios sitting at The Prata House eating and chatting away
- Jason organised the CFA XI outing to a restaurant and KTV session until late midnight
- a couple of friend's called me to say that they saw people in yellow running around orchard road and esplanade, wondering is it our cheerios
- a cheerio brought his team to the wrong end point, 2 mrt stops away apart from the correct one
- CCI mobilised more than 70 Cheerios and non-Cheerios on 29 May 2007
- a team of Cheerios sitting in front of Tan Kah Kee's statue calling 45 teams, checking attendence, for more than 1hour
- a campfire without real fire had probably left some memories for ourselves with Chenglong fronting it as campfire host
- a boy suffered from high fever of 40.5 degree after a fast march out from Jelutong tower
- teacher commented that this is probably the toughest program his students will encounter in their entire NCC days


All things will come to an end. Ops MAYhem must have left images like students, yellow, cheering, command and control, walking and running etc in your mind. Whether these images are good or bad, they are everyone's effort to make Ops MAYhem a success. I'm sure there's much more stories that is not mentioned above. I can't possibly list everything as these are my images. You may want to share your stories by posting it here.

A note before I end, a million thanks to all cheerios and non-cheerios who participated in facilitating and introducing friends here. I hope to see more of you.


Cheers,
Justin

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A journey of happiness

God has given what I should have and I shouldn't have asked for more b'cos I lead a journey of happiness today. You probably wun understand what do I meant when I say I'm happy until you see Thomas...
My aunt is in a counselling course and she introduced a course mate of hers to me. This lady, Shau Ching, has a client named Thomas. She wanted to extend her help to his family by plotting him a more stable career path. That's why I'm rope into the picture. Last week she arranged me to meet Thomas. Before I met him, I was painted the scenario that he was a wheelchair-bound personnel, with only chest level and above mobility. I didn't really come this close to someone like him until that day I went up to his house and saw him laying on his wheelchair.
Thomas was a typical Singaporean guy like us. He likes to watch soccer, tease girls in his younger days, went through the MOE educational system until he reached his poly life, Temasek Poly. He was 18 that year when he went for his friend's party. He played Chor Tai Di and loser had to drink a glass of Volka. Does this kind of life sound familiar to you? He was drunk that night, so drunk that his friends brought him to the 3rd storey room in that bungalow to rest. He fell asleep and no one knew what happened after that. The next time when he opened his eyes was 10 days later in a hospital.
Thomas is 26 this year, just like me. He lived in a 4-room HDB flat with a maid and his mother taking care of him. The only difference between him and me is that I can move around happily while he is wheelchair-bound for life. I can't imagine his struggles in life when he cannot feel for his own body, not even trying to move his last finger. He wrote a book after that called "Beyond The Fall". According to him, his mom was the most affected. God knows when a son who is supposed to take care of their parents but after an accident like this, his parents got to take care of him for life. The pain for his mom's struggle was felt more than his own struggle for a better health. That episode really gave me a hard knock on my head, telling me to do more good things. I can't resist and will not resist when I was approached by Shau Ching to purchase a book from Thomas.
He is inspiring. He wanted to do more to inspire and touch lives. And guess what? He has the same goals as mine! He wanted to give more talks, focusing on Character Development for youths. I can't find a reason to say no and I'm going to propose to the core team and hopefully we can do more for Thomas. He understand that by sharing his own experience will teach most of us, the fortunate ones, a valuable lesson. At least this is his journey of happiness. What about you?

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