Discoveries

Dear all,

I received feedback that my readers are craving for new entries in my blog. So here it goes: I made an amazing discovery today: My ties with my parents have improved. My communication and talking skills have improved. You can credit this transformation to my interactions with my grassroots leaders (GRLs) who are mostly my parents' age. Let's put it this way, GRLs being at their age can be unreasonable at times. They like to keep their faces and expect absolute respect even when they can be wrong at times. Working with GRLs can be tactically challenging and commands a lot of patience. When i talk to my parents, i tend to get a little confused and take them as my GRLs. Nonetheless, it is a positive change that i welcome.

Talking about working with GRLs, my boss always stresses that they are volunteers and thus we must never push them too hard (be it chasing for account statements, namelist of residents for certain activities etc.) or else they will reject you and even switch off. Well sure, there are times when i get scolded for just sending reminder smses to this GRL. This GRL can shout to me and say, "Hey please respect my personal time and space. Your sms intrudes into my private family time. I am only a VOLUNTEER, ok!?!?!". Wow it was just a harmless sms (FYI i just sent ONE sms only) and it sparked off such a fierce reaction. I have not even called the GRL on the phone yet. Well, yeah that is one of not-so-nice moments.

Getting scoldings from your GRLs can be terrible and it totally spoils your day. But at the end of they day, i realize that we are working with GRLs not robots. Our circumstances are thus always fluid and challenging. Some GRLs are excellent and nice people. Some are not-so-perfect. But it is this variety of challenges that makes up the "SWEET" & "SOUR" aspects of our job.

i always advocate a support group. Whenever any of my cohort induction mate is in trouble, i try to meet up with him/her. You know what is the art of successful consoling?
Listen with a Graceful heart: When someone confides in you their problems, do not be too QUICK to offer solutions or even scold the person. What is needed here is that you JUST LISTEN FIRST and show that you understand his/her sorrow. Especially if the person in trouble is a lady. I tell you the psyche for ladies is that more than 80% of the time, they already know what they should do. They just need someone to hear them out and be the capturing device for them to pour their complaints out. After the pouring session, most ladies will come to the conclusion on what they should do.

Nostalgic Recollection

This picture was taken in August 2003. It has a lot of sentimental values because it was taken at our Year 1 orientation camp in OBS (Pulau Ubin). I would say it was a pretty darn memorable camp.

I recollected how i was able to administer the stuff in the 1st aid box given to each team and in effect i became the stand-in medic. I remembered how everyone was clueless with using the army jack knife to open the tin cans for our outdoor cooking and i had to step in to become the "Tin-can opener".

Anyway, time has since passed on and most of the buggers in the pic are already out of my life. Save for just JY and Son Of Singapore. So yup. Just thought i better post this picture here in case i reformat / dump my old CPU and this picture will never be found again...

It is amazing that i can still recollect everyone's name in the picture. Hmm that is good..

Compromises you make

Sometime ago, i had a lunch with my uni church guy friends. The main agenda of the lunch centered on the marriage preparations of our friend. He will be married in a month's time. In our conversation, I learnt that his bride (also a christian) has placed him on a strict diet. The reason given by the bride was : "I want you (the Groom) to look good and handsome on that day." She also bought him a portable small electronic pace-meter device where the groom must clip it on his belt everyday. The pace-meter measures the number of paces (aka footsteps) the wearer makes in a day. The bride has instructed him that he must hit at least 10,000 paces (footsteps) a day. Among other things, the Groom had been feeding merely on salads.

I am quite displeased with this legalistic mindset of the bride. No doubt i agree that marriage dinner is once in a lifetime and the couple involved should look good. But why all the legalistic restrictions?? So lets say.. the Groom refuses to go on diet. Will the bride hence not marry him? Is the bride that superficial? So if the Groom puts on say 10kg on the actual wedding day, will we have a run-away bride? Since when did the exchange of matrimony vows become so legalistic and SUPERFICIAL?

Since when did it also become the Bridegroom's job to distribute the wedding invitation cards to the Bride's friends while the Bride is away doing some other things? Why pamper the Bride so much? Is the Bridegroom in effect already an slave for the Bride?

I guess when you are so deeply in love, you tend to lose your position and compromise. But compromise to what extend? If you do not compromise, you will be seen as a male chauvanistic pig. If you do compromise too much, you will be seen as hen-pecked and well.. a slave? Very complicated issues here. Just for you to think out loud. How far will you go to compromise for your other half.. BEFORE and AFTER marriage?