YID Days
What a crazy day.
Okay, have to backtrack and explain everything, but for once in my JC life, the past few weeks have been busy, and I've enjoyed it, despite everything. Today was an anticlimax, though, and I went through quite a gamut of emotions to get to this moment.
Over the past few weeks I've been in charge of organising a spectacles collection in Clementi for the HC Interact Club. We were supposed to go door-to-door to collect spectacles this Saturday. The spectacles collected were then to be donated to villages in Cambodia and the Philippines via the Rotary Club of Singapore.
So everything's been planned, the people have been sorted out into groups, group leaders have been chosen, maps have been printed, the approval from the Town Council sought and obtained, and all's left is the police permit to go door-to-door. They required two documents, once from the Rotary Club and the other from Hwa Chong, and somehow regardless of how hard we tried, we couldn't get the documents over by fax.
To cut a long story short, we--me, Liling and Dominic the friendly police officer-- decided to pon PC and go on an excursion to the Licensing Department in Chinatown to make sure they got it once and for all. We thought it would be a relatively simple task--get in, present documents and get permit. We forgot the fact that my life has been dogged by Murphy's Law.
Turns out that the Rotary Club isn't a registered charity in Singapore, it's only a club, and even though it's part of the National Council of Social Services, we still can't solicit donations from them. To apply for them to be our beneficiaries either takes 30 days if we go through the Commissioner of Charities, or through the Rotary Club through the National Council of Social Services, both of which will take time--more than what we could afford.
We went through various other possible solutions, including getting another charity to masquerade as the beneficiary for us, and it got pretty desperate at times. The rain helped deepen my feeling of hopelessness--I had been so sure I'd be able to get the permit, and I'd planned everything! And what would everyone say now? There didn't seem to be a way out.
After speaking to our Interact teacher we figured the best thing to do was not try to cut corners to go down illegally but to postpone it and send out apology letters this Saturday instead.
I guess it was disappointing for me because of everything I've done to prepare for this. But even though I'd wasted so much time on this, I was more disappointed that I'd wasted everyone else's time. I mean, it really does matter if it's my time I'm wasting for my mistake, but it's worse when it's other people's time cos then they get annoyed at you for wasting their time and effort. Selfish girl I am, I was scared that people would see me as disorganised and inexperienced (both of which I am) and get a bad impression of me. I was especially scared of what my Interact teacher would think, especially since she doesn't have a good impression of me in the first place, and it's not wholly unfounded. Luckily she didn't scold me when she called me up earlier, and I was left quite surprised and bewildered.
I don't know lah, I'm still trying to figure this out. The whole experience has actually been a very good period of learning because it's something I've never done before, but I am disappointed that I didn't get to bring the plan into fruition. Hopefully I will later on in the year, with my J1 IU Director, whoever he or she is, but as for now, I wish I knew why God let all of this happen and what I'm supposed to do about it.
One thing I have learnt from all of this is that being involved in things is really something I enjoy, and despite all the rushing about and panicking, I was doing something and having a purpose really made a very big difference. I know half the time on this blog I complain and get depressed and I think it's because I'm not being challenged and not busy enough. People have questioned if this period is the right period for being so busy and I honestly don't know, but it's where I am now, and I've made the decision, so I've got to stick with it.
It's been a pretty exciting few days, despite everything :)
jac was here with you
4/26/2006 07:28:00 pm
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