HOHOHO!

Merry Christmas!

I must say I enjoyed myself thoroughly for the X'mas gathering.
Special thanks to Weijian for giving me the chance to be Santa Claus.
Sorry if I hadn't been good enough - I am not professional ok. I will buck up no worries. :-p

This must be the umpteenth time I have seen the elderly play Bingo - they never seem to grow tired of the game! I recall that some time back I was kinda turned off by the whole idea of playing Bingo during such get-togethers for the elderly. In all honesty, I was on the verge of abolishing the game from the surface of the earth at that time (had I been granted Harry Potter's powers, I might have done that!).

However, upon reflection, I slowly came to realize that perhaps playing the same monotonous Bingo might not actually be that monotonous for the elderly. Through the lens of an undergraduate, all I could see was the monotony of the game. I failed to recognize that my life, or rather, our lives as undergraduates have been much more happening, to the extent that the little thrills that Bingo brings about are belittled. We terrorize KTV lounges, we colonize shopping malls, parks, restaurants and cinemas. Bingo, to us, is nothing more than childplay - the most boring way to spend an afternoon. Yet for the elderly, their lives might comprise of the routine watching of re-runs of Mediacorp, TCS or even SBC drama serials, going downstairs for a walk, a chat, a coffee and cleaning up the house (which might take an entire day, especially if they stay alone, or with just another person) - all relatively mundane tasks. The thrill of Bingo, might have a larger impact on them, as compared to us.

I guess this is the one good thing about volunteering - we learn to empathize with others, and we learn to realize how fortunate we, in fact, are. I hope I will never get sick of watching the elderly playing Bingo again. :-)

Sorry for the sombreness of the entry suddenly. Oops. It's my first time blogging here anyway. Let's give a big round of applause to the LB committee for a job well done, as well as the two emcees - the resident emcee for LB Xiaoyun and the apprentice emcee Geraldine! Let's look forward to 2008! :-)

Merry Christmas!

HOHOHO!

Cheerz
Fred :-)