The Day when everyone come together!

"hello, what time meet ah?"

this had been the frequent offline msg or sms i receive over the past week. When the day finally come, i felt delighted and nervous. Nervous as i seriously wish that nothing go wrong so that this last session of befriending for the year will be the most memorable for the befriendees.

the food came, the place set up and as i sat at the pit awaiting the arrival of the rest. I will frequently raise my head up looking for any sign of dark clouds. Anything can be prevented but definitely not the weather change.

One by one the volunteers and the befriendees came. As it was way behind schedule, we decided to cancel the games component and start the BBQ instead.



other than the BBQ component, of cos there will be some card games which everyone will definitely find it useful to self entertain.


and with the session also to celebrate the upcoming christmas! who can forget gift exchange!!


volunteers of clementi SCS 2008!


christmas celebration 2008! A mixture of new/old volunteers, social workers and our befriendees


final thoughts: i want thanks all the volunteers who came down for this event and/or any of our past events, the befriendees who make an effort to come down for the session weekly and of cos our social workers who assist us in making any of our activities possible and a success. with 2 befriendees graduating from the program, i also want to wish them all the best in everything they do in future!

lastly,

MERRY CHRISTMAS

AND

MAY A HAPPY AND FUN 2009 AWAIT YOU!!

From the Depths I Come !

As the sun sets with lights fading towards the horizon, night falls and it is dark again. Slowly, the earth loosens and an arm tears through the ground. Freeing himself from the captive of the soil, the maggots, the bugs(Oh, those... disgusting, disgusting bugs) and that box that entrapped him for ages. Rot fills the air and the night was darker. Well, maybe not so dark for those in night vision goggles or dudes in Alaska.

While ghouls, witches, imps, vampires are unleashing their own hell onto Earth, Clementi SCS was too engrossed with their own fun to be bothered by the impending doom. The night started off with Project Runway: Halloween Special. The lucky model was chosen from a drawing of lots. Every participant took turns to stick their hands into a bag of unknown objects then pull one out of the so many objects inside

"Candy !", Choon Guan squealed with glee as he pulled it out of the bag. Almost immediately, he unwrapped it and popped it into his mouth.

Turns out that those partipants who picked the candy had to be dressed up. Ironically, Choon Guan felt for an eraser but chose to go for the candy. Greed doesn't pay. Greed doesn't pay.
The remaining participants were then grouped according to the items they picked and got to choose the lucky model that they wanted to dress by correctly answering one question to the quiz.

First question - When is Halloween ? A hand shot up.

"31st of October"

And Choon Guan's ass is mine. The remaining models were then snapped up by the other groups and Project Runway: Halloween Special kicked off ! With 15minutes to dress the model, the groups got on with their work quickly.


















Calvin and Yu Cai decided make QiLing a witch. While Fiona and Joyce decided to make Clarence a mummy. As for Choon Guan, the 3 devious minds of Jason, Weijian(VPIA of Clementi) and Wenjin were ticking away, thinking of the most outrageous outfit they can put him in.


















Jason slapping a tube onto Choon Guan.






























While Wenjin and Weijian were still thinking what to do with Choon Guan, Jason ran a roll of toilet paper along Choon Guan's crotch, making a... Well, crotch strap.


















Choon Guan in tears after being humiliated.


















Fiona and Joyce decided to soundproof the room by muting Clarence's loudspeaker.


















Yu Cai and Calvin making a tattered skirt for Qi Ling


















Choon Guan clearly enjoying himself even after having his dignity robbed by Jason

After a series of trial and error, Choon Guan's group decided to dress him as Iron Crotch Man. He was thankful that his character had a helmet to hide all his shame. Unfortunately, his embarassing moments were already caught on camera.
Time flies like an arrow and fruit flies like bananas. The 15 minutes expired and individual models had to parade around with their costume.

Winning the Best Costume Award was Qi Ling who was dressed as a witch ! Check out the rat sitting on her shoulders !


















The next award went to Clarence, who won the Scariest Costume Design. It was left unexplained whether he was considered scary because he was dressed as a mummy or that he had bloody nipples but on this blogger's guess, the judges probably felt that he was a massive weapon of massive destruction. Now, that is scary. I present to you... The Mummy Returns.... In a pink shirt and after downing a couple buckets of KFC Fried Chicken


















Last but not least, an impromptu award which was presented to Siow 'Booby Trap' Choon Guan to restore whatever self-esteem he has - the Rated Artistic Award, R(A) Award. Ignoring the crotch strap and breast implants, Choon Guan has quite a good fashion taste, throwing in a scarf to complement the ridiculous looking unfit. It was also quite puzzling that Iron Man was holding a dagger. I bet Weijian was smoking some really bad stuff when he decided to give Choon Guan a dagger as a weapon.


















And Project Runway: Halloween Special has come to an end. However, as an exclusive footage from behind the scenes, this blogger reveals to you the dirt that was unseen on TV. Iron Crotch Man serving it to the KFC-filled Mummy


















Next up, after the costume design, was the a game of Win, Lose or Draw where befrienders and befriendees flaunt their artistic drawing skills and interpretations of different questions ranging from movies to songs.

Chai Sean though gifted in the field of drawing, has flunked her Mathematics terribly with an interpretation of 'Ji Ba Ban' as $100,000. Well, we sure love to do business with Chai Sean ! Which reminds me, she is Clementi's treasurer !


















Soon the games came to an end and the befriendees have to return to their homes. Held in their hearts was not the fear of ghouls dragging them into the woods but the joy from the simplicity of being together and having fun. And yea, we too in Clementi love you guys !






























Huang 'Unfunny' Wenjin wishes everyone a 'Happy Halloween' and pray that you don't lose your brains to zombies or kidneys to excessive intake of candy.

One Last Time

Hello guys ! I'm a guest blogger by the name of Wenjin, who is invited by Choon Guan to add a little 'Read-With-Me' flavour to Clementi's blog. For those who are thinking who Choon Guan is, it's okay, we can skip that part. Anyway, Choon Guan was saying the blog is rather boring and he wishes to inject some 'fun' into this 'serious' blog, so he'll get a 'seriously funny' blog.

In short, he wishes for a humour columnist and he thinks that I should be the one. Unfortunately, the laughs would be directed at his thought that I would make a good humour columnist.

Now that I've mentioned my name, I shall go on with the what. I'm a volunteer in Clementi's Read-With-Me programme for two semesters and probably the longest(self-proclaimed) volunteer in the Read-With-Me programme and I would like to share my experiences in an unfunny way.

Today was the last session of Read-With-Me for the semester and it will only resume in around December/January. With kids graduating from the programme, and volunteers who aren't able to continue their service due to other commitments, it may sound like a sad occasion but that is not the case as every Read-With-Me session is filled with laughter. Laughter from the kids enjoying the programme. Laughter from the volunteers witnessing the innocent actions of the kids. Laughter from other volunteers when they heard a kid called this volunteer a 'Jie Jie' when he is a guy.

So you see, Read-With-Me is actually a laughter-filled programme with volunteers reading to kids and having fun, solving puzzles and playing games with them. Well, there's only one thing about Read-With-Me that is sad - It only last for 10 weeks. So far there aren't any volunteers complaining that the programme is too long, only volunteers complaining that it is too short. Hahaha!

So if you guys would want to join Read-With-Me as a volunteer, just drop us an email(This is going to make me look very bad, but I gotta admit I don't know Clementi SCS has their own email.). I've heard many stories about volunteers being put off by Clementi's 'Interview' policy and I can assure you guys that such interviews are conducted for the staffs to know the volunteers better and probably, also to weed out the Michael Jacksons.

Also, there are those who thought that Read-With-Me is a programme to help kids improve in their reading and linguistic skills. However, this isn't the case. The most is important thing is allowing them to have fun, so that they will enjoy learning and would want to learn more on their own. It's more about creating interest than teaching. And with a helpful mentor Ms Wong, being a volunteer in Read-With-Me can't get easier. Lastly, don't be afraid to volunteer even if you aren't confident of your command of English. The interview doesn't have a Qualifying English Test so there isn't a need to panic. But it does help if you have a melodic voice over a monotonous one !

Mid Autumn Festival 08

Sept 9th 08

It's the first special event of the second half of the year. To make it a memorable event for the befriendees, several games and mooncakes were prepared to celebrate the Mid Autumn Festival. The befrienders and some of our special guests like Jian Cong, Wen Jin and Wei Jian went early to prepare for the event.






the activities kick off the moment the befriendees arrive and after a brief introductions and spliting of teams, we have our first game which is "Chang Er, Yu Tu, Hou Yi". it was played with actions to be done in the style of the traditional scissor, paper, stone. All of us have a good laugh as it is funny to see each other doing the actions.


After a hilarious first game, we have team A leading by 5 points. the second game proceed with a test of speed and teamwork. Pomelo bowling along with puzzle solving got the 2 teams trying to outbeat each other timing.


At the end of round 2, we have team B leading team A by a score of 7 points.
Game 3 which also happen to be the last game of the night is a test of determination, accuracy, trust and guidance. The team are to send out 3 members to be blindfolded and with the guidance of the rest of the teammates, the "blind" members are to cut a mooncakes into 8 smaller pieces and to walk along a straight line to a firing range to extinguish the candles.






After a close fight, the final result was out and Team B won Team A by a mere 1 point with the score 54 to 53.
Team A


Team B


After a short prize presentation of the "猪仔饼", we proceed on to have a little lantern fun.





With the help of the befriendees, all of us get to keep the logistics stuff fast and headed back to Sunshine Hall for our MoonCakes.

This event is a simple yet successful one. To see that everyone is having so much fun while playing and the helpfulness displayed by the befriendees in helping to clear the logistic really brighten up my day. After all, it is not just as supporting them but rather a mutual support. With this i would like to say, Mid Autumn 08 Celebration was a success.


Choon Guan

Bowling session

Aug 12th 2008

the first official session after a 3 months break. Everyone was looking forward to it and we did something out of the normal "stay in center" activities. Headed to West Coast Recreational Center and had a bowling session. As most of the befriendees and some befrienders were first timers in the game, the group of us were split up into 3 groups in order to teach and guide the "freshies". Of cos it is not just sweat and laughter, food is also available to ensure that none of us go home feeling hungry after a night of "ball throwing".



As usual, after every event, we try our best to have a "family photo"


Anyway, the new committee for the new academic year of 08/09 is out.
from left: Jason (Head), Calvin (Programmer), Fiona (Secretary/Volunteer Management), Chai Sean (Treasurer), Wei Ying (Publication Head), Choon Guan (Vice-Head).


Choon Guan

Singapore Garden Festival

July 29th 2008

it had been 2 months since the last befriending session. As the break is still on going, a gathering was planned to ensure that we maintained the bonding with the befriendees despite the holidays. therefore, instead of the regular venue at clementi, we went to the Suntec Convention Center for the Singapore Garden Festival Exhibition. As most of the befrienders are having their vacation jobs and the befriendees are having their lessons, the trip was made during the evening time.

While waiting for all the befrienders to arrive, the befriendees, Jason, Kit, Jean and Benjamin had their dinner at Macdonald's before heading to the exhibition venue together

the closest we can get to a real F1 car.


Awaiting for the tickets.


Just before entering the exhibition center, a "family" photo!


As we walk around the exhibitions, tons of photos were taken.

break time!! time to rest our aching feet before another round of flower gazing.

after the tour of the whole exhibition, we decided to call it a day as most of us have work or lesson the next day. on the way back, it is jokes and laughter while some are just tired after the trip that they doze off.


The trip is a fulfilling one as each and every one of the befriendees have a smile on their face.


Choon Guan