LLTC- Part 3

Day 4:

When we thought there was morning PT, we all felt like dying. However, Day 4's morning PT invovles something which we call "Banglarobics". We have learnt a dance from the Indian adaptation of "Pretty Woman"



The video is above if you want to view it. Banglarobics was quite exciting and it doesn't involve much of your physical endurance or fitness. We had Banglarobics because we are going to visit an Old Folk's home later in an activity called "Journey With The Dream". We had to follow the footsteps of our founder and be aware of the plight of the needy in Singapore. I went to the Pertapis Old Folks Home where they take care of mostly malay and muslim old folks. As I am not familliar to the language, it was difficult for me to talk to them and I could only talk to those who spoke english. There was this malay woman who was really friendly to me and the others who sat around beside her. It almost took me through this time warp where I sat beside my grandparents listening to them sharing their life stories with me. I left the ladies section of the home with a warm feeling in my heart.

We then proceeded to the men's section of the home. It was then I had a talk with an old man who was 77 years old. His conversation with me is probably one of the deepest impressions I had of this camp.

He told me that he had an operation on his kneecap due to some problems and since the surgery he has been experiencing numbness in his kneecap. He also shared with me about some of his health problems and what he does to keep his condition stable. I tried to dig deeper into his thoughts and I raised the courage to ask him this question.

"Sir, what do you do when you're all alone and the pain becomes unbearable? What was going through your head at that point of time?"

He replied with an answer that literally shattered my heart.

"When that happens, I just say: God, please take away my part from this world. Why do You let me live to suffer like this?"

Could you imagine the amount of pain going through a man who lost his will to live? What could be more painful than that? How can his children make their parent suffer like this? Doesn't this break their heart? Because it broke mine. There's this feeling that I'm crying inside. It feels horrible. I was shocked. As the person in charge said, "Your parents raised you from a drop of blood to somebody. Ask yourself: Do you even bear to abandon them in an old folk's home?" The activity formed part of my Personal Mission Statement.

Time flies till after the dinner, and the beginning of the Solidarity Lasalliana. Basically it calls upon us to reflect on each of the food items placed before us. They were the bittergourd, the cup of water, the rock sugar and the ketupat. The activity reflects us to call upon our actions in the past, all the hurt we have done to the others and what we could do to change all of that. They played some pretty insipiring songs to us to aid in our reflection. This formed part of my Mission statement as well.

Affirmation was the next item in our schedule. It required us to write something, anything you want, to any person just to affirm him/her. I was thinking, "If I don't take this opportunity to at least buck up the courage to write a note to those 3 girls we offended and write something really sincere, there won't be a second chance again". So I did. Trust me, it wasn't some sort of love note. Who'd have feelings for someone whom you seldom or rarely talk to and only knew because of an awkward situation? I just said that we're sorry and all the best. This was a time where emotions ran high, and all of us were giving hugs to each other as we ran out of papers to write affirmations. It was a good conclusion to the last night, and the best thing was, you realize that when you're feeling alone, there's always people around you who is willing to help you. Sometimes, we just don't see it.

Day 4 ended well. Now it's time for our graduation....