Reflections on NUS - 2004/2005
I have just over 2 weeks left before I start work. It's a little emo thinking about how the past 4 years in NUS have whizzed by, and I barely have concrete thoughts to remember them by. So, inspired by Kenny Sia's 8 blogposts on the 8 years that he spent in Perth, I am going to deal my 4 years in NUS a similar treatment here. :)
It was the middle of 2004. I had just ORDed and bid farewell to the dreadful place that is Sungei Gedong Camp. Bade farewell to my green slacks, and bade farewell to teenagehood. I was a man now. I had thrown grenades, fired rifles and driven tanks. I celebrated my 21st birthday just before entering NUS, and gave a little thank-you speech that apparently inspired many of e younger church youths to do the same with their own 21st's. Lide is having his tomorrow.
I came into NUS on the back of not having a scholarship, and thus nothing to bond me to anything. I still had my dreams of doing Political Science or History, and becoming a journalist to fulfill my liking of writing. But in one semester, all that changed. It all flew out of the window.
I took Introduction to Social Work (SW1101E), and to be frank, the lecturer was really damn boring. Something he continued to live up to in year 4. Maybe the oak tree had grown a little bigger. But something greater happened. A series of experiences with God had taken me to a point where choosing another major was really not an option anymore. I had heard His call to serve the poor and the disadvantaged. I had unexplained tears fall down my cheeks looking at a young orphan I had never known in Chiang Mai. And then, in December of that year, I witnessed the most scary disaster I had ever seen.
I saw so much need, so much pain. I wanted to help. More than just packing boxes of old clothes that disgusting Singaporeans grabbed the chance to dispose of. Including soiled underwear. But nobody wanted me. I wasn't trained in anything. I wasn't a nurse, wasn't a doctor, I wasn't anything.
I decided, I wanted to be a trained social worker.
Living away from home during army had already made me accustomed to living alone. So when I moved into PGP, it wasn't too bad. One thing I remembered was I had moved partly to distance myself from some issues at home that had sprang up from my returning to stay at home after being at camp for 2.5 years. I enjoyed PGP, for all its quietness. I could always return to my room after the hustle and bustle of a long day, to quietness and alone-ness. I enjoyed being able to cook my own meals whenever I had time, thinking up various kinds of things to cook. I thoroughly enjoyed my modules in sem 1. Perhaps it was all the mental stimulation after 2 years of brain atrophy. And that was the semester I did the best. I never achieved that kind of grades ever again in my whole NUS life.
Yet, the quietness came at a price. I didn't really have friends, and spent most of my time alone, either on campus or in PGP. I knew some Nav people, many of whom eventually became very good friends.. no not friends.. they were literally my brothers and sisters. Sometimes I had time with Mindy, but her then-boyfriend didn't allow it to happen too often. Days were often lonely in PGP, I remember feeling incredibly frustrated on the Wednesdays which were my free days.
Sem 1 came and went. Pretty smoothly. And then came Sem 2. This was a Sem that changed my life. I prayed at the start of the sem that for God to comfort those who had lost family loved ones in the tsunami disaster. And I sensed God say very strongly 'Child, if you pray for me to comfort these people, would you be willing to be the answer to your own prayer?'
I asked the Lord to open doors for me, given the many unsuccessful attempts I had previously. And He did. YC came calling 3 weeks later, asking if I would like to be a team to go to Aceh. I agreed almost immediately.
I've never seen so much suffering, destruction and pain. I heard a Chinese uncle recount his story which broke my heart, and that story has just been re-connected in Taiwan. I cried like shit on the last day before we left because all the pain and suffering I had witnessed broke my heart, and I had kept it in for 7 days. And I admitted to the crying on national TV a few months later.
I wanted to do more.
And as we left Aceh, we had to guard luggages for the rest of the team at the airport for 3 hours. It was to be the start of an amazing friendship..
It was the middle of 2004. I had just ORDed and bid farewell to the dreadful place that is Sungei Gedong Camp. Bade farewell to my green slacks, and bade farewell to teenagehood. I was a man now. I had thrown grenades, fired rifles and driven tanks. I celebrated my 21st birthday just before entering NUS, and gave a little thank-you speech that apparently inspired many of e younger church youths to do the same with their own 21st's. Lide is having his tomorrow.
I came into NUS on the back of not having a scholarship, and thus nothing to bond me to anything. I still had my dreams of doing Political Science or History, and becoming a journalist to fulfill my liking of writing. But in one semester, all that changed. It all flew out of the window.
I took Introduction to Social Work (SW1101E), and to be frank, the lecturer was really damn boring. Something he continued to live up to in year 4. Maybe the oak tree had grown a little bigger. But something greater happened. A series of experiences with God had taken me to a point where choosing another major was really not an option anymore. I had heard His call to serve the poor and the disadvantaged. I had unexplained tears fall down my cheeks looking at a young orphan I had never known in Chiang Mai. And then, in December of that year, I witnessed the most scary disaster I had ever seen.
I saw so much need, so much pain. I wanted to help. More than just packing boxes of old clothes that disgusting Singaporeans grabbed the chance to dispose of. Including soiled underwear. But nobody wanted me. I wasn't trained in anything. I wasn't a nurse, wasn't a doctor, I wasn't anything.
I decided, I wanted to be a trained social worker.
Living away from home during army had already made me accustomed to living alone. So when I moved into PGP, it wasn't too bad. One thing I remembered was I had moved partly to distance myself from some issues at home that had sprang up from my returning to stay at home after being at camp for 2.5 years. I enjoyed PGP, for all its quietness. I could always return to my room after the hustle and bustle of a long day, to quietness and alone-ness. I enjoyed being able to cook my own meals whenever I had time, thinking up various kinds of things to cook. I thoroughly enjoyed my modules in sem 1. Perhaps it was all the mental stimulation after 2 years of brain atrophy. And that was the semester I did the best. I never achieved that kind of grades ever again in my whole NUS life.
Yet, the quietness came at a price. I didn't really have friends, and spent most of my time alone, either on campus or in PGP. I knew some Nav people, many of whom eventually became very good friends.. no not friends.. they were literally my brothers and sisters. Sometimes I had time with Mindy, but her then-boyfriend didn't allow it to happen too often. Days were often lonely in PGP, I remember feeling incredibly frustrated on the Wednesdays which were my free days.
Sem 1 came and went. Pretty smoothly. And then came Sem 2. This was a Sem that changed my life. I prayed at the start of the sem that for God to comfort those who had lost family loved ones in the tsunami disaster. And I sensed God say very strongly 'Child, if you pray for me to comfort these people, would you be willing to be the answer to your own prayer?'
I asked the Lord to open doors for me, given the many unsuccessful attempts I had previously. And He did. YC came calling 3 weeks later, asking if I would like to be a team to go to Aceh. I agreed almost immediately.
I've never seen so much suffering, destruction and pain. I heard a Chinese uncle recount his story which broke my heart, and that story has just been re-connected in Taiwan. I cried like shit on the last day before we left because all the pain and suffering I had witnessed broke my heart, and I had kept it in for 7 days. And I admitted to the crying on national TV a few months later.
I wanted to do more.
And as we left Aceh, we had to guard luggages for the rest of the team at the airport for 3 hours. It was to be the start of an amazing friendship..
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