polaroid pictures
church was kinda interesting today cos i had to take a bunch of kids and sell some tickets for my church's christmas carnival.
i didnt exactly volunteer for this cos well, im crap with kids and i hate selling people stuff cos i hate people who try to sell stuff to me. but somehow i ended up tagging along as a "big brother supervisor" kinda person.
the game plan was that we'd go up floor by floor and the kids would give their most winsome smile and hopefully melt the hardassed muthafuckers into parting with their money. then i would come in at just the right moment and aid the parting process.
well, my group of battle hardened veterans was made up of three primary one pupils. a girl called Dana, and two guys, wee kiat and Joseph. i think girls really do mature faster than guys cos dana was the one who kept them in control (not me). she kept telling them to stop fooling around "or else people will think we are playing and they wont buy from us".
sensible indeed.
in any case, we failed spectecularly because we managed to sell a grand total of 0 tickets. yes, its not even funny. most people arent home, or pretend not to be home on Sundays. a few tried to bullshit and said theyve already bought tickets but we know better, dont we?
in desperation, i even tried to sell tickets to an Indian-Muslim family. the kids were pretty interested i could tell, but the father wasn't very amused. i can safely say that i experienced a few drops of fear when knocking on their door. they practically owned the whole floor (cos relatives blah blah were living together) and nobody would miss 4 young bodies.
even dana got exasperated. imagine, a primary one girl getting exasperated with a JC 2 guy who's just left school.
"we havent even sold ONE ticket yet!"
yes dana i know that.
that was accompanied with a disdainful look away from me as she turned her head in mockery. kids are so cute.
the only other girl who gives me disdainful looks is yina so i was half surprised, half amused, half sheepish cos well, the tickets refused to be sold.
in any case, im crap with kids so i generally let them do whatever they want. these were pretty good cos they gave good suggestions like going up to higher floors to sell tickets. for some reason, they reasoned that people who lived on lower floors have less money and so were less willing to buy. maybe it has something to do with the fresh air as well.
dana: "what will happen if we cannot sell all the tickets?" (for some reason this reminded me of the singaporean education system. theres always a penalty if u cant do anything)
me:"er...well, i dunno, maybe we'll be crucified or something."
i hope she got the humour. her face remained pretty straight though.
and also, the kids were quite afraid to talk to the parents or other kids, so i ended up doing all the talking. this is quite bad cos i cant speak chinese and so we lost out on that account. from an educational standpoint, this was also quite bad cos i mean, youve gotta develop interpersonal skills on trips like these. i notice a lot of kids are shy or apprehensive towards meeting strangers. maybe its in our culture. we teach our kids to be wary of strangers in a country which has the lowest kidnapping rate in the entire world.
in any case, all disdainfulness was thrown away once we went down to the play ground (meeting point). as i watched them play, i cant help but wonder what challenges will face them later in life. innocence is so hard to preserve in a day and age like this one. some say we live in the age of Kali, the age of destruction. an innocent corrupted is perhaps the most unforgivable sin ever.
dana can see ghosts. i know this cos her mom told me last time but i didnt ask her about it. it would be interesting to know how they look like and compare it to my own experiences but somehow i didnt ask her. maybe next time.
the children playing in the playground. if you could take a snapshot, a polaroid picture of innocence, perhaps this would be it. a girl turns cartwheels on the floor. they fiddle with wheels on the structure and run down the slide. they catch each other and laugh.
if you could take a polaroid picture....well, after some time the picture fades right? Right?
as we trudged back to church, it started to drizzle just a little bit. you see the line of children, row by row, holding hands walking back. the rain frames them.
in the end, i guess they made my day in a special way. its always nice to get away from the world every once in a while and touch some purity again. children are naturally friendly, children are naturally good hearted. they dunt judge as much as we do and when they do its usually cos they can differentiate good from evil.
heh.
*snap*
get it before it fades.
i didnt exactly volunteer for this cos well, im crap with kids and i hate selling people stuff cos i hate people who try to sell stuff to me. but somehow i ended up tagging along as a "big brother supervisor" kinda person.
the game plan was that we'd go up floor by floor and the kids would give their most winsome smile and hopefully melt the hardassed muthafuckers into parting with their money. then i would come in at just the right moment and aid the parting process.
well, my group of battle hardened veterans was made up of three primary one pupils. a girl called Dana, and two guys, wee kiat and Joseph. i think girls really do mature faster than guys cos dana was the one who kept them in control (not me). she kept telling them to stop fooling around "or else people will think we are playing and they wont buy from us".
sensible indeed.
in any case, we failed spectecularly because we managed to sell a grand total of 0 tickets. yes, its not even funny. most people arent home, or pretend not to be home on Sundays. a few tried to bullshit and said theyve already bought tickets but we know better, dont we?
in desperation, i even tried to sell tickets to an Indian-Muslim family. the kids were pretty interested i could tell, but the father wasn't very amused. i can safely say that i experienced a few drops of fear when knocking on their door. they practically owned the whole floor (cos relatives blah blah were living together) and nobody would miss 4 young bodies.
even dana got exasperated. imagine, a primary one girl getting exasperated with a JC 2 guy who's just left school.
"we havent even sold ONE ticket yet!"
yes dana i know that.
that was accompanied with a disdainful look away from me as she turned her head in mockery. kids are so cute.
the only other girl who gives me disdainful looks is yina so i was half surprised, half amused, half sheepish cos well, the tickets refused to be sold.
in any case, im crap with kids so i generally let them do whatever they want. these were pretty good cos they gave good suggestions like going up to higher floors to sell tickets. for some reason, they reasoned that people who lived on lower floors have less money and so were less willing to buy. maybe it has something to do with the fresh air as well.
dana: "what will happen if we cannot sell all the tickets?" (for some reason this reminded me of the singaporean education system. theres always a penalty if u cant do anything)
me:"er...well, i dunno, maybe we'll be crucified or something."
i hope she got the humour. her face remained pretty straight though.
and also, the kids were quite afraid to talk to the parents or other kids, so i ended up doing all the talking. this is quite bad cos i cant speak chinese and so we lost out on that account. from an educational standpoint, this was also quite bad cos i mean, youve gotta develop interpersonal skills on trips like these. i notice a lot of kids are shy or apprehensive towards meeting strangers. maybe its in our culture. we teach our kids to be wary of strangers in a country which has the lowest kidnapping rate in the entire world.
in any case, all disdainfulness was thrown away once we went down to the play ground (meeting point). as i watched them play, i cant help but wonder what challenges will face them later in life. innocence is so hard to preserve in a day and age like this one. some say we live in the age of Kali, the age of destruction. an innocent corrupted is perhaps the most unforgivable sin ever.
dana can see ghosts. i know this cos her mom told me last time but i didnt ask her about it. it would be interesting to know how they look like and compare it to my own experiences but somehow i didnt ask her. maybe next time.
the children playing in the playground. if you could take a snapshot, a polaroid picture of innocence, perhaps this would be it. a girl turns cartwheels on the floor. they fiddle with wheels on the structure and run down the slide. they catch each other and laugh.
if you could take a polaroid picture....well, after some time the picture fades right? Right?
as we trudged back to church, it started to drizzle just a little bit. you see the line of children, row by row, holding hands walking back. the rain frames them.
in the end, i guess they made my day in a special way. its always nice to get away from the world every once in a while and touch some purity again. children are naturally friendly, children are naturally good hearted. they dunt judge as much as we do and when they do its usually cos they can differentiate good from evil.
heh.
*snap*
get it before it fades.
posted by tim tay at 2:05 PM
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