Day 1: Expecting the "Unexpected"

Nearly been a month after our aceh-trip, and I daresay things should basically revert back to normality for many. It's year-end and a good time for reflection, reviewing of past success, adjusting plans to achieve the new goal -- as they popped up in the horizon.

BL and Hazel are going to be really busy. Soon to be entering into a new phase in their life, together... And there are also many questions, less serious -- like:

• Will there be continuation of GenActs ALive! program?


• Who will keep the torching burning for Boon-Liong?


• If yes, how and in what form will the Alive! program be like? .. Continuing another expedition somewhere, working with a local VWO, or sending another team for sustaining this aceh-trip next year...

I am digressing a fair bit now, but the truth is -- I wont know. This was very much what we experienced during the first teaching day. We had done a fair bit of planning for the lessons beforehand, but things did not turn out quite what we expected. The moral of the story is to:

Expect the "unexpected"

I believe Life is like that... regardless of all the preparations and prior plannings (including backup ones), the Unexpected would show up. Day 1 of our trip, we were greeted by over 40 youths of around 15-20 years old (SMT 2 or JC/poly-equivalent). We had expected the students to be around 12-15 years. There was a visible difference in the proficiency of English of the students. We adapted and managed to pull through the first day, with a balloon sculpturing activity, followed by a description of balloon dogs.

There was some parallels in life: When the unexpected happened, one can sit around and quit playing, or just bit the grit and jumped in. Anyway, I was glad that we chose the later. As noted in other entries, we scrambled through a few nights preparing the next-day activities, but un-professional and last-minute as we were, we put our best feet forward, and had a great time during the lessons.

Honestly, that evening, all of us were tired after the trip to Aceh, but working through our tiredness, all were quite unanimous with an unspoken objective to create and enrich the lives of the students. That kept us going, before we retired to our restful sleep later...