POSB Community Service Day

I did not sign up for this year's Army Half Marathon.
I thought I would be able to sleep in as a result.
Until...

I signed up for a morning with the animals at the Singapore Zoo.

It was a trip to the zoo for students from Student Care Services (SCS), organised by title sponser, POSB. I got the chance to join as a volunteer at the Hougang branch of SCS.

It was tough waking up at 6+ in the morning so that I could reach Hougang SCS by 7. I was late; but then again, only Xin Hui was on time... Haha...

It was tough trying to organise a roomful of screaming kids into the four groups they were pre-allocated for attendance-taking and distribution of group identification stickers and event T-shirts. We only managed to depart at 08:15am after settling the above tasks and other miscellaneous stuff such as getting the kids to change into the T-shirts, etc... Our speed was pretty OK until you consider that we had planned to leave at 07:30am. Some kids started complaining as a result.

The trip was pretty uneventful, in a negative way. The highlight was probably the magic show by 'Danny the Magic Prince'. We did not see a lot of animals as the planned route was pretty short.

Overall, there were a few things that stood out(for me):
1. There was this wolf which kept pacing up and down in its relatively small enclosure and it seemed to be in distraught.
2. There were so many free goodies in the TWO goodies bags given. Too much of a good thing can be bad. We ended up with many dimunitive kids carrying bags which even I think is heavy.
3. I thought there was too much POSB propaganda going on during the event.
4. The emcee keeps speaking in English that is too good for the children to understand. I'm not sure some of the children know what a 'washroom' is... And since the event was organised for the kids, it makes sense to speak at a level that is comfortable to them, not the adult volunteers.

Oh dear... I'm really tired... I was typing a load of gibberish which I've deleted, of course...

Good Night!