A maelstrom of events happened today.
Woke up at an unearthly hour of 0600 hrs. (really early to me), considering I slept 0200 hrs this morning, and on top of that I didn't sleep well. Woke up feeling yucky, having a bad stomach (I think not enough sleep to properly digest my late night dinner yesterday).
It was of immense stupidity how I actually landed myself in being a volunteer of some children's society walk-a-thon. At that point I didn't know what I was up for, I mean like, what the heck, just go there stone get my hours and save my sorry butt worth zero hours. I should have been at church or even better, I should be frantically playing scales. But still, I landed myself on where I consider "out of Singapore", a place far far away, (though not long long ago), but still. *drum rolls* Fort Canning's park.
Some part of me tells me I've been there. As I step my foot into one metre square of the land in fort canning park, I felt a distinct absence of a feeling I should be getting. Or wait, should I be even feeling anything. Why was there no "oh I know this place" feeling. Why was there no pulse of nostalgia. Everything seemed foreign and misty. Unclear and vague. Well, the place looked really shabby, I didn't like it. I think it must have been the morning air that penetrated through my skull and numb my senses. Fatigue was already overwhelming.
Finally me and Jlam(we were on my dad's car), manage to reach the rendezvous point which was a place of haphazard motion, constant stupidity which could be summed up to a lot people, a lot of noise and a lot of chaos, minus the fact that everyone seemed like they suffer from a lack of vitamins or sleep, or both. There were a lot of people, from young to old. A very entropic group of people, I suppose. And till then, I still did not know of my purpose there.
Briefing commenced and finally I realized there were other volunteers from other galaxies And to my huge dismay, our mission wasn't conveyed through the means of a messenger and a scroll. However to my relieve/agony we were actually supposed to do road marshaling. A huge number of marshals were deployed into the route and each of us armed with a map and some common sense, (and of course, some determination to resist the itch of the relentless horde of mosquitoes which never seem to take a break), were slowly placed strategically along the entire 3Km course. (which is a really sad distance for a walk-a-thon?)
I ended up pairing with Collin and our location was rather weird. We had to stand on the top of an uphill pathway which according to the staff (or the pack leader, or the boss), is vehicle accessible route, in other words, we have to stand between the gap so that cars will never come and hit anyone taking their morning stroll! Initially, it seemed cool. I mean, Protect the Frail and weak Marathoners from the nasty villain vehicles. Noble? I guess. It would have been the noblest of jobs if there were even vehicles coming this way. In our whole "standing time", not a single tyre came close, let alone a full fledged vehicle. Sadness.
Well standing is probably tougher than walking. Standing for one hour is more tiring than one hour of tennis, at least that's what we feel. And soon enough, the people started strolling in. Just like creeps in tower defense, except for the fact they were talking their own sweet time. Really slow, they were walking at probably half the speed of my usual speed. I guess many of them were frequent late comers during their school days. There were all variations of people, all shape and sizes and colour. Some in professional gear and they would look like a professional athlete if not for the fact that they were equipped with a rather prominent cannon ball between their chests and thighs. There were lovey-dovey couples which makes me wonder if the surfeit of mosquitoes made the bushes unpopular (or potentially dangerous). Primary school kids, who seem like they're enjoying it more than everyone else probably because they don't understand the meaning of a walk-a-thon (in other words, they were playing catching on a walk-a-thon).
And worst of all, secondary school boys and girls who were chattering amongst themselves. They were probably there due to strong coercive forces. Some were trying very hard to act cool, some were blasting music. Now that is only acceptable if you're blasting La Campanella or Mozart because real music is mean to be showcased. If only I was not a lowly road marshal, I would have teach these people a good lesson. Okay, the blasting music part was quite an exaggeration, I only spotted one or two.
Running in a walk-a-thon sounds perfectly fine. People stroll and if you're fit, you run. You show have much faster you can move as a human being, well relatively speaking, it adds on as well. However, from my observations, running in a walk-a-thon is as dumb as cycling in a shopping mall. Seriously, there were some who tried to pretend to be sick and tired of walking slowly, that they have to resort to move their limbs at such a fast rate that they looked totally retarded from the perspective of a road marshal.
I was not really being much of a marshal. I had a drink in one hand and I had a totally unfriendly face. Collin by accident said hello to a participant, whom turned back looking very shocked and embarrassed. I mean two road marshals who seemed nonchalent all the way suddenly says hi to this only one person. It was a middle aged lady, she gave this weird expression that was painfully priceless.
Because Collin had to answer nature's call (despite the fact that he left his phone with me), he left me marshaling alone for awhile. I had no one to tank the mosquito damage. Collin's blood is probably much sweeter than mine. When he was there, I never got bitten. But when he went away, mosquitoes (desperate ones), settle for lower grade blood. These miniature vampires were so annoying and the bites were so much of a pain. I was feeling so elated that I literally jumped for joy when Collin returned. And when he did, he got bitten even more.
It finally ended after about half an hour of mosquito-istic torture. And that was when our official duties ended. We went back and there was this carnival like settings. Flea market, games station and milo van. On top of that, they were giving out free candy floss and popcorn. I think ice cream was free for quite a while until they decided to charge. Not very sure. Games station were all about tossing something in hopes that it will hook something, hit something, or enter a hole in the wall.
And thus, the end of the road marshaling signaled the begin of our rather "free CIP hours", which translates into playing for CIP hours. The next four hours was spent playing, from carnival games to just rotting around. I even queued for a long time for the candy floss which I was craving so badly for.
By around noon, we were finally allowed to leave the place. In case of emergency torrential weather, the organizers prepared an excess of umbrellas which they give out for free later in the end. Lots of time, and then I brought home three! I intended to bring back 4. Next time when it's raining I can go out, and even if I forget to bring my umbrella home, I won't get a big nag anymore.
Shared cab back and I was feeling so fatigued from playing scales till 0200 hours this morning. I reached home.
And then...
I want to continue blogging about the rest of the day but apparently I think this post is really long so I will stop here.
I think this piano exam will be fine though.
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