Finally, after more than 3 months of preparation, the AWARE's body image workshop has taken place at CHIJ katong convent. This workshop is a pilot project organized by us as part of our project for our GEM module. Lots of work, lots of discussions, lots of sweat just to fulfill this common goal........


The school was like starting to sing the anthem when we were at the hall & it was like almost 2 years since i last sang the national anthem. Almost forgetting what is it like to wear the uniform, to stand at the parade square & sing the anthem, to be controlled by the discipline mistress....gosh i sound so old haha..

When the classes started streaming into the hall, i was kind of nervous, suddenly don't know what to do in front of about 250 students (luckily chyi yueh was good, really good & confident)
The 1st part of the workshop was a talk by trybe. It was quite interesting & the students really enjoyed it based on their response & comments. 1 of the speaker, Nicholas, was like so high D la..totally engaging.. Hope the girls really learnt something from there..

2nd part of the workshop was the aerobics session. We invited Mike, an instructor from NIE to teach the girls simple aerobics. It was super super fun!! The moves were really creative and fun..if only i was wearing p.e. attire like them, i think I'll just dance like crazy wahaha =) After the whole exercise thing, all of us were like so warm & sweaty, the weather is like so freaking hot la..goodness..but it was loads of fun & craziness!!






Sad thing is that the girls are not exactly in favour with the dance, well i guess it's the normal stage that we used to go through whereby we were so reluctant to do anything, just anything..
Poor Mike, he look so disappointed.. feel so sorry for him...

The last part was the nerve ranking part -- the body image talk. Each of us was supposed to take charge of a class and have a 'discussion' with them on the concept of body image & beauty. I almost freaked out just before the talk..never had i tried talking to a class of 37 students. Even with the facilitator's copy, my mind was like a blank..37 students leh.. I mean i tried relief teaching before but that was different from this, at least relief teaching the job was just to deliver what the teacher had prepared and the class size wasn't so big; this talk was like totally new and raw ~.~''


Anyway i just went with it.. Stepped into the classroom, found that the computer was so freaking slow (i think even slower than Pentium 1 la..) that i almost panicked! Luckily the slides did get uploaded, or else the whole thing will be like soo dry.. And the video was like taking forever to stream..and when it finally finished streaming, an error message popped up and i had to re-stream again ~.~""" almost panicked la..goodness... lucky the video did run in the end or else........ {$%&**#@!#%^}

The whole talk was more than an hour. The response was like.............. Some of them are like totally not interested and i was like in a 'shit, dunno what to do' state. But luckily most of them listened, really thanks for that. I did most of the talking, explaining, asking questions here & there, smoking here & there, trying to make it more interesting...(gosh i finally know how teachers must have felt on their 1st day at work). The girls were really interested in the video and really went "whoa~~~" Cool right? (ok la, they are not whoa-ing at me la but dunno why, it just kind of feel relieved for me..haha) At the end of the talk, i was just glad it was over, i dunno how i survived through but i just did! Really.. And the satisfaction comes when all the students stood up and said "Thank you Shing Yuan, May god bless you always" Although it may sound routine but i am really so touched la..all that 1 hour talk was like worth it..totally =) I conquered a class of 37!! (ok.. maybe less than that haha...)

Finally the whole programme was over. Even though it was near noon, but all of us really felt that we just had a full day of work. Totally tiring, totally hot, totally satisfied =) I guess you can't get this type of satisfaction anywhere, it's only when you have been through a lot, truly make your effort to do it the best will you feel so enriched, even if it's just for that short moment of time.. (Reminds me of the good x9 days~~~~)


After the whole thing, went for Ajisen ramen at parkway parade. The most happy thing: to step into an air-con restaurant, to eat something filling, to have a good chat with the rest and to not pay for anything!! =o (I guess that was the best part of social entrepreneurship =) )


Went home after that. Shacked.. But i guess it's still worth it. Like what Dr goh said, community service is all about doing what you like, about owning the project as your own, on top of the need to help the targeted community. Since when did we ever felt so happy while doing things for free? It's only when you are part of the project! What an interesting and enriching module. I really learnt a lot!! =) Great time working with those guys!! =) =)