Job Week

Being a Scout is not easy, especially if you are in Victoria School. One of the things that Scouts dread most is the annual Job Week. Scouts can go over Singapore knocking on doors, offering to do odd jobs for people in exchange for cash. This event usually lasts about four days. This money used to fund the Scouting activities for the Scouts in the school. You would not believe how some people would behave when their doors are knocked upon. One old man, probably living by himself scolded me with vulgarities in hokkien, a Chinese dialect. He then proceeded to throw things such as plastics bags filled with rubbish and old plates at the door. The plates smashed into thousands of tiny, razor edged pieces. The hallway was littered with them. Luckily, I was not hurt. I was very scared of the old man; I figured that he must have been senile so I decided to leave him alone and quickly run away. Another man, who was middle aged, also lived in a small, cramped HDB flat. His dog leaped upon me the moment I arrived. He did not install a fence behind his door to keep out the dog. The dog nearly bit my leg; its snout was jammed in between the bars of the metal grill. It began to gnash its teeth furiously and barking as if there were no tomorrow. Sticky, milky drool dripped off the dog’s jaw and landed on the ground with an audible splat. It stared at me with its evil yellow eyes, as though it almost wanted to kill me. But what happened next was worse. The owner of the house said to me in Chinese, “Ha! Who asked you to come so close. Serves you right. Every year you Scouts come to my home to beg for money. Get lost and tell your friends never to bother me again.” I walked away in bitter disgust. I was very offended indeed. I felt like scolding the man but I did not want to add fuel to the fire. Hopefully, I will never have to endure people like that again.

Broken Wrist

One of the most terrible, unfortunate and definitely painful incident happened just two weeks before my Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE). I remember it as clear as day, even though it was a Tuesday evening. I was attending my mathematics tuition class at a centre near my house. My classroom also had projector attached to the ceiling just like the ones you see in government aided schools in Singapore. As it turned out, I was sitting beneath the projector. My teacher, Mrs. Fang, wanted to use the projector to show us a video on drawing triangles. I had to climb onto my table to switch on the projector. The tuition centre was not exactly brand new, and the table was a bit rocky. As I stood up on the table, the unexpected happened so abruptly. The rocky table somehow gave way and I fell headfirst onto the cold, hard tiled floor. The first thing I felt was a throbbing pain in my torso and head, followed by a sharp pain in my left wrist. I was lifted up by my teacher and my classmates. The moment I stood up, the pain in my wrist intensified even more. It felt limp and I could not even move my fingers, if I did, a sharp and excruciating pain would course through my whole arm. At that moment, I knew I had more than just a bad fall. My teacher seemed to notice it too. She called my parents to tell them what had happened. She managed to buy me a triangular bandage from a clinic nearby. She bound my arm tightly so as to prepare me for my parents to pick me up. My parents rushed me to the Mount Alvernia Hospital, where I was met by my mother’s good friend who was also an orthopedic surgeon at the hospital. I had to wait for an hour before I was ready for surgery. The orthopedic surgeon Dr. Wong decided to put my bones in place and he also had to put in a metal pin to secure my bones as I had to take my PSLE in two weeks’ time and I had broken my writing hand. In my ward, I changed into a hospital gown. Then, I lay upon a trolley, and I was wheeled to the operating theatre. The surgeon made me breathe the anaesthesia using a mask. It felt like I had only been asleep for five seconds but when I woke up it was already morning. Golden rays of sunlight bursts through the windows at my ward. I had to wear a cast for three weeks and a wrist support for another six weeks. During my PSLE, I had time extensions and I am glad to say did pretty well. I hope I will never have to go through such a thing ever again.

Bloody Toilet

This is a pretty scary incident that happened just one week ago. On Saturday evening, my family and I paid a visit to my uncle’s house. We had an absolutely delicious and tantalising dinner of err… Pizza Hut. After that my parents and my uncle and aunt as well as my maternal grandparents sat in the living room and discussed some major political issues in Singapore as well as about their standard of living while watching television. Me and my cousin played games on his Xbox games console. We played Halo 3 and the graphics were fantastic and sharp. My cousin and I had a really great time blasting aliens and humans alike in the multiplayer mode. In fact, we had such a wonderful time that our eyes were almost super glued to the screen. We were oblivious to our surroundings until suddenly, a scream erupted from the bathroom. We immediately stopped playing and rushed to the bathroom to see what had happened. There was bright, crimson blood everywhere. My uncle had fallen onto the floor, clutching his wrist tightly. I could see blood trickling out of it. My mother heard the scream too and immediately rushed to the scene. Quick thinking as she was, she immediately grabbed a towel hanging off a ring on the wall and wrapped it tightly around my uncle’s bleeding wrist, applying pressure on it so as to stop the bleeding. An ambulanced was called, where paramedics quickly applied a pressure bandage. My uncle was laid on a stretcher and my father followed him all the way to the hospital. Later, I learned that my uncle as somehow managed to cut his artery on the toilet seat. I am glad to say that my uncle has made a fantastic recovery so far. It was really frightening seeing all the blood on the floor. I almost thought that my uncle was going to die.