The alarm went off sounding like a mad chicken which had shit stuck in its ass. "What time is it?" It's 5 am in the morning. "What, why am I waking up so EARLY?" It's Flag Day.
My class was assigned to do flag day at 7 am at Bukit Gombak. The place is like the other part of Singapore, West and I'm staying at the East. Anyway, that wasn't the annoying part. I'm used to waking up early for occasions like school.. Haha.
The most disturbing part was when I changed the train to Bukit Gombak from Doby Ghout. After standing for 20 minutes in the train heading towards Bukit Gombak, an announcement was made "Next stop Bishan." And I was like "could you repeat yourself again?"
"Next Stop BISHAN."
"What the F****! I could have taken a bus to Bishan and took the train to Bukit Gombak. My life would be made so much easier. Why didn't I take notice of the BISHAN train station on the map?"
So, it took me nearly 50 minutes to travel from Doby Ghout to Bukit Gombak and I was standing the whole time. Oh my God! Am I becoming stupid? :(
That aside, now more on flag day. Frankly speaking, whenever my secondary school organises Flag day for us to do, I'll bring a small bag of coins and start dropping these coins into the tin. If I feel that it's not enough, I'll take some from my friends and fill the tin. I mean who likes to do Flag Day? Furthermore we are all Guys. It is so hard for us to approach people and ask them to donate. Of course, I can't deny the fact that we Are LAZY... :(
But today was specially different. I was actually spur on to do Flag day without self donation. My group of friends and I went all out to ask people to donate. The feeling of being rejected and ignored like a fool was quite depressing at first. But slowly as time went pass and more people started donating when we asked, the feeling of this accomplishment is difficult to describe. I was actually enjoying what I thought was hard to do.
Moreover, never did I expect myself to sell off all 150 flags (sticker) to the public. My tin felt heavy and it was so much heavier as compared to my previous years. In the end, the amount collected in total was another great astonishment to me. I had collected 95 dollars and 3 cents. Again the amount tabulated was so so so much more as compared to my previous years.
The day ended off at 5 pm. It was a tiring day indeed. But it was also a wonderful and filling day. The important lesson that I've learnt is that we should learn to ask and we'll be given. As a phrase goes "ask and the door will be open". It is better to ask than to be stuck on a crossroad not knowing where to go.
For this to happen, I've my friends to thank for who had been there to help me. Also, to the hundred Singaporeans out there who had kindly made their donations to us, a very big thank you to you. To those who ignored and shunned us away, "thank you" as well...