Alright...i have not been posting for the past few weeks, due to some personal commitments-(there's no need for further elaboration here). Hence, i shall start on my new post- "CIP @ Toa Payoh Community Library," which i did on Monday...
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Met up with Justin Yip @ Toa Payoh MRT station, then proceeded to the library for CIP. Amazingly, many 'kiasu' people have already blocked up the library's entrance when its not yet opened-@ about 0930. Finally got in after much delay, signed up behind the counter and then off to work. We were given the task of shelving, shelf-reading, blah..blah..Initially, we thought that the tasks given were simple but have come to realise that it wasn't. Ok, we had the impression that there was going to be a max. of 4 ppl, so poor Quan Jie could not come along...and in the end there were more ppl than that. Below is a summary of people doin CIP on Monday->
MSHS-Before: 2, After: 2
CHIJ(Toa Payoh)-Before: 2, After: 4
CGSS-After: 3
Anderson-1 couple (assume)
????-After: 3
And so, because we came from an all-boys school, our job was much tougher..The task of shelving and shelf-reading of 8 shelves(non-inclusive of double-sides)were given to us while others did about 4? Adding on to the 'advantages' are that the shelves are extremely messy, which i sometimes realised how difficult it is to arrange books in the 'Children Section' compared to the 'Adult' or 'Teens Section.' During the course of this programme, members of the public often had the impression of us as 'real-life librarians' and so were asked on all kinds of questions...
Conversations:
(Monday)
-Boy A: "Excuse me, can u help me find books on liquid? I need them for my school project."
Mother A: "Did u say thank you?"
-Mother B: "Xiao Di, my daughter is Primary 5 this year, from ABC school, blar..blar..(plz..dun give me all those crap, just tell me wad books u wan, grr..). Er.. ah girl, ni yao she me?
Girl B: Whisper...(dunno wad she tokin)
Mother B: "U gimme ar...books on Egyptian Clothing"(wad the h***... Nvm, pushed the job to
Yip who got scolded later for assumed 'slacking') lol...
Mother B(later): "Xie Xie Ni, I found already"
-Old Man: (in lift, to 'real' librarian and to us) "You all got give these boys food or
drinks?"
Librarian: "No, but we give them water" (hello, we brought water ourselves. Unless she's
referring to the brown/yellow water in the toilets).
Old Man: (To me) "You all from Maris Stella? Your principal is......(and so he continues yakking)
Old Man: "U all noe where is the magazine 'Men's Fitness'"? (For ur info, it is a magazine that is
erm..u noe not so advisable for teens of our age)
-Smoker: "You all do all these got get monee?" (In Mandarin: Justin told him about the CIP pts
for the CCA grading system, but gave up after realising he doesn't know a thing about L1R5
and JC Admission)
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(Friday)-Additional
-Girl: (Runs to me when i am arranging books) "Gor Gor, can u help me do this Math question?" (......is tutoring supposed to be part of our work?)
Me: "You know algebra?" (Coz i have forgetten how to solve using 'Primary School Models')
Girl: "No..."(Ok, forget it. Asked Quan Jie for help, who couldn't solve it either, by using those 'darn' models)
Me: "Sorry, but i am afraid you have to ask someone else...(Runs off and asked an auntie instead, who later told her to ask us...back)
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Finally, we completed our CIP duty for the day, from 10am-7:45pm (abt 9hrs, non-inclusive of lunch-break hrs). Overall, it was fun, enjoyable, enriching blah...blah...but I still hated the idea of going there again on Wednesday. -_-"
