Working with Children Check and a bit about me.

Recently, I enquired about volunteering at the Down Syndrome Association.

I got hooked up to their volunteering department which told me to get my Working with Children Check and Police Check done before I could do any work.

Here in Australia, you need to apply for a Working with Children Check in order to work with children, volunteer or not. It is how the Australian government protects its young ones. So thats what I did!

I like working with children.

Well, most of the time..except when they run all over me and start pulling my hair.

But usually, working with them brings me great joy. I guess you can say I feel very "motherly" or in another perspective, "clucky".

I grew up as the eldest sister looking after two very naughty little brothers. Not to mention, I am ranked 5th in the hierarchy of cousins from my father's side. There are 16 of us, of which most of the younger ones I saw grow up. I like and still love my role as bigger sister which brings me to my next point.

The reason I picked the Down Syndrome Association rings close to my heart.

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The one thing I regret about coming to Australia is missing out on my brother's life. The brother that frustrates me sometimes, makes me ecstatically happy the next, and lets me sit back and wonder most of the time whats in that little head of his.

His name is Luke. He's the middle child. He's down syndrome and autistic. And I love him to bits.

Being here, so many miles away from home, I don't regret leaving Singapore, I don't regret leaving my family and friends behind, but I do regret not being there for Luke. It pains me to know that I can't rejoice in his every improvement; the new word he learnt, the sentence he haphazardly strung together, the new ideas he formed in his head. I'm sad that I'm missing out on all that. His hugs, his grumpiness, his laughter, his hand movements, his OCD, his no-urgency walk as if nothing else exists in this world except for him and his toys even if his life depended on it!

I miss him.

Sometimes, I wish I could do more for him. When I'm back home for holidays, I want to spend time with him but its hard. Luke likes his solitude. Nothing irritates him more than if you disturb his nice little perfect world.

I guess I'm not doing this cause I feel obligated to Luke. No, no. But I think I take it more as a dedication of my time in Luke's name. Plus I think it'll be exciting to relive those moments I've had with Luke in those little kids lives!

I'll blog about it when it happens!

Sidenote: This volunteering thing is actually pretty hard because their bulk of volunteering happens during my work hours! Ahhhhhhh!!!!!

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Anyway,

Dear Lukey,

If only you'd know that you inspired me to do this. And that I'm dedicating this volunteering in your name!

Miss you and Happy Belated 19th Birthday!!

Love,
Jie jie =)

Here are some photos I dug up taken wayyyyy back in 2004!! We look so young then!!

Mozzy Love

I don't have a penchant for buying bracelets/bands in support of organisations or causes because I usually don't know what to do with them after! I know I'm a bit of a hoarder so I try to stay away from things that turn into junk!

But this one attracted me like a bee to honey.

1) Because if you know me by now, I'm a person who absolutely ADORE colourful things and this one has just the prettiest colours!

2) Ever since my Honours year researching on mosquitoes, anything to do with these little biters brings up a fire in me like no other. Maybe cause I got to know them just a little bit more better? I don't know.

So as my bit for the world, with this little bracelet I hope somewhere out there, there's a little child whose risk for malaria is lowered because she's got a mosquito net to sleep in. =)

Gold coins

Remember I once said that I had difficulty giving my gold coin to the homeless man on the street?

And that I would rather offer him a meal so as to prevent those that use my money for other "luxuries"?

Well, I gave a gold coin away one of the days.

I'm pretty proud of myself still.

Previously, I wouldn't have bothered but this time, I decided to give.

I was in a bit of a rush, and truthfully, was more scared to offer him a meal than to drop him a gold coin.

Oh well, next time.
It'll only get better.

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I did drop another gold coin recently too.

But not into the hands of a beggar, but into a guitar case.

A guitar case of a busker giving out her all on Bourke Street, Melbourne.

Strumming away, belting out the blues, and swaying to the tune of her own song.

A gold coin for encouragement I say!

Bravo!

A New Direction

So, for the month that I was away from this blog, my Project of Love took a different direction.

When I first started this project, it was to "do random acts of kindness each day" in order to make somebody smile.

After a month's trial, I found it a little too restrictive for my liking.

When I first envisioned this project, I saw myself volunteering, helping out people in need but I didn't think out the specifics of my project properly. Yes, I saw images of those people that I helped smiling but it didn't occur to me then that I could expand my service territory to those out of my reach. That my Project of Love didn't have to be restricted to the immediate people around me, but also to the ends of the earth, directly or indirectly.

How? In so many ways. The easiest one I can start with is to support various causes/disasters/foundations around the world that I feel passionate about, like when I donated to an aid in Haiti after the earthquake. I do not know what happened to that money; whether it was to buy a family food and shelter or whether it was to supply medical equipment or whether it was even used at all. But I would still like to think that I made a difference somewhere. That my money was used to buy a smile out there, half way across the globe. Which is why I've decided that "making somebody smile each day by doing random acts of kindness" is not enough.

That this Project of Love is now here on expanded to "doing acts of love". It has become more ambiguous and I like that. That I am not bounded by definite boundaries but released to do whatever I want, however I like it.

That "Project of Love" has ceased to be restrictive but has become all encompassing.

We're All in This Together

Sometimes, when I'm discouraged or when I feel like giving up on this project, or when I get those moments where I ask myself "What did I get myself into?" or "Why on earth am I doing this?"...

I look through this video and remind myself that this project is as important to the people around me.

That even though my acts are small, and that I am only but ONE person,

I can make the difference.

http://http//www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4NlyZqJhwk&feature=related

I know you'll be as thought-provoked and as encouraged and inspired as I am when I watch this.

I highly recommend it.

Tell me what you think k?

The MasterChef in me.

Since this is a back log of almost a month's worth of "love projects", I've decided to clump a few into 1 post!

So there I was one night thinking of what I could do to make people's lives a tad happier. Two things came to mind:

1) The way to a man's heart is through his stomach.

2) I remember Adrian once whining to me he wanted cookies.

So me being a not-so-fabulous cook decided to "try" out baking!! Here's the catch: since I was giving these to people, I decided not to be so adventurous by burning down the whole kitchen, instead I decided to use pre-mixed powder! (I know its not very impressive but better delicious than bitter and burnt.) Hee.

So off I went to Safeway and bought Betty Crocker's Milk Chocolate Chunk Cookies!

To cut the long story short, I made a whole batch of about 24 cookies and gave it out to a few people. 1 of them being Adrian. They were quite surprised when I handed them their batch of cookies. Smiles galore! =D

Anyway, I thought they were delightfully delicious!

You can never go wrong with trusty old Betty Crocker which brings me to my next point.

A few weeks later, in gratitude to my lab for doing such a wonderful job in cleaning out the lab for an inspection, I made them Cinnamon muffins!! Of course Betty Crocker style but with an added twist! I mixed in raspberries and bananas in the muffin mix as well.

They turned out absolutely heavenly. I'm going to make them again some time soon.

With all these baking success with pre-mixed powder, I've decided that maybe, just maybe I might be ready for the real world. =)

A few photos of my baking expedition.

First off: Cookie Cowabunga!

Second: Muffin madness!

Tadah!

Cinnamon banana muffin with raspberry goodness.

And along with that, I also made Konnayaku Jelly (which I think I'm pretty good at) for my colleagues. However, they weren't all that keen on the jelly as jellies in Australia tend to be very soft - the kind that you can squeeze/mash through your teeth! So the texture of Konnayaku was a bit weird for them to handle but they ate it nonetheless!

Yum. Yum. Yum.

=D

Laziness is a terrible habit.

I'm actually all snuggled under the doona as I type this entry using my phone.

I just wanted to say sorry.
Sorry that I haven't been updating.
Being lazy is a terrible terrible habit that I have.

Remember I said in the first entry that keeping this blog going would be much harder than the project itself? Turns out I know myself too well. =(

Anyhow, through the encouragement of some friends, I've decided to keep persevering with the blog entries!!

About the project, not to worry, it's still been going even though I haven't been updating!

As for this blog, I've decided that...maybeee I won't blog every day but I'll definitely post up the more interesting entries/activities I do!

So once again, thank you for being my faithful followers, encouraging me when I need it most.

Love you guys!!
MUACKS!

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With that, I leave you with a rather weird photo of me. Haha, its not meant to be scary. I think its funny. I helped Mack with one of her weekly photo shoots aka homework. She's got to pick a photographer she wants to represent and, present a photo that best embodies his/her work. For this shoot, she picked a Japanese photographer (can't remember the name at the moment) and tried to replicate a photo he did. She asked, and I helped! So there I was cloaked in tons and tons of Mack's foundation (she wanted me as white as possible) with REALLY RED lipstick and THICK BLUE eyeshadow. Think I scared myself. Anyhow, this was after the shoot. I thought I looked more like a ghost from an asian movie more than anything so I played with some shots myself. Haha.