asean+3 youth festival

Alright they said I cannot divulge anyfreakingthing about the Asean Youth Festival (AYF) Race I was involved in until after the event so I guess it's safe now 'cos even though other AYF events are still ongoing, the AYF Race is over.

Yes! xy volunteered to be a Station Marshall for the AYF Race (ie. Amazing Race). Can anyone believe it?? I couldn't myself, either, that I actually volunteered for something. No money involved leh! It was really fun seeing all kinds of youths from the Asean countries (plus 3 others: Japan, Korea, China). And the finale had Eunice Olsen present so, naturally, I got a photo with her. Anyone wants to take it to sell?? Haha.

My checkpoint was at the National Library at Bras Basah and I CANNOT BELIEVE HOW ANAL THE PEOPLE THERE ARE. Firstly, when my partner and I arrived at the plaza (Read: PUBLIC SPACE), we slotted our checkpoint poster as such:

Quicker than you can blink, security and 2 other staff from the library pounced on us, saying we're not allowed to put up posters of any sort without permission from the library because it is still library grounds. So, fine, that regulation we can understand. We took our poster down.

When our first group of delegates arrived, I sent in one delegate who's going to do the task of looking for information (call numbers, info from books etc) with the group's Liaision Officer to keep an eye on the delegate. Immediately, they came back telling me they got barred from entering the library. Take note that they were in AYF t-shirts and had the AYF lanyard displayed.

I was really quite mad at the library, so I took my quiz sheet and marched in, demanding why my people can't go up the library. The security persons told me "Sorry, you cannot have a amazing race inside the library without permission". Telling them that I was from THE NATIONAL YOUTH COUNCIL didn't help, so I brought our xy's War-Of-Words artillery. I argued that we were in NO WAY having a freaking race in the library. We were doing WHAT OTHER LIBRARY PATRONS WERE DOING, and that is to LOOK FOR BOOKS. I showed them my quiz sheet as further proof of their narrow-mindedness (it seemed to me they couldn't get past the "RACE" word, and didn't realise no one was running/screaming/shouting in their library). Then, I asked which REGULATION WE'RE VIOLATING and guess what? They COULDN'T BLOODY GIVE US AN ANSWER. Right, kudos to you guys. In the end, I managed to wrangle a compromise, which was that only one person at a time can go up. Fine. That's good enough for me.

So the games go on, and the day grows long. After our 4th group left and the 5th group came to gather around us at the plaza (read: PUBLIC SPACE), the security person came to grate my nerves again. This time, she said that GATHERINGS ARE NOT ALLOWED without permits from the library. I was totally ready to blow my top all the way to Pluto (not a planet anymore but, I digress) and back. So you're telling me that even though this is PUBLIC SPACE where everyone and anyone GATHERS to do projects/discussions/picnics (yes I saw) etc, because we are from NYC and doing a RACE, I cannot gather here? Even when we were doing our not-so-noisy cheers, I noticed that the patrons at nearby Han's didn't even grant us more than a passing glance. Yes, I bothered to check that people were not being disturbed, yet we still got barred once and finally thrown out, twice.

I moved the groups to Bras Basah Complex and phoned in to the AYF committee to inform them of the going-ons. Only the manpower head praised me for work well done. But that's ok, I was just doing my job, didn't really expect compliments for it. Furthermore, it was marginally fun verbally-sparring with the library people and see what CRAPSHIT they can come up with.

We managed to clear 2 more groups at Brash Basah Complex before we had to close our station to move elsewhere for the finale, and then a debrief...

...which at (the debrief) I totally lost my cool again. The director of the AYF Race expressed his gratitudes and gladness at the Race and starting issuing compliments to certain stations. I didn't expect my station to garner any praises since the committee didn't visit us (except for when I first phoned in to inform of security troubles). However, what I didn't expect was for the director to untactfully term the stations which he didn't praise "those who didn't manage as well as you guys did" ('you guys' refers to those he complimented). I took the insult personally, because I felt that remark was fully and unjustly uncalled for. I'm not sure about the performance of the other station masters, but seeing that they're on the whole a very enthusiastic group who can take initiatives and are nice (for lack of better word), I'm ready to assume that none of the station masters conducted anything that was not up to par. So, not only did the director do injustice to all station masters not brought up in his "honour roll", I was offended because he didn't appreciate one bit that I went all out and argued with the anal library people for as much concession as I could get in order for my station game to carry on smoothly.

Imagine if I didn't know what to do, or didn't bother to speak with the librarians? Imagine if I insisted the committee come down to the library NOW (from wherever they were) to speak with the stupid people and negotiate something for us? Imagine if I did that, all the groups coming into my station would have backlogged at the national library, thereby throwing the schedule and timing of the Race out of whack and screwing up all their sweat-and-blood plans. But did I do that? Noooo. I took the risk of getting myself forever barred from the library (maybe they can remember my face). I also didn't expect the committee to go to the library just to check on us 'cos I managed to get things under control, but they did.

It's one thing to be thrown into a situation I did not put myself into in the first place (why didn't the committee get permit from the library???), and it's still ok with me if you don't credit me for saving the day. But to flip the switch and say I didn't "MANAGE AS WELL" as others did? I take full frontal offence at that. Screw you, you obnoxious, pompous and untactful ass. You do not deserve to be head of such big events, and shame on you for being such a two-headed serpent in your world of charity and youth events. No better than Durai, father Kang and the monk.

Otherwise, my partner was a real swell to work with. He was very adept at team-bonding games and is King of Asean Trivia, in my books. This is he, Jason, who is part-Thai and part-don'tknowwhats, very mixed-blooded Eurasian. Mini-Asean unto himself, haha.

One of the groups:

We forfeited them with 10 pushups per minute that their teammate (the one doing the task) is late in reporting back to us. The first group did 150 pushups in total.

This is a Laotian doing his traditional dance, a forfeit also. Very graceful, for a male.

The finale stage, with a really nice backdrop of the Fullerton area. It was a beautiful day, bright and sunny and breezy. Regretted that I didn't bring my Oakleys though, too glaring it was.

Eunice Olsen, and I. I like the big bouquet she was carrying. Someone get me something like that! Haha.

The event was covered on last night's news on Channel NewsAsia. It was quite intimidating (for me) to have to cheer in front of a camera, but the rest of the group seemed up to task. So I tried to put on my best smile without rolling my eyes. Sorry, I'm just anti-social that way. Can't find an article on it though, so I guess it didn't make the print news. Maybe they'll cover the closing ceremony instead.

Back to libraries, I seem to get into a lot of trouble with librarians, and the librarians I've encountered are anal. First incident was the one at RJ library back in 2006, and then now this. Irony of it all, I'm the one who's most likely to be a librarian. I take care of my books to the extent that I would scotch tape up any falling pages. Maybe librarians are really good at sniffing out employment competition and they see potential competition in me.

RIGHT. Don't want to be librarian.

Backtracking a little, I saw the most glorious sunset on my way home on Monday. The sky was a really pretty pink, and the clouds were in streaks that looked like bold brush strokes. Can't help but think that God makes a really talented artist, as He does in everything else. It felt so serene to walk the jungle path (across the railway tracks) with the pinkened sky around me, as though I was in a different world.