Posts Tagged ‘Seik Yee’

We just had our AdvoChalet on the 8^th Jan at Costa Sands Resort at Downtown East. The purpose of the chalet is to let the students have fun and for bonding. Although it was not my first time go to the resorts, but it was my first time to join in the AdvoChalet. The events started at 2pm, but I arrived around 6pm with my colleagues.

However, the rain started when we reached. You may think that the BBQ cannot be done under such bad weather conditions, however, our 4 great heroes – Lynn, Darrell, Anisha and Adam were doing their best to save the fire. They were all drenched, while the others were hiding in the comfortable room. Then we found out that there was not enough food for everyone, so we headed down to the food court to have our dinner.

Next was the cake cutting session and the champagne popping. After that, coaches sent their wishes and blessing to students as two days later was the result release for O level students. After that, we had the Chinese traditional “yum seng” cheers. The energy was very high and everyone had a share of the champagne. The next event was bowling, we found out that there are a lot of talented players among students. And lastly, they decided to go pool and continue their challenge. Back in the room, we continued our day with playing cards.

Overall, students enjoyed themselves and had fun. However without our AdvoTeen Committee, the chalet will not be fun and success. Let us remember their efforts and the members – Anisha, Adam, Darrell, Rupini, Sandra and Farah.

AdvoChalet 2010 collage

-by Seik Yee-

Childhood memories are special for everyone. I have a very happy memory of my childhood. I was born into a big family which included my parents, and my 4 siblings. Although we were not rich, however, we enjoyed our life in general. I have a lot of fun memories of me and sisters playing in our backyard, playing hide-and-seek, climbing trees, going to park and beaches. When playing hide-and-seek, I was always the one hiding. We and our neighbour could play hide-and- seek and cops-and-robbers for hours on end. There were a lot of games and activities that we played during our childhood life, but now those games seemed to have vanished. The game that I miss the most is the “Pepsi Cola 123”.

When I was young, I will wait patiently for my father to come home from work. When the time he reached home, excitement will just jumped throughout my whole body. I will run over and gave him the biggest hug. My father liked to take us around to play, I and my sister will be very excited, and the excitement will always last for few days. As we grew older, we don’t even have much time to accompany them, sometimes we will be annoyed by their repetitious questions. When I think back, guilt will rise inside of me and I will be upset with my behaviour.

When I was young, all I wanted to do was be an adult or act like an adult. I liked to act like someone older like a teacher or doctor. It was once my childhood dream. When I am getting older, the desire to get back my childhood life becomes stronger and stronger. The childhood memories I remember as it was happened yesterday. I was once a mischievous girl, I was once a talkative girl, and I was once an active athlete…

While we are a child one would always only remember the good things in life. Only later one would remember the bad. If I have a time machine, I would like to take a tour back and have my childhood life once again.

Kindness by Seik Yee (with content from Readers’ Digest)

Are you kind?

An act of kindness can actually make people be happier and healthier. A study shows that those who regularly helped others had a better mental health and lower rates. Other studies found out helpful people were less likely to fall ill from chronic diseases, and tended to have a better immune system. A strong correlation exists between the well-being, happiness and health of people who are kind.

Kindness can help to regulate emotions, which has a positive impact on our health. If our built-in ‘fight or flight’ response becomes overactive due to stress, it affects our cardiovascular system and weakens the body’s immunity. It’s difficult to be angry, resentful, or fearful when one is showing unselfish love towards another person.

Kindness has another similarity with happiness- it can’t be bought.

One synonym for the word kindness is the term ‘humanity’. Kindness is essentially a recognition for the fact that we’re all human, an acknowledgement that we’re all in this together. Most of what make life worth living depends on at least some of us being humane some of the time. We cannot address problem like global climate change, the spread of disease and political violence by appealing only to selfish motives.

The good news is that it’s easy to train ourselves to be kinder. Kindness, then, is just a matter of choice – an attitude you carry with that you can make a difference, however small, in someone else’s life.

The researchers Bibb Latane and John Darley discovered a phenomenon known as ‘bystander effect’; when someone needs help in a public place, they are less likely to receive help if there are more people around. Researchers believe that the effect arises because everyone takes their cue from the crowd and assumes someone else will take responsibility. In big cities, people may also feel unsafe interacting with strangers.

I truly agree with the research, this will happen especially when in the train and bus. Most  people have the thinking that those who take the priority seats should give up their seats to people in need. But everyone can do this even though they’ve not taken the priority seats. The label of ‘priority seats’ is actually a reminder for everyone, not only for those taking priority seats.

Kindness can be expressed in various ways. Offering seats on the train or bus to someone in need, giving money to those in need, allowing cars to merge into traffic… all of these are acts of kindness. It doesn’t matter what motivates people to give, it simply matters that they have chosen to give in the first place. There’s no wrong to perform an act of kindness since the helper and helped both feel good. Kindness is not only a ‘one-way street’, but kindness can go both ways. Giving, in and of itself, can be great reward, but how is the giver affected? The giver can be rewarded in many areas, both psychological and physically. It seems like a win-win situation.

I believe kindness has to begin by ourselves. Sometimes we lock people out to keep ourselves safe, but that also isolates us from the rest of the world. Every major religion has love as a universal principle. Kindness takes love to gentler and more accessible level that most people feel comfortable with. Showing a little bit of kindness to people recognizes that everyone around you is just like yourself.

The implications of kindness are far reaching. Showing kindness even on a small level is a great start. Giving without expecting anything in return has its own rewards.

“One kindness act a day, keeps the doctor away”