It's definitely worth it ;)

Today was a day of surprises... Both pleasant and unfortunate...

From a planned buffet lunch at Skycity's Fortuna (they are having a promotion of only $10 for lunch buffet till the 30th of April!!! But our reservation got declined cause it was fully-booked!!!), we ended up in a chinese restaurant...yi tiao long (trans: a dragon).

With a name like that, one would expect grand chinese cuisine prepared at its finest... Oh well, never judge a book by its cover @_@

First of all, the waiter literally slam our table when giving us our tea... He was so aggresive that Connelly nearly shitted in his pants... nah... Lol... We ordered our food that comes with bombastic names... Gossiped... Then I decided to make a trip to the toilet...

The shop lady took us on an 'adventure'. as we had to climb a flight of stairs and walked into an alley to use the toilet. She stuck her key in, the door flung open, and I went in. Sze wei who was accompanying me stayed outside waiting for me...

Aha, if you think a toilet trip would be boring for ms. Lulu aka me, you're so wrong!

I was emptying the fluid in my bladder when i heard someone trying to open the toilet door... Next thing I know, the door was slightly ajar and my pants were still down... I got such a shock and shouted out "Excuse me!!!" Then the door was slammed shut again... In my heart I was thinking wasn't Sze Wei outside guarding me??? How could this ever happen?????

Apparently, Sze Wei was slightly distracted by the bulletins nearby, and she 'went away from her post'..lol.. and out came this girl from a nearby shop with a key to the toilet... So... yeah.... hahahaha....

We went back to the restaurant, told Con and Wira about the incident, had a good laugh, and decided to take some pictures so I could blog about it later.

Then, the food came...

Looking at the food, we don't even know they were what we ordered... -.-'''

Tell me does this look like deep-fried pork and scramble eggs with rice?

the bakchoy looks pathetic...

Or how about this wanton delight with pork belly on rice?

I don't even know why it turn out good in pictures... trust me, it was NOT impressive at all on sight...


We were so disappointed with the food yet the company was great... Never a dull moment when we get to bitch about some juicy scandals or just goof around ;)

Then it was time for Sze Wei and I to go for our mentoring session in Manurewa. Personally, I was uncertain and praying hard that my mentees will turn up. Something happened between my mentees which I shall not disclose too much information, and might trigger them both to not appear for the session. Well, Darlene is my main mentee whom I'm closer to but she comes from a very unstable family, and Sharmayne is a mentee I'm gonna take over hence I haven't exactly form a bond with her..

Working with at-risk students in this mentoring program is definitely a challenge. Many a times we have our students fail to even attend classes, needless to say a mentoring session for 2 hours after school (3.15-5.15pm), and we have to make many trips to their homes, talk with their erratic parents, and deal with disappointments...

The most difficult part is actually to form constant communication with them as most of them come from families with financial problems, and only have one shared mobile phone in the whole household (most of the time in the hands of the parents of course). So, whatever text messages we sent to our mentees might not even reach them as their parents (who have moods) might just discard the message or not bothered to pass it on...

I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw Darlene, my darling. As usual, she hid herself in the library hoping to give me a fright, then came out giggling... No sign of Sharmayne and Darlene said she did not see Sharmayne in school. Our lovely Program Coordinator, Ann Dunphy asked me to just go ahead and focus on my original mentee, and we shall sort out the issues regarding Sharmayne later. Just delighted to see Darlene, we started off our session... and it went on so well~

Darlene just had their school term break for 2 weeks.

Before her break, we agreed to exchange at least 2 letters.. she wrote me 5~

She even gave me a picture of her and her sister for me to keep us remembrance... How sweet is that =)



Look at her lovely letters


That darling even sorted out her letters with themes.. The letter started off with "Hello", followed by "So Sorry" - Regarding a past incident, "Holidays", "I L Y" that stands for I Love You..awww..., and the last one, "Hi, Looking Forward 2 C U"...

To be honest, I was teary when I read through her letters..

All the heartache, patience, and perseverance seemed to all make sense now... This form of fulfilment is indescribable~


To top off the day, Sharmayne texted me around 7pm to apologize for not making it to the mentoring session today and she gave her reasons. Then we exchanged a few more texts and she promised me that she will definitely come next week, sounding all positive and excited~

I believe I have found my calling, and I'm on the right track...

It may be tough, scary at times, and deprives us off our energy and inner strength...BUT...

It's definitely worth it ;)