Volunteering at Red Cross Singapore

Red Cross Singapore official website

Yesterday I spent the entire day volunteering at Red Cross Society Singapore, for Japan Earthquake relief efforts. Red Cross Society Singapore is accepting cash donations for Japanese relief aid - NOT donations in kind - all this week and throughout the next month.

The reason why they can't accept donations in kind is because there are no logistics available for RC Singapore to collate goods from various sources. It takes a lot of time to sort and organize items, and sometimes people donate really useless things like toys and books.

It's almost as if it's spring cleaning, and Singaporeans want to get rid of old things in their house under the pretense of "doing a good deed." -.-

Ways of Donating

It was a wonderful time I had volunteering, and if there was EVER a time that I felt Singaporeans were charitable and kind... it was yesterday.

Examples:

Two mothers came in, on separate occasions, with autistic kids to donate.

Two Bangladeshi workers came in to donate a couple of hundred dollars each.

An entire Mandarin-speaking family came in with an envelope and dropped off close to three thousand dollars worth of money collected from various sources.

A young man donated, and then wanted a donation box to be placed outside his shop.

A China-native came in and dropped off fifty dollars but did not want to be credited despite our insistence due to audit purposes.

A young 4 year-old was led in by her father, clutching a piggy bank, and right in front of us, she emptied its contents to donate to the relief fund.

I was really really touched. I think I teared up a little in the 3 o'clock hour, because there was this entire wave of people who dropped off money repeatedly, and as I thanked them most of them said, "Why are you thanking me? This is what we should be doing."

(Btw, I visited Japan in 2007 during a school trip and it was honestly one of the best trips I have ever had. I agree with Gwen Stefani that Harajuku is one of the most memorable places I have ever visited. So of course I had to volunteer, and I donated money as well.)

I met a couple of great, wonderful people too. No photos here to go up with them - YET - but there was Mari, a wonderful Japanese young woman who was beautiful and articulate. She was truly a global citizen, having had studied in Pennsylvania, parts of Europe and was now working in Singapore. Thankfully her family was on the West Coast of Japan and hence was not hit.

There was Ivy, a Singaporean who, like me, stayed on past her shift. She was funny, cheerful, and she was in the midst of learning Japanese because she planned to visit in December. She had to put her plans on hold... but she swears she will go back very soon someday to help in reconstruction efforts, something I wish to do as well.

There was Wayne, a really great, tough, mature guy whom I honestly liked the first minute I saw him. If I had an older brother I would have wanted it to be Wayne.

OK, funny story about Wayne and me...

Wayne came on the second shift, the shift I stayed on for despite not having signed up for it. When the second shift rolled around, I was supposed to roughly teach people what to do since I had already a few hours' experience to my credit.

This incredibly buffed, tanned guy, wearing a tight muscle polo tee-shirt came in, talking to another buffed, tanned guy, in a long-sleeved shirt, and when I was told they called in to volunteer together, I thought to myself, "Oh, they're definitely gay."

So when Wayne, in his polo tee, showing off his biceps, and his companion came around to me, the first thing I asked him was, "So how long have you two been together?"

He looked at me with a puzzled expression.

"Together?" He asked. "With who?"

The first moment he spoke I thought to myself, Oh shit. He had none of the usual swish a "Muscle Mary" had when talking.

Definition!

Muscle Mary, noun: a really muscular, buffed gay guy who spends countless hours working out in the gym to achieve a phenomenal physique, but when he opens his mouth the voice of a diva comes out. Usually dances with all the manliness of Kylie Minogue.

I tried saving my ass. "Oh, you mean you aren't...?"

His companion, T, looked at Wayne and burst out laughing. "Oh, no! Definitely not, dear!"

OK, so Wayne wasn't gay. Can't say the same about T, though.

They turned out to be only colleagues and they had decided to volunteer together two days before. The final nail in the coffin?

During a break, I overheard Wayne telling T, "Oh, man. I miss soccer so much. I used to be a damn good striker in JC, then I got an injury and my coach shifted me to defender."

Soccer? Gay, schmay.

So by the end of the whole day, I was really impressed with the inner beauty of Singaporeans.

But as I was going home, as if to tell me "Don't get your hopes up", God sent me a little incident.

As I was crossing the road, I heard a shout. Two Singaporean drivers, each in their own wonderfully expensive and well-maintained car, had their windows rolled down and was having a shouting match. I have no idea what they were shouting over - what can you shout over in the middle of the road anyway? - but there were vulgarities thrown about, middle fingers, angry expressions, and at one point in time one driver's friend, who was in the backseat, rolled down HER window to join in the verbal catfight.

Oh God, you are ever the realist.

Anyway, I took two photos with the volunteer organizer Ms Faridah and another Japanese volunteer, Ms Soroyo. When I get them I'll post them up!

Please do come down and help if you can! Next week's slots are all full but you can call now to reserve a place for next NEXT week!

Below: a video from CNN to show just how important our support and help is at this crucial point in time for Japanese citizens!

Volunteer with RC

Spell It Out For Me

Yesterday night was so much fun!!!

Went out clubbing again, and for a change this time around, I DIDN'T waste myself! For the past two weeks, I was bouncing around, talking to random people, drinking abundantly, and before the night was over I would be more wasted than Lady Gaga's talent in Singapore.

But yesterday I regulated my drinking. No dinner drinks, no pre-clubbing warm-up shots, only an apple cider, glass of white wine and store-bought LIT before entering the club, and only a cranberry rum after I entered! Woohoo.

As a result, yesterday I was very lucid. Still, because the music was extremely good - David Guetta and J.Lo back to back! - I managed to dance up a storm with my campmate/fellow clubber friend M. Also M's self-proclaimed fag hag friends were there as well, and it was fun hearing them dish on the gay guys and lesbian fights taking place around them.

And, get this: Remember that date I spoke about in Anti-Valentine's Day? The one I thought was into me, but turned out to be avoiding me?

I bumped into him yesterday night in the club! I was totally gracious toward him. We're cool, man, we're cool.

But a part of me couldn't help wondering, "What went wrong?" As you know, I thought the date went pretty well, and so I almost bounded after him to ask, "Hey, mind telling me what turned you off?"

Thank God for Issac, one of my incredibly-good friends, who kept me from going after him and demanding an explanation. In the end I just let it go, chalking it up to one of those things that just wasn't meant to be, a myriad of misperceptions and misunderstandings.

We're cool man, we're cool.

See, here's the thing. I'm very much like a straight guy in the sense that you have to spell it out for me. I'm extremely EXTREMELY bad at taking hints, as many of my friends will tell you. I am terribly bad at assessing my surroundings, and I have to work hard at my situational awareness especially in cases where emotions are running high. In the end I am more likely to crack a really inappropriate joke that will either defuse the tension or make it 100% worse.

So if you are on a date with me, and something I'm doing isn't to your liking, you need to make it clear to me what I'm doing wrong. And by 'clear' I don't mean little "er-hems" that are supposed to mean something to me other than you have phlegm in your throat.

(Yes. I'm a blockhead that way. Think Phil Dunphy from Modern Family.)

Of course I'm not stereotyping straight guys. I know some who are very savvy at EQ, and are able to play out emotions like a member of a professional bomb squad.

But I'm not like that. I can actively change what I'm doing, shut up, or try to improve the situation, but only if you make it obvious there is something about me you're not getting. Otherwise, it won't go anywhere with me, and you'll end up still being frustrated.

And of course, I won't be able to read if you're not into me. It's a skill I'm working on - please do not forget I'm only 19 years of age - so I need a lot of spelling-it-out-for-me in this aspect. Don't start avoiding me, because then I'll start messaging you with things like, "Dude. Are you alive?"

Of course after a while I'll get the hint and back off, but it would really save me some time and self-doubt if you would just take the small effort to text back, "Hey. I think we should be friends for now."

I would text that to you if, on my side, I felt things weren't going right, so I expect the same courtesy. How difficult can that be?

"Girl, give it up! He's just not that into you."

A Funny Dynamic

Yesterday I was at another camp for a course, and it was only during lunchtime that I remembered my best friend was actually posted in that camp!

My best friend is straight, so it's a funny dynamic we have. Most of the gay people I know have only best friends who are gay, and their circle of friends tends to also be exclusively AJ.

Of course it's expected, because nothing bonds two people more than a common trait like sexual orientation.

But why make things so exclusive?

Can't a straight guy be best friends with a gay guy?

First of all, I have to admit I have some very un-AJ tastes. Sure, I love Lady Gaga and Katy Perry and don't get me started on the Wonder Girl Taylor Swift, but my favorite band in the world is Angels and Airwaves.

I love their fantastic intros, space-inspired atmospherics, experimental style and varied themes. What's more, lead singer Tom DeLonge was formerly (presently?) of another fantastic band Blink 182, and their current bassist Matt Wachter was also formerly from the great great 30stm.

My best friend loves AvA too, and we both attended their first concert in Singapore in 2008.

On top of that, we share a devotion to FRIENDS, and it's funny how we used to quote lines back and forth at each other at rapid speed. I love Phoebe most, while he loves Chandler.

That's not the only TV show we love... SURVIVOR is another big part of our shared entertainment interests. He thinks Russell Hantz's the best, I think Rob Mariano was a hoot back in Survivor: Heroes vs Villains. What a coincidence season 22 features both of them in opposing tribes.

We had both joined canoeing back in our junior year, and we both share a love for fitness and health, what with him being all tall and muscular and an officer-to-be, and me having a weird fascination with pull-ups. We've swam and just hung out at his condo's pool many times.

But go beyond that... and what do we have?

How about a support system?

At first, when I texted him about my relationship woes and troubles, he always ignored them. He would either not respond, or later tell me, "Dude... I don't want to hear about your gay issues!"

My response would be, "I always listen to your girl issues, so could you at least listen to my guy problems? You don't even have to give advice."

It was only fair! He complied with that agreement for a while, until finally he actually said, "OK, why don't I don't tell you any girl stuff at all, and you don't tell me any gay guy stuff!"

That hurt. So I couldn't rely on him to give me a good outsider's point of view when I had relationship woes. I realized maybe our friendship didn't transcend the sexual orientation barrier, which was tragic.

Then recently, I was getting over a really bad couple of weeks where I had been emotionally played. I drunk-texted him rather whinily at 2 am in the morning, something like, "Why doesn't he like me anymore? When he was the one who started this?"

And to my surprise, he texted me back, telling me something like don't be sad, and move on. And word-for-word, quote-unquote, "Just go date someone else."

I was really surprised. And let me tell you, nothing helps you get over heartbreak like your best friend doing a 180 degree spin on his head.

Not only did he absorb the gravity of my emotion, but he actually offered advice!

So... after four years, something finally gave.

Why is he my best friend? He knows how completely and utterly "useless" I am in the armed forces, but doesn't care. ("Hm, why do they still send you on course?") He knows there are better places out there for me. ("Singapore's not open enough...") and of course, he expects me to be his listening ear too. ("I'm gonna get a girl end of this year man hahahaha!")

What more could a guy ask for?