I went PAH yesterday with T.H.E.S people! It's Putty-a-Home for me! Haha...

Okay, why do I say that? I barely did painting for the whole day!

My group consisted of T.H.E.S peeps & 3 other NUS people. We were supposed to paint this small-area with 2 doors near the main entrance, and the staircase area behind 1 of the doors. Before painting, we laid out newspaper on the floor and wrapped everything that was not to be painted with masking tape and newspaper. As the area outside was quite small for all of us, some of us decided to start with the staircase area. So I was 1 of them who went under the staircase to start work. We had to scrape off any peeling old paint before we can start filling any cracks with wall putty. Pei Jie happily scraped off the whole big piece of wall right under the stairs because a big area was peeling off. Then our group leader told us that we did not have to scrape off those we really could not scrape off, because we had to putty the whole wall as cement cannot be painted over! So in the end, instead of filling cracks, we puttied the whole piece of wall there! If you think wall putty-ing is easy, think again... I spent almost the whole day just putty-ing that wall, waiting for it to dry, filling up cracks that were not puttied the first round, re-putty-ing areas which the wall putty would not stay. In addition, there was this small area where a thick slab of cement + paint fell off, so we had to putty up the big hole! There were a lot of people taking turns to putty, but I was the one who stayed there most of the time. There was a point of time I went to paint, but I realized I CMI with height! It was more tiring painting with rollers attached to poles at high area than puttying the wall. Therefore, I gave up! Haha...

Interaction time was bad! We were supposed to play treasure hunt with the elderly so we would get the chance to interact with them. But the process was so confusing & I didn't enjoy it at all. I guess they overlooked the fact that the beneficiaries are elderly and some elderly were more reluctant to move, so it would take a longer time for us to invite them to participate in the games. To think they actually conducted a game that required speed. Imagine we had to play it in groups somemore! The elderly I interacted with kept asking me where we are going when we were trying to gather them in a group, and yet I could not give her an exact answer at all! By the time our group was formed, another group had already won! But we hadn't got started!!! Oh well...

Anyway, I nearly died of embarrassment during cleaning up. Boon Peng and I was clearing and unwrapping the newspaper. Someone was so smart to "masking taped" the CCTV cables! And it was really nicely wrapped! But the poor me who had to do the unwrapping had the most "enjoyable" time doing it! It was so difficult to remove the masking tapes as they were all stuck in a tangle that Boon Peng helped me borrow a pair of scissors to cut off some parts of the tapes. I felt like dismantling a bomb all the time! There were 2 cables connected to the CCTV which led to 1 socket point, so that person twined the 2 cables together. I was like tugging gently and cutting with care just in case I tugged off or cut off the cables by sheer force! After struggling with it for some time, even the home management people came out of the office! From what the guy who came out to look said to the lady still in the office, I guessed they were thinking who was messing with the CCTV because the CCTV tilted to different angles every few seconds while I was trying my best to remove the masking tape.

Nevertheless, the experience was great even though it was super tiring. I only felt the soreness at my back after the whole programme. Luckily, I got home in less than 10 minutes! Haha...