吴姗姗, Wu Shanshan-2-Day’s Volunteer at NKF

Three times a week, four hours of dialysis, many dietary constraints, this is the daily life of dialysis patients.
It’s the first time I get in touch with them so closely. But I find that they are more optimistic than I thought when faced with the disease. Several years of dialysis have made them numb.
Through the briefing and the conversation, they emphasized the importance of health again and again. Youth is not my chip to spend lavishly and I have to heed my body at the very beginning of my life.

沈舒涵 Shen Shuhan——One day in SUTD

WechatIMG960It is early that day, and it was the first time we arrived SUTD. We have imagined many times about what the school will be like, and out of our imagination, SUTD seems like a small town that contains everything suitable for students. There are four main buildings inside, and the four are all connected so that we can go from building 1 to building 2 very soon. And the classes here are quite interesting because we are having a java class, which is quite challenging.

After class, we went to the library. To my surprise, there are not as many students as ZJU. And the desks are suitable for study, so we can find a good place for study. We stayed in library for 2 hours and went to the canteen, we found that the food are delicious, so we try many different tastes. All in all, SUTD is a good place for students, both in study and daily life.

曹家扬 Cao Jiayang – The First Two Weeks in Singapore

 

Two weeks have passed since I arrived at Singapore. During the period, I wandered around our beautiful campus of SUTD, ate local food, had fun with TF LEaRN friends at NTU, served as a volunteer at NKF and also studied hard on and after class.

The first photo I post was shot at the lecture in NTU. There we learned about the history, the development, the object and other things about Temasek Foundation. I was deeply moved about its kindness and sense of responsibility to not only us students but also the society. And right during the lecture, the view really caught my eyes that there were different students from different countries as well as different universities in different colors sitting together, talking to each other even they were never acquainted. This strange thing happened because we share the same name as TF LEaRN students. That’s what surprised me indeed.

And the other was the decoration on the wall in NKF. We students from SUTD spent two nights there companying those kidney patients and playing Bingo game with them. At first I was extremely nervous and cautious as they were elderly people speaking foreign languages with severe illness. Fortunately then my fear got eased by those outgoing and friendly patients who were willing to talk with us and share their experience and feelings. Even for their illness, they hold an optimistic attitude, perishing their health and lives instead of dismay. I once read a motto ” Gain from the society, give back to the society” (“得诸社会，还诸社会” in Chinese), and I considered voluntary work just such a selfless and great job passing on love and responsibility to the society. If possible I am really glad to take part in more voluntary work like this in the future.

安晶琛 AnJingchen – Voluntary Work

This week was the first week to do the voluntary work in Singapore. The first program was NKF Bedok Dialysis Befriender, I have never been talking with dialysis patients before, and I don’t know how serious the situation the patients are in until I chat with them. Diabetes used to seem like a word that will never come to me and my only knowledge of that is from television. However, when I stepped into the patients’ room that day, it struck me that how hard can this disease can be. I used to think that I would see some grieve and sorrow faces under such sufferings, but instead, they appeared to be more optimistic and enthusiastic about life than normal people. Most of the time spent there was listening to elders’ stories and words for life, the one I was talking with was over 60 and what I learned most from him was never regret any choices you had made and make full of every day you are living in. Although Steve Jobs had said something similar to that before, but it became different when it came out from a dying man’s mouth at the scene. Their attitude towards life forced me to rethink about my future and the life I am living in that day. Do I make full of every day? What if tomorrow were my last day? Do I have any regrets in my life? These are the questions I have been asking to myself since that day.

It was also very fortunate that the patient I was talking with used to be a chef for chicken rice which is my favorite food in Singapore. At the end of the conversation, he invited me to visit his house and enjoy his cooking, I took the invitation with delight. That weekend, we had lunch together, he even taught me how to cook Chicken Rice! Needless to say, it was absolutely the best chicken rice I had ever had in Singapore. The kindness and optimism he had will always remind me to live full of everyday from now on.

熊卡尔, Xiong Kaer – Visiting the Singapore supermarket

The first time I visited a supermarket in Singapore was an interesting experience. At first, I was curious to observe the similarities and differences between Singapore supermarkets and Chinese supermarkets. I found that the varieties of goods in both countries are similar, but the self-service payment process in the checkout area is different from the domestic one: specifically, the self-checkout here. More emphasis on autonomy, users will scan and pay for themselves without the help of a teller.

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沈舒涵 Shen Shu han- Meaningful program

IMG_4379这是我们第一次参加TF计划。早上，我们第一次来到新加坡时就去了国大参加了仪式，我们遇到了来自不同学校的学生，其中许多来自中国。我们分为12组，我们开始自我介绍。之后，我们开始做游戏并穿上衬衫。在我们的小组中，我画了四只神奇宝贝去的照片，这表明了我们四所学校的友谊。我们彼此了解，最终成为好朋友。因此，这是我们与世界各地更多优秀朋友会面的好机会。

沈舒涵 Shen Shuhan—East Coast

Today we went to the east coast. In the beginning, we came here to find a delicious seafood restaurant, but after seeing the scenery of the coastline, all of us decided to take a walk around the coast before deciding what to eat. The beautiful scenery and the comfortable sea breeze have greatly relaxed my body and mind.

Also, we saw a pair of lovers standing on the  beach, this scene moves all of us. What a wonderful trip!841573922417_.pic_hd

史皓辰 Allen Shi-Dialysis Centre Befriender

On the 17th and 18th September 2019, we went to NFK Bedok Dialysis Centre for our very first CIP event. Our job was simple: to talk and chat with the dialysis patients at the centre and to do some recreational activities with them.

 

The experience in the dialysis centre was greatly touching. Before I took part in this event, I had little if any knowledge about dialysis, about kidney disease of any sort, and about how much pain a dialysis patient has to suffer. It turned out that people once diagnosed with kidney failure cannot but stick to dialysis for the rest of their lives, until they find a proper chance for organ transplant. The mechanical blood cleaning process is not all roses: pushing in the injector into a patient’s arm could be agonizing, as the needles were made very thick. Besides, the patients must visit the dialysis centre 3 times a week, 6 hours for one time. This could greatly strip the patients of their rights to properly work and live.

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I did face some challenges during the event. The first thing is that I have always been nervous about starting a conversation with total strangers, but people’s friendliness really pacified me well. I was very sensitive with the topic of dialysis and kidney disease, but the patients there were very open about discussing any subject. There was this elderly lady who could only speak Malay and a little English so that communication became a problem. Luckily we had one of her friends visiting her do the translation work. All challenges were overcome at the end of the day.