Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Ubin! Lots of boats... some boat pictures taken at jetty..
=
+
The combined pict of the boats!
Pei Yee's foot!
Some more feet!
Oopsy, a poor island has split apart..
More and more smaller islands! Funny lolx.
Derek in the Twister game!
Ghim Siang looking for one of the raintree stories..
The cute girls of Greenlink!
And not to miss, the lovely goddess who came out of her compost house to take picture with the raintree!
Kenneth finding a plant picture in the twister game!
Seohying, Kai sheng, and er, who's the one bending his back?
Bonding! Everyone squeexed together! lolx.
Group picture! Seohying smiling so happily.
Looking at the small plant picts on the ground.. what are they?
Start of game! Huangzi giving out the paper strips.
Mm, which box do i have to step on?
The girls of greenlink! Peiyee having her back facing the camera..
The 16 boxes with the various plant pictures!
Recycling committee: Jasly and Mei Kwan!11:21 PM
hello hello!
some past events...=)
mayor meeting!
mk sure is glad to meet the mayor...
the biiig conference room was quite intimidating. hoho
someone trying to qiang3 jing4 tou2 hor..
3 babes. all very happy to meet the mayor.
Greenlink Orientation!
want to join greenlink? call jasly.
huangzi is super happy waiting for the j1s to come.
while mk, on the other hand, would rather zzzzzz~
we had quite a thrilling meeting outside, where lightning kept striking =/
and lastly,
miss president ah, tidy up ur hair! =p
hmm, now for the updates.
AIRPLANT!
Love is in the air~~~literally.
here's a poem =D
“Cupid heaved a hefty sigh,
And gave a mournful cry;
‘I’m no longer needed, I do declare,
For love now grows in the air –
In the form of … AIRPLANT!”
what do u think? heh...
AIRPLANTsss on sale from 12 feb to 14 feb!
Green links you and me~~
9:17 PM
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Hey Greenlinkers!What do you think of the new blogskin? It's hard to find a skin on nature that looks nice. I still prefer another skin, but that one has some problems. Once I get it fixed, I'll change it back ok! Oh yeah, the person who set up the tag board, can you add in the code for the tagbox? I don't have the account.
Haha yeah meanwhile those who have any idea how to use HTML can help tweak the blogskin a bit... coz my HTML is like... Ugh. I only copied and pasted the codes. :D
Alright... bye!
-seohying
10:51 AM
Sunday, January 20, 2008
“DON'T mind me saying, Greenlink is a sissy CCA.” Coming from a friend, it does hurt; but she was just a casual friend, so I treated her jab at my masculinity like a one night stand. Yet there was collateral damage to Greenlink’s reputation. It was a slap on our club activities, it was a slap on our members’ efforts, and it was a slap on our ideals and goals. In other words, Greenlink in her opinion lacked the qualities associated with the traditional male role, such as courage, strength, determination etc. Since it was not all these, then it must be the very opposite – the ‘yin’, epitomising passiveness, darkness, negativity, descend… Yet it is not, because Greenlink is a fast-flowing river, which we sail on our yatch for undiscovered waters.
The international green movement was thought to be born from the German Green Party in the 1980s, which contested elections based on the principles of environmentalism, sustainability, social justice, non-violence and democracy. Organisations such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth were formed to pressurise governments to take actions against ‘nature abuse’. Here, in sunny Singapore, the government was green from the start because it needed American greenbacks (and Japanese yen) for us to survive. We have the Nature Society of Singapore (NSS), Green Volunteers’ Network (GVN) and the Singapore Environment Council (SEC), just to name a few, which aim to promote ‘green’ awareness among Singaporeans and compel them to take action. And, of course, we have NJC Greenlink, sharing the same purposes, albeit acting on a smaller scale.
Club activities such as nature guiding, recycling and gardening help to promote green consciousness among students and the larger community; and sometimes involve saving the Earth directly. The most recent public event was the Energy Audit Project in Sembawang, where we conveyed the message of energy efficiency to more than 1000 residents. The conclusion to this project was a carnival comprising of games and exhibits which attracted more than 600 residents, further extending our outreach project. Of course, we also did gardening in our spice garden, recycling of can tabs and newspapers, and nature guiding in Pulau Ubin. However, I can hear the voice of my secondary school history teacher probing forcefully, “So what?”
“To ensure they are not ignorant of the environment.”
“So?”
“Then that they will take care of it.”
“So?”
“They will be taking ownership and responsibility of the environment.”
“So?”
“They will have a sense of belonging to the environment.”
“So?”
“They will work together.”
Precisely, once people work together, be it in terms of UN environmental conferences, carbon credit market; national laws and economic policies; and down to the most micro level of reusing plastic bags, saving the Earth will be a possibility. The world is so inter-connected that it is too difficult to dismiss the happenings of a distant place as having no impact on you. We are well-aware of that, hence our activities are not always restricted to school – they can be in Pulau Ubin, Sembawang, Ang Mo Kio and of course, overseas, for our seniors. In fact it is impossible for our activities to be held in school only, since community service is a major part of our programme. We are young students who through our activities seek to ignite passion in our community for Mother Earth. Our club activities are centred on this basic premise of igniting passion among students and adults, to get them thinking and take tiny actions which go a long way in helping nature. During a nature guiding session in Palau Ubin, some of the adults were clearly impressed with my knowledge despite being a young student. I hoped I inspired them, in the way some of the older and experienced ones inspired me with their vast knowledge. I could never have imagined myself as a nature guide, and Greenlink provided me with this unique opportunity.
At more pragmatic levels, Greenlink is an avenue of accumulating CIP hours. Fortunately, this community service is not your run-of-the-mill-type. River-keeping and HDB residential door-to-door visits to educate the public on energy conservation are meant to help both nature and people. Such grassroots interactions, literally, are hardly available to other students. At more pragmatic levels also mean that unlike other CCAs, funds are limited. But thankfully, collaborations with partners like Northwest CDC and GVN’s Grant Pereira give us exposure which money is unable to buy. The learning experiences are immense and extremely valuable. The Energy Audit Carnival in December 2007 was a hands-on lesson in real-life business skills. Accounting (the Art Friend receipts etc), human resources (who must do what), marketing (the games must be attractive), operations (how to manage the residents), procurement (where to buy the materials), research and development (how to build a model from pieces of wood), information technology (design the snakes-and-ladders mat), administration (paperwork for some) and public relations (some residents are not friendly). I wonder if any other CCA offers such all-rounded opportunities.
On a simpler level, Greenlink’s small number of membership inevitably leads to closer interaction among members than a large CCA could have allowed. Understandably, this small membership is also perhaps proof of its unpopularity. Yet strength can be drawn from a united and small band of brothers (or girls). I have always believed that quality is better than quantity and this holds true for past, present and maybe future. Small is indeed beautiful, not just for outsiders, but undoubtedly true for those within the club. Humour is another characteristic too; according to biology, within a small genetic pool, humour has a higher chance of occurrence because there is less variety of genes to pass down. Humour in literature can be ironic humour, grotesque humour, satirical humour and several others; but here it is uniquely known as green humour.
I have never regretted joining Greenlink. The question is, will I regret not joining Greenlink? I will not regret not joining Greenlink because I couldn’t have known the many opportunities ahead of me then. Would I have joined if I had heard it was a ‘sissy CCA’? I do not know. One thing is for sure, I’ve met great friends. They are warm-hearted, enterprising, adventurous, loyal, tenacious and honourable – nothing like ‘sissy’. They are the epitome of Nature's personality. They have influenced me to a large extent through their personal values. I believe I have also influenced them to a large extent. I was surprised and pleased to see Shrek on the club website giving Christmas greetings. My lasting legacy is definitely Shrek and the phrase ‘I love green’, which have entered the collective memory of past and present members. I sometimes wonder how I did it.
I have finally sailed down the river, right into its heart. It was only when I did gardening that I saw the whole world from the perspective of a plant. “My green thumb came only as a result of the mistakes I made while learning to see things from the plant’s point of view.” – Succinctly expressed by a fellow gardener. I hope we can link you and me with Green, in one single heart of greenness, and continue to plant a new seed of warmth in the world.
- To past, present and future Greenlinkers.
11:21 PM