It only struck me today to blog about it after the 3rd time this happens.

Anyways, was going home from sch as usual, and went to buy my fav bubble tea (whee) and some lunch to eat at home. Walking to the bus station, there was a girl who stopped me and asked for a donation.

Usually I don't like ticket donations, because they involve some obscenely huge amount(huge for a donation IMO)I asked who was she doing it for and she said it was for SMU CIP.

Wah it really brings back memories of my NUSSU Flag Day - was hell. This girl is so lucky, the whole Jurong interchange only have her walking around trying to sell the tickets. When I was doing my Flag Day, it was competition everywhere. Students vied to get the best hotspots, and there were so many of us that when you ask people to donate, everyone says they donated already -_-|||

Anyway so in the end I donated that $2 for a ticket that I probably wouldn't use. She was really happy at selling off another ticket, who wouldn't? If you ask me to choose between shit work and CIP, I would choose shit work unless that shit work is really too shitty to be done. I bet that out of the whole Singapore student population, only 10% would bother to volunteer to do this kind of things. No wonder it's mandatory for all the students now (except for uni level cuz I doubt if NUS makes it compulsory, but SMU is I think).

Which again comes to the point - I'm in essence just donating to help that poor girl clock her CIP hours and finish her task so that she can go and do her own things. My mum has always tried to instill a sense of duty to donate to the needy whenever I can, but I don't think it worked too effectively in the end because as I grew up, I thought it was rather stupid to just donate blindly to anyone I see. Furthermore, I didn't really feel very gracious to be throwing out my money so easily just because it's under a name of charity. There had to be more than just that to donate. If I don't have the real heart to do it, I feel like I'm a hypocrite, someone who just wants to donate to look good in front of others.

Right now, all the times I've donated was only because people bothered to make the effort to ask me (should applaude them for the effort), and because it made me remember how tough it is to get donations after numerous scams have plagued the charity scene even up till now. So I donate as a erm... ex- fellow- helper.

Speaking of effort, a certain relative of mine called up my house one day wanting to speak with my mum. My sister took the call instead. Turns out his daughter was selling tickets for her school and he asked if we could buy for her. After ending the call, my sister told us and me and mama's reaction was immediate.

"Huh! Buy tickets again? How many times already!"

What made us jump was because time and time again, our relative kept persuading us to buy tickets to support his child's school raising fund. That's the thing with prestigous schools. They have god-knows how many alumni and wealthy parents supporting them backstage, but the kids still have to sell tickets to raise more money for them. As if they weren't rich enough already, look at their school facilities. (*snort*) The worse thing is if they can't sell it off, usually they are forced to buy the rest of the unsold tickets. Then the school will probably go "yadayada we sold off all the tickets thanks for your great support and love for the school!" Bullshit.

I have never attended a prestigous school, not even up till JC. All were neighbourhood schools. But at least when we do fund raising, they never forced us to buy all the unsold tickets, at the most only persuade us to "try harder". I still remember while selling the tickets for JJC, it was ok to return the unsold tickets, I saw people collecting them at a booth. Ok la given that usually there are more people who aren't so rich in neighbour schools, but still it's outrageous to force people to buy all of them. This is not the attitude one should have to face when helping to sell tickets - because it's a you-pay-or-I-pay-and-school-still-wins situation. So unfair right?

But what I was most against was the fact that my uncle actually had to call on behalf of my cousin. What is so embarrassing (if any) to ask us directly herself? If she can so freely claim to be a student of a prestigous school, what's so hard to sell tickets from her school then? Suddenly turn shy? She's a teenager, with capacity to think and act on her own but ends up having to get her father to do the job for her. Personally I feel that this is more of a humiliation than having to beg her relatives to buy her tickets.

Well, good luck to her at any rate. I sincerely hope she can sell off those tickets, but with more effort.

Labels: thoughts

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