ICE.COLD.COFFEE
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Valentine's day
VALENTINE'S DAY.
It's a torture.
Not because I don't know what to give my girlfriends,
not because I don't know what to wear for my date,
and definitely not because I don't have a date (yah, no date!).
It's because I of the horticulture delivery thing with TJ.
If you realised, I haven't blogged for more than a week. 9 days to be exact.
I've been terribly busy with the flowers that everyday I reach home at 7plus. And even then, I don't get to rest completely because I need to call up the members, arrange timetables for manning the booth, call the TJ side to arrange what wlll happen on the actual day and stuff. You can't imagine how much work I've done. Trust me, it's a whole mountain of work!
Well, let's start the story right from the beginning. Then everyone can appreciate the amount of work I've done.
Warning: this will be a super long post. Prepare yourselves. Go to the toilet first if you must. Haha...
Some day in the first week of the year
Discussed the delivey idea with Li Yue. I tell Li Yue almost everything about horti. Esp before I suggest new ideas, cos I need assurance that it's not a stupid idea. She thought it was great! Felt good to have someone support it.
Told Melissa about it. She supported too.
(With more confidence now) Suggested it to Mrs Chuah (horti teacher in charge). She was unsure that the idea would work and seemed quite certain that the response would not be good. I assured her that everything would turn out well. I'll see it through. It'll be a success!
She said ok.
Day of cca walkabout, 4th January
I would be busy with my SMU course and decided that I won't be able to be in charge of V day. Mrs Chuah put Jia Yan and Melissa in charge instead. I would be their assiatant.
I really wanted to be in charge though. It's my idea and I want to do it!
Some time before Chinese New Year
I promoted myself to become co-in-charge of V day together with Melissa and Jia Yan. Melissa had SAT and would be busy. Jia Yan wouldn't be able to handle it alone.
Besides, the course at SMU wasn't as tiring as I expected.
And I was the only one who used to order from the florist and I would probably be the one doing it this time too. Since I have to do so much, might as well get the title I deserve.
Told Mrs Chuah about my decision.
The TJ side also suggested doing this venture with NYJC and TPJC since they had contacts. I was very interested. Since we were going to do it, might as well do it big right? Mrs Chuah objected and I blamed her for being too convervative (not out loud of course). In the end, it was only TJ because TPJC replied too late anyway.
23rd to 27th January
Started working on the order forms, posters and setting the selling prices.
Had to meet after school on the day of the TJ CNY carnival to finalise forms and posters so me and Melissa reached TJ quite late.
2nd Feburary, Thursday
Initial plan: make announcement for V day venture and give out order forms.
But the CT (civics tutorial) council and house comm said they wanted to do a V day thing in VJ which comprises of all the V day booths involved. Ok, announcement postponed to Monday.
3rd Feburary, Friday
CT council said announcement had to be shifted to Tuesday because of the opening of the igloo (students' lounge). It's called the igloo because you can go there to chill (get it?).
But we really had to give out our order forms on Monday. No later.
When I told the CT guy, he said that we'll be giving away the whole V day thing so it won't be a surprise anymore. But if I'm scared, I can make the announcement.
Trying to intimidate me huh? Said that if I'm scared then I can go make announcement.
I'm not scared, but I'll make the announcement anyway.
So,
6th Feburary, Monday
Made a short announcement to give out order forms. Didn't want to give too much information so as to not give too much of the next day's "surprise" away.
I passed the order form around my class during lecture. Glad to see that response was really good. Better than I expected. Also saw other class's order forms as they passed it around. Good, response was not bad!
7th Feburary, Tuesday
There was no announcement about the V day stuff as what they promised. I was terribly angry. Called the CT guy to ask what happened. He said announcement would be postponed to Thursday because of the split assembly.
I was fuming mad! You were the one who approached me about making the announcement and now you postponed it 2 days later without asking me?! And didn't even tell me until I had to demand what happened.
Luckily we gave out the forms on Monday. We had to give the bulk of the orders to the florist by Thurday. Friday and Saturday was for submitting last minute orders.
Imagine what would have happened if we had agreed to postpone it.
Still, if we had made our announcement the previous week, students would have been more informed about the venture. Now, they're not sure about the details because we gave them minimum information on Monday.
How can the CT council and house comm be so irresponsible when they are supposedly the "responsible" student leaders?
9th Feburary, Thursday
The announcement was made during morning assembly. Like... finally!!!
But it was terribly disappointing! They didn't even mention "horticulture"!
It was just some silly skit featuring all the stuff that would be sold on V day. Each cca's item to be sold was given like only 5 seconds of air time.
Damn it! House comm is always the one coming up with interesting live ads to attract people's attention but this time, it was utterly diappointing!
Terrible!
We made an announcement on the same day that it would be our last day for collection of orders. We haven't collected many orders till Wednesday, maybe because people didn't know when was the deadline.
Orders started streaming in like mad that money had to be wrapped into foolscap paper and put into our bags.
In total, we collected $4000+ that day alone. $4000!!! Can you believe it?
I even skipped 6 periods of lecture because there wasn't enough manpower at the booth. Will have loads of catching up to do later...
We decided that we would type the orders into excel format. I suggested it. Would save us time because if not we would have to go through all the orders and make frequency tables for each type of flower ordered. Not forgetting to separate them into different colours.
Besides, we would have to pass a copy of senders and receipients to the TJ side and print out labels. So might as well type it out once then we can print as many times we like and use the excel "sort" function to tabulate the types of flowers.
10th Feburary, Friday
Some of us couldn't finish typing into excel format. I finished though. Stayed up to 2am to finish it. And probably because I got the shorter order forms too. Because Jia Yan stayed up to 2am as well, but only finished a little more than half.
Melissa and Yong Bin didn't do. So Jia Yan and I were the only ones who actually did something.
Got all members to help type out the orders and managed to finish typing by about 6.30pm.
We were hogging almost all the computers in the com lab.
Things are seriously behind schedule. None of the orders have been sent to the florist yet.
Went to the staff room with Mrs Chuah's permission where we used the computers (com lab was closed) and printed out the stuff we needed.
Sorted out messages and did quite a lot of planning on what to do when we had only 3 days before V day.
The situation in the staff room was really tense. Could feel that everyone was seriously tired and stressed out. We only had 3 days left and a lot of things weren't finalised!
Could see that Kim was super tired. She shows it on her face very easily. And I feel so bad because I feel like I'm the one causing her misery.
Released most of the members because it was very late already.
Yong Bin, Michelle, Jia Yan and I stayed back to finish up.
I was really surprised that Michelle stayed back to help. She wasn't in the exco and could go home if she wanted. Bet she was tired too. Anyway, she shows leadership potential. Got chance to become future exco!
We stayed until 8.30pm and because of that, Mr Victor Yang (another teacher) had to stay back with us because he was supposed to lock up the staff room. I felt so bad that he had to stay so late even though what we were doing was none of his business. He could have just chased us out. Instead, he was very nice about it. He also hadn't had his dinner yet (all of us were starving too!)!
Finally, Mrs Chuah drived me and Michelle to Tanah Merah station because her house was near there. Michelle stayed near by too.
Although it wasn't much nearer for me, it saved me loads of walking time.
Was terribly tired by the time I reached home. Sitting on the sofa watching tv seemed like such a luxury.
11th Feburary, Saturday
We met in school at 2pm to cut the aluminium foil (to wrap the end of the stalk with wet cotton wool) and sort out the orders and messages. I only had a piece of bread for breakfast before I went to SMU that morning.
Went to VJ immediately after lesson so I didn't have time to eat anything. Bought cup noodles from the vending machine for lunch.
I like cup noodles but eating so little really made me feel sorry for myself.
I've been eating really little the past few days. Spent most of my breaks manning the booth in school to collect order forms. And by the time I reach home, it's so late that I only eat dinner. Don't even have time to sit in front of the tv and snack (that's where a lot of my daily calorie intake comes from). So I think I'll really lose some weight these few days.
We did all sorts of stuff remaining. To make sure that when we sort out the flowers on monday, there would be minimum work to do (although there would still be a lot, a lot of work!)
By the way, I found out my Angel (Dominicus)'s handphone number from the order forms (he ordered flowers). I found out his identity accidentally when he sent a letter to Livia (his angel). I messaged him to ask how was his O level results that he received yesterday and he was so shocked that I found out his identity and knew his number some more! Anyway, he got 8 points. Definitely staying in VJ!
We finished at about 7pm.
Went to Parkway for dinner with Melissa and Jia Yan. We were super stressed man!
After dinner at the food court, we had ice cream from Anderson's.
It was a sundae (eating sundae on a Saturday. Ha...) with 3 scoops of ice cream. Flavours were Belgian chocolate with chocolate chips, macadamia nuts and some nougat flavour. I love the chocolate one the most! Needless to say, I was the one who chose chocolate since I'm such a chocoholic. Haha...
Then we went to Marks and Spencers because I had to buy chocolates for Mun Bbun. The stuff there was so nice! But quite expensive too. In the end, I bought some cherry chocolates for him (it's looks really nice and I'm so proud of myself for making the right choice!) and sweets for my Angel and mortal.
Shopped around with Jia Yan and Melissa at MPH, then went to Popular which was already closed because Jia Yan wanted to buy stuff for her Valentine's day gifts. Ended up rushing to Evergreen bookshop on the 3rd floor of Parkway in case it was going to close soon.
Which reminds me, I haven't got anything for my friends for Valentine's day. Jia Yan's making personalised bookmarks and Melissa is making cookies but I completely forgot about mine.
Last year, I gave sweets packed in small packets and a "Happy Valentine's Day" note. Doubt I'll have time to prepare anything this year, so I might as well forget it. Was quite disappointed that I had to sacrifice so much for this venture though.
We really had loads for fun. Hadn't had the chance to destress like that for a long time already, since the planning for the whole venture started.
12th Feburary, Sunday
Went to my Uncle's house for a family gathering. It was yuan xiao (the 15th day of CNY). Even though it was supposed to be relaxing, I still could not completely tear myself away from the Valentine's day flower sales.
Had to keep calling the members to plan what time to meet the next day, what to bring, etc.
We decided to stay over at Melissa's house because we expected it to end really late. Then we would need to go to school early the next morning. Wouldn't be able to get buses so late at night, nor so early in the morning.
Things finally became more relaxed when my handphone ran out of battery in the evening. I was a little stressed that I could not contact the members if I had to. But then again, wasn't it better that I now had a valid reason to escape from all the stress and madness?
Nowadays, I'm afraid to switch on my phone in the morning and to open my email inbox. These were the things that I used to look forward to doing. I would wonder if any of my friends sent me interesting messages or emails. Or contacted me to just go out and have fun. Then when there was nothing, I would be rather disappointed.
But these few days, my handphone rings non-stop and I keep receiving mails from the TJ side about their orders. So now, no news means good news. I dread hearing my handphone ring and sometimes, I really wish that it would get lost. Then I would lose everyone's contacts and stuff. No one would be able to contact me anymore. Whahaha... That would be a dream of course. In reality, things would only become messier than they already are.
13th Feburary, Monday
We met to go to Mrs Chuah's house after school today. We had to de-thorn the roses and pack them into classes. Sounds easy right? Wrong.
The de-thorning was actually much easier than I expected. Took a lot less time too.
But it was the packing that was really troublesome.
Esmond (our florist) sent the flowers in batches such that we only had a few types of flowers at one time. We couldn't just grab a bag and pack the whole class's flowers inside.
Instead, we had to pack what we could first, with the flowers we had. Then when the remaining flowers arrived, we would fill in what was missing in each bag. That made everything really complicated and we were doing the work twice (or a few more times), checking each bag and filling it up with the flowers it lacked.
Dinner was prepared by Mrs Chuah's maid. It was nice! There was curry and beehoon and drinks. Another chance to take a breather. I was beginning to get worried that the work could not be finished in time.
After dinner, we continued till late into the night. Less than half the orders were packed by 11pm and people were beginning to leave. Either they didn't have permission from their parents to stay, or they wanted to go home since they stayed nearby. Mrs Chuah decided that we would stay in her house insead of Melissa's because we probably couldn't finish till very late at night.
There were times when I was panicking. I didn't know if we could finish or not.
In the end, the others went back, except me, Melissa, Jia Yan, Ping, Kimberly and WenZhe.
Kimberly slept a little. I could tell that she was terribly tired. But she woke up after a while to continue packing.
WenZhe slept the most. Can't estimate how long though, because time seemed to pass really slowly at night. The rest of us didn't sleep a wink till the next morning.
Ping is really a silent worker type. She does her work properly without any complains and in the end, the work gets done. She does what she's asked to. I really love her man!
14th Feburary, Tuesday, Valentine's Day
Not that I could tell Monday from Tuesday. The clock just struck 12 then there it was. Happy Valentine's Day!
The fact was, we couldn't finish packing that night. Definitely!
The initial plan was to finish packing sometime in the middle of the night, sleep a little, wake up and get ready for school.
Then the flowers would be transported to school in the morning and reach at about 6.15am. After that, we'll set up the booth, people would happily start collecting their flowers at 7am to celebrate their Valentine's Day. A few of us would skip the first period to finish giving out the flowers and then go for lessons per normal.
At least, that was the plan.
But throughout the night, it became apparent that we would not be able to finish even by 6am. Everytime an hour passed, the clock would chime and we would frantically ask one another "what's the time?"
When it finally reached 5am, Mrs Chuah woke up and we all decided that we would have to continue packing into the morning and the flowers would have to be distributed later.
We had a simple breakfast. Milo and peanut butter bread, then quickly went back to work. Mrs Chuah went to school first because she had lessons. She would come back at 10 plus during her break to drive us to school. We definitely had to be ready by then.
And so we rushed through the many plastic bags and finally finshed by 9.30am. We took a short break, changed and got ready for school. Then Mrs Chuah came to drive us at 10 plus as promised.
But the thing is, there were still some flowers that Esmond hadn't delivered. Like the tulips, liles, sunflowers and the big bouquets. Although the number of those flowers weren't that great, it still meant that our orders were incomplete. He would deliver it later to school then we would pack them into the plastic bags.
I was stressed out. Didn't know was I going to face my friends in school and the entire school population when they ask for their flowers and we have nothing to give them because they are not ready.
I already received a few smses and calls fom Livia, Clarissa, Dominicus and Stacy. Although they all asked for their flowers nicely, I could tell that they were getting impatient.
On the way to school, I got a phone call from an anonymous number. He asked "Are you the horticulture girl?". "When are the flowers going to be distributed?"
Since when did I become known as the "horticulture girl"? And how did he get my number? Since this flower sale, I've had people I don't know calling me to ask about flowers. I think they must have got it from people I know.
The problem is, it was almost 11 and the flowers were not ready yet. You know, people buy flowers for themselves or for their friends so that they can walk around school and "show off" the number of flowers they have.
Now what's the point of giving out the flowers so late that we were going to be dismissed soon? In other words, time was running out for people to show off. I totally understand how they feel. That's how I would feel if I were a normal student on Valentine's Day too.
Esmond was supposed to deliver the remaining flowers at 11.15am. But by 12 noon, he wasn't in school yet. I was seriously freaking out! People were coming up to the booth to ask for their flowers and there was hardly much we could do.
When Esmond finally came at around 12.30pm, he only came with a couple of sunflowers. I was terribly disappointed, mostly angry.
Then I heard that there was a gang fight just recently at his warehouse and all his flowers were smashed. Those sunflowers were what he could get for us.
After hearing that, I was more of sad than angry. We couldn't blame Esmond. It was an accident after all.
I almost teared. Tears were welling up in my eyes because I know we wouldn't be able to deliver all the flowers we promised our students. They would be so disappointed. We would be the ones ruining their Valentine's Day!
Zi Rui (my classmate) had a special order for his girlfriend, Justina. he ordered a bouquet of 1 sunflower and 8 red roses. In the end, that wasn't delivered and I was so worried what would happen because I didn't want him to be angry with me over this. Then things would become awkward for us when ever we meet in class.
Luckily, there was a bouquet of 9 roses. And Esmond suggested that I give it to Zi Rui because his was a really big order. That bouquet was the biggest one that we received and I was glad that he suggested giving it to Zi Rui. Otherwise, I wouldn't have anything of the same price to substitute.
After Esmond left, I took the bouquet and wanted to pass it to Zi Rui. But as soon as I turned around to go to the concourse to find him, I started tearing. I put the flowers down and was planning to go to the toilet before anyone saw then wash my face. But as soon as I said "I'm going to the toilet", tears just started flowing out uncontrollably.
The juniors there all saw and there were a few other people at the tables too. I guess they all saw too.
Half-crying, I said "Sorry, I'm just really stressed out!" and turned around to face the wall while I tried to stop myself from crying.
Jia Yan and Melissa came over and consoled me. Definitely felt better after that.
Melissa cried too. And since she was much fairer than me, it was more obvious that her face was red from crying.
But Jia Yan is a really strong girl. She was calm and composed throughout. Luckily we had her around.
In the end, I passed Li Yue the flowers since I couldn't find Zi Rui. She would pass him the flowers during lessons.
Li Yue could see that I was really sad. Kim saw too. And luckily I had them to console me so I felt much better after that.
I met Justina too and explained what happened to her. Told her that we would substitute that bouquet with a 9 roses one instead. And I know it's not about the money, but it's the best we could do then. She was really understanding. I guess it was partly because she could see my puffy eyes...
Li Ling gave me a V day card.
Then I went to the booth to give out the flowers (still incomplete orders though).
My junior class was short of 12 blue roses and we didn't have any more blue ones left. I really really don't want to mess up their orders. I still don't know them very well yet, so I don't want to give them a bad impression.
In the end, I gave them pink ones instead and said sorry. Then were fine with the substitution.
I also passed my class's flowers to them. Luckily only Zi Rui's bouquet was missing. I ordered daisies for myself to give to my friends too. Gave one to Sheryl, Li Yue and Jasmine. And they gave me a flower each too. :)
I also received a flower from Si Hui, Xuan Yun and Hanjie (from TJ).
But Chen Yue came up to me and complained that one of her daisies was dead (it was dropping). So I had no choice but to give her one of my own in exchange. Of course, I felt sad because in order to make her happy, I had to give her one of my own flowers. I paid for it you know?! The sacrifices I had to make...
At the booth. there were people who came up to collect their flowers or to complain that they had missing orders.
We explained everything to them and apologised. We tried to substitute some of the flowers with flowers of another kind. We would give out refunds another day. Some people were cool about it, but there was this particular girl who was really angry. She said "how can like that? so irresponsible" to her friend, loud enough for us to hear.
At that point, I was really upset that I almost cried again. But I was really angry too. It's all because of the stress building up inside me. I had the urge to just blow my temper and shout at her!
"No one wanted this to happen! If you are disappointed about not receiving your ONE flower, I must be feeling 100 times worse than you! So just shut up and go away!" But of course, I didn't say that. It would surely ruin V day for everyone.
After my class was dismissed from lessons, I met Zi Rui and he told me that he found out about everything and said it was ok. You have no idea how good that felt. I know he was really excited about his bouquet so luckily he wasn't mad at me.
Then I went to man the booth until 3pm when we finally decided that we would just go back. The unclaimed flowers were just thrown away or given to friends. I took some back too. But the amount of flowers we threw was quite a lot. But we had no choice. I really wanted to take a break from all this craziness and go home.
Luckily, Li Yue was there to help me keep the booth and waited for me while I packed up. Then we walked to the bus stop together. It was really heartwarming to have someone walk with me since I felt so helpless and stressed out the whole day.
Although this V day was full of so much tears and sweat. I gained a wonderful experience and had some fun too. And most importantly of all, I found out that I had so many wonderful friends who cared about me! That's the most wonderful V day gift of all!
3 Comments:
haha
glad that your event was a sucess!
i think i understand that sort of desperation. i'm the sort of person that does work at the last minute and these days, i think i'm starting later and later.
sometimes when i have a major presentation or report due the next morning, i only begin after midnight thinking i can finish it in three good hours. but as the night wears on, i realise i cannot actually do it and start to get desperate. these nights are very often sleepless.
well at least yours seemed like a one-off thing. certainly not a bad habit like mine. =)
anyway i think you pulled it off at the end of the day. so be proud of yourself. take care. =)
