A day for charity

The day began early enough. By 8:30am, I was already taking my first bite into some pretty good dim sum in OUG. Chee cheong fun, siu mai, fried fish balls were just a few of the many others I had on this beautiful Saturday morning. Can't really remember the last time I had dim sum prior to this, so a hearty breakkie with some soothing chinese tea to wash it all down was simply the perfect way to kickstart my weekend.

Rushed to My Kopitiam @ Taipan to meet up with Julian, Jack and Alfee. Since most of us wanted to go for Greg's RPM class, we didn't stay long there and only managed to chat for a tiny bit. RPM was great!!! Greg 'turned it on' today. The attitude was there, intensity and energy level was nothing short of dope!!! It's the amazing classes like these that made me realize just how much I miss doing RPM, B.Attack, Cardio Wave etc. Anyways, I proceeded to the second class for the day which was Body Pump(also thought by Greg).

Too bad I couldn't stay on till the end since I've volunteered to help Su Yee out with the charity event where the GX of True Fitness collects donations and contributions from the members of the gym to be given out to charitable organizations. We were loaned a really cool sleeveless t-shirt to wear for today's event but sadly, it has to be returned to the gym after we were done with it. For the Taipan branch, all proceedings were chanelled to Shelter Home at Seksyen 8, PJ. We had tonnes of stuff to be shipped from the gym to the shelter and believe you me that loading the goods from the gym into our cars (5 all together) was quite a heavy workout all on its own. When we were done with the loading tasks, we gobbled up a quick lunch at Oldtown Kopitiam before taking a slow drive to Shelter Home. The heavens opened and it poured throughout the journey but coincidentally, the rained slowed to a drizzle as we were busy unloading the donated items into the home. The boys from Shelter were most helpful and we couldn't have sped up the job if it weren't for their tiredless efforts. Well done boys. :)

There, we met up with Julie, the home's general manager and she explained to us how things were done in the home. How most of the kids were victims of abuse and the pictures shown were most disturbing to say the least. However, seeing the bashful smiles of the kids now painted a picture of happiness and joy. It further enhances the importance of the home and how it's able to help and 'save' these pitiful kids from spiralling further down into the ugly reality of today's corrupt society where cases of abuse, crime and evil are nothing but a norm in our daily lives. Heroes such as Julie and her colleagues ought to be better appreciated considering the amount of sacrifices they made to run the home. Julie was a director of a company but decided to quit her job and take up the challenge of running the home on a full time basis. The significant pay cut due to this switch in 'career' did not deter her from doing what she's doing now. Simply amazing if you ask me. We chatted with the kids and it was all good fun. Later Jack, Alfee and myself previewed what we thought in TF much to the amazement of the kids. The expressions of awe and delight garnered were priceless.

These kids deserve better, they deserve to live the way we use to live when we were kids. Subjecting them to pain and suffering especially at such a tender age will scar them and God knows what they could turn up to be should they be left in their existing tormenting situations. Like Julie said, every kid has his or her own story to tell, so just ask and they will be willing to share it. Maybe it's something we can all learn from their past, that we can appreciate and be thankful for what we have now. That we shouldn't take the li'll things for granted for in comparison to what these poor souls have been through, we are so much 'richer' than them in EVERY SENSE.

We took quite a number of photos too and it shall be posted up on my Facebook. As we were leaving the Shelter, my car's tail pipe struck a rather steep slope and the clips holding the pipe to the car went out of position resulting in my exhaust hitting the ground. With the help of Jack and Alfee, we managed to place it back in position temporarily as I drove to the nearest workshop to get it fixed. 45 minutes later and RM30 poorer, my car was as good as new. :)

Went back to Jaya 33 to attend Feynmann's first Cardio Defense class. It was very interactive where members would need to engage certain techniques with a partner. We also learned a lot of the basic moves and of course the benefits of it. Overall, I very much enjoyed this new class and can't wait till I can do it again this coming Monday in Taipan.

Had dinner with my family before heading out for a bit of light shopping. Bought what I needed to buy and was home before 10:30pm. Time to rest now for the double class I'm having tomorrow (one in the morning and the other in the evening). Sighhh ... there goes my Sunday. :p