Road Marshal Duty!
The following took place on Monday, 25/01/10.
The following took place on Monday, 25/01/10.
Yet another prodigious and gratifying day for us- the National Police Cadet Corps. Just as I envisaged the excursion to be scheduled on a Monday, which meant that we could we get to skip another one of Ms. Hashima’s Home Economics lesson, the verdict proved otherwise! We had to arrange make-up lessons with her after school!As soon as the bell went off at 12:30pm, a mob of NPCC cadets rushed down to the canteen like birds being released from their cages. We had a hasty lunch and returned to class to change into our crisp set of uniform. Sing Chien’s uniform was not as attractive and endowed as the rest as he has not been awarded a rank. We had to fall in at the Foyer to count our total strength and the seniors warned us about fooling around at the Park (no one heeded their advise, leading to a tragic at the end of the day) “Gone with the wind!” one sentence from the senior came to our ears and we boarded the bus in an orderly manner.
During the laconic ride to the Road Safety Community Park, I used the chance to capture a few images of the journey as I wouldn’t be able to use my mobile phone to take pictures later in the day as I was to be on duty and it was against the rule. When the bus came to an abrupt stop, I knew we had reached our destination; the Park was located along East Coast Park. We were greeted by the picturesque and astronomical gate.
We were to attend a short briefing at the conference room (like the meeting venue used by the board of directors often shown in movies). The Station inspector reiterated that we were not supposed to bully, shout or scold the other primary school students. We were all assigned to a station and I was given the Neighborhood Police Center (NPC for short).Our job was to simply let them answer a simple question about road safety at each station. We also had to summon them if they broke any of the rules. Most of them were rule-abiding and compliant, but there was a common mistake they made, the kerb drill which they duly did not to carry out.
The way the primary 5 students addressed all of us, was simply hilarious! Some of them called us, Uncle! While others gave us respectful titles such as, Marshal, Officer and Sir. We all had the same kind of reaction: Wow! I am a Sir/Officer? Also, at times there will be a horde of students congregating at my station asking for my autograph which made me feel like a SuperStar!
There was a particular girl who left a deep impression on me, her name is Elaine. She approached me and told me in a quivering voice that she was lost and I brought her back to her form teacher. After everything ended, we had to march by to the bus and our marching performance was terrible and humiliating! Yet, our ardent primary 5 students, clapped and cheered us on!
After returning to school, we were given a good dressing down by the senior for our poor behavior at the Park. We were simply lacked discipline and our performance was bad. Many of us did not bother to polish our boots; we were too playful during our duty and one of the cadets even spoke rudely to the Inspector-in-Charge. After we were dismissed, we talked bad mouthed the seniors while changing. They were described by us as “the evil ambassadors from hell” or “Satan reincarnates”.
From today’s trip, I had taken away 2 points. Firstly, I have learned the importance of discipline, the purpose of NPCC is to instill tough and solid discipline into us. Without discipline, goals will be impossible to achieve, we would be ‘souless human beings’ without any soul. Secondly, I have recapped the importance of road safety. We must be alert around the clock and never jaywalk and practice good habit of doing kerb drills at zebra crossings.
Labels: Love is blind
