Yesterday went out with the brother to celebrate his A level results and did no work.

The sister asked me to fetch her from Jurong East because she had to go there and sell flags under the community service component of co- curricular activities, which is really the point of this post. Let's just say Jurong East is about one of the furthest places possible to travel to from home, but still be in Singapore. Make no mistake about it, I think charity is good, but I think forcing students to sell flags is just dumb, because

1. I've done it before, and most of the time the amount collected is rather insubstantial. (even though the tins might be heavy from people putting in coins.)

2. The time wasted, however, is disproportionately HUGE.

3. Irritation to passers by from having tin cans repeatedly shoved in their faces by school kids: HUGE.

Conclusion: Compulsory flag selling is not efficient. To revise the existing system, if it were up to me, I would suggest students contribute cash out of their own pocket. Like if you give up 50 bucks, you get 5 CCA points. You give up 100 bucks, you get 10 CCA points. Now that would be cool.

* * *
The sister organised some camp for underprivileged kids at some moral welfare home in September last year, and the social workers at the moral welfare home made her pay 100 bucks "in advance, to be repaid later." It's now March. Time to draft a letter to them.