Tuesday, June 07, 2005
Not on the menu!!!
During the closing session of our camp recently, an elder was asked to come up and thank the speakers (Bee Leng for the children's programme, Andrew for the adults' sessions) on behalf of the assembly and to present them wif our love gifts.
To most of our annoyance (at least, around my circle of frens), this elder went up and did wat he does best - talk about himself!!!!
Hey! Hello???? Thank the speakers, not talk of yourself!!!
But he went on and on about how he travels a lot, how he likes to find out things about other people, how his frens knows wat a busybody he is etc. then he did the inevitable - he put his foot into his mouth!
Yup, he is well known for suffering "foot-in-mouth" disease - which usually shows its symptoms the worst during camps. A couple of years ago at another camp, he got ALL THE parents and some others mad at him when he described the children in the crèche to be like a "circus"!!!
This year, not only did he not remember to shut his mouth, he oso forgot to shut his mobile phone during the talks. Imagine the shock of us all when in the middle of the talk by our speaker, a phone rang. Them he took the phone AND STARTED TALKING ON THE PHONE!!!! It was a great embarrassment for us all as it was obvious that the speaker was disturbed by that interruption!
On top of that, when the camp commandant announced the next day that all should turn off their phones during the sessions, methinks the elder got his ego dented and there was a minor “confrontation” between him and the camp commandant during the public announcements over a (IMHO) very minor issue! Thank God the commandant handled the whole situation well.
Anyways, back to the closing session – he was happily telling us how he knew the sisters of Bee Leng! And that he knew 5 (or was it 4?) of the 6 sisters in Bee Leng’s family!!! What was he trying to get at????
Finally, he thanked Bee Leng and handed her the love gift. Then he started talking of how much he knew of Andrew – when Andrew suddenly jumped up and declared “But I do not have any sisters!!!”
This almost brought the roof down as we all burst out laughing at the elder.
Perhaps he was sore (I am speculating) but wat he did next was IMHO pretty bad and totally uncalled for. He started singling out a brother who was older than Andrew by 2 years (Mikes) and compared them!!! He said things like Andrew being so young and yet so talented while people in our assembly who are older but not as talented. Some people started laughing at Mikes. Perhaps spurred on by the laughter, the elder went on the say that Andrew is oso married wif 3 kids while Mikes is still single!!!
Wat was the purpose of all that? I was pretty cheesed off by the whole thing.
He was supposed to go up and thank the speakers and give them their gifts. Instead, he went up, talked about himself, tried to promote himself, got himself laughed at and then embarrassed another brother in front of the whole congregation!
Thank God Mikes later told me that he was not angered by the whole episode.
To most of our annoyance (at least, around my circle of frens), this elder went up and did wat he does best - talk about himself!!!!
Hey! Hello???? Thank the speakers, not talk of yourself!!!
But he went on and on about how he travels a lot, how he likes to find out things about other people, how his frens knows wat a busybody he is etc. then he did the inevitable - he put his foot into his mouth!
Yup, he is well known for suffering "foot-in-mouth" disease - which usually shows its symptoms the worst during camps. A couple of years ago at another camp, he got ALL THE parents and some others mad at him when he described the children in the crèche to be like a "circus"!!!
This year, not only did he not remember to shut his mouth, he oso forgot to shut his mobile phone during the talks. Imagine the shock of us all when in the middle of the talk by our speaker, a phone rang. Them he took the phone AND STARTED TALKING ON THE PHONE!!!! It was a great embarrassment for us all as it was obvious that the speaker was disturbed by that interruption!
On top of that, when the camp commandant announced the next day that all should turn off their phones during the sessions, methinks the elder got his ego dented and there was a minor “confrontation” between him and the camp commandant during the public announcements over a (IMHO) very minor issue! Thank God the commandant handled the whole situation well.
Anyways, back to the closing session – he was happily telling us how he knew the sisters of Bee Leng! And that he knew 5 (or was it 4?) of the 6 sisters in Bee Leng’s family!!! What was he trying to get at????
Finally, he thanked Bee Leng and handed her the love gift. Then he started talking of how much he knew of Andrew – when Andrew suddenly jumped up and declared “But I do not have any sisters!!!”
This almost brought the roof down as we all burst out laughing at the elder.
Perhaps he was sore (I am speculating) but wat he did next was IMHO pretty bad and totally uncalled for. He started singling out a brother who was older than Andrew by 2 years (Mikes) and compared them!!! He said things like Andrew being so young and yet so talented while people in our assembly who are older but not as talented. Some people started laughing at Mikes. Perhaps spurred on by the laughter, the elder went on the say that Andrew is oso married wif 3 kids while Mikes is still single!!!
Wat was the purpose of all that? I was pretty cheesed off by the whole thing.
He was supposed to go up and thank the speakers and give them their gifts. Instead, he went up, talked about himself, tried to promote himself, got himself laughed at and then embarrassed another brother in front of the whole congregation!
Thank God Mikes later told me that he was not angered by the whole episode.
// posted by imissw @ 4:03:00 am 
