“You do not really want to interview me…I am going to give politically incorre-”
“No please carry on,” I interrupted my classmate, David Jack, as he cautioned me to be careful of interviewing him for honest answers. “Who is David,” you may ask. Well pardon me, let me introduce him to you. He is a dear good friend of ours, also from NYP Social Work, who is involved in another separate community engagement effort also organised by students in our diploma course. Their engagement effort, FoodPath (@foodpathnyp), seeks to advocate avoiding food wastage and promoting good sustainable practices in conserving food resources.
So why is he involved in our community engagement event, Unspoken? That’s because we had a handful of beloved coursemates that came to volunteer and support our event by taking up minor roles in the drama. True enough, they are only featured for literally seconds in the drama. But let us be careful not to short-change the amount of dedication they had put in for those short seconds of fame. They indeed did us a great service by volunteering for the auditions and staying throughout all the rehearsals that required them to be in action. Some of them also went beyond what was required by standing in for the main character! Thank you Foodpathers!
Now on to David, I asked him a series of questions. And his answer is nothing short of honesty and bluntness (sometimes...a little too blunt):
“Errr…I chose to volunteer because I wanted to help the other half of the cohort. They do have an interesting drama, have never seen a drama about mental illness before, and I gladly wanted to be part of it. I initially kinda wanted to volunteer cause I thought that I could receive some CCA points or credits…but Saras reminded us volunteers that we had to serve one another, not with the expectancy of receiving rewards, but instead with the genuineness of heart to help our friends achieve a noble cause they are advocating for. Well…I had to agree with her on that. To my consolation, Saras did indeed mention that our volunteerism would be considered as good team support in our final grading, so that’s a bonus! I am gonna get my A1s!”
Before he carried on from his last sentence, a few of us from the Unspoken committee immediately gave him a darting glare of sheer disappointment. This made him feel uncomfortable and to our success, he is afraid to mention about his A1s during our rehearsals ever again. Back to the interview!
“My role is simple, yet I love it! I wanted a simple role, as I had a lot of work to do on my other projects, and to my delight, I got what I wanted. I get to play a positive ‘white’ voice in Shane’s mind and I get to fight people. In one of the intense action scenes, I get to beat up 3 people simultaneously and win. Isn’t that amazing?!"
"Oh, there was this one time, I had to hit Simran (another FoodPather that volunteered). However, I tripped a step and accidentally bodyslammed her to the ground. We both fell down with a loud thud. It was hilarious and we carried on laughing our butts off on the floor. Don’t worry, both of us were not injured…maybe just our ego. Isabel (one of Unspoken Documenters and coordinator of action scenes) taught us the ways to keep safe in a fighting scene, so we’re pretty good! Rehearsals were pretty fun and tiring. I didn’t expect that my 10 seconds of fame on the stage demanded my dedication and commitment to the laborious rehearsal schedule. I am also pretty screwed cause I have yet to complete some Foodpath work and study for the examinations next week. Sigh…very often I feel too lazy to drag my body out from bed for the drama rehearsals…ahahaha don’t tell Saras.”
[But it was too late. At that instance, I secretly messaged Saras the truth…cue evil laughter]
“But in all seriousness, I do find the event about mental illness an interesting plus engaging avenue to learn more about mental illnesses and how we ought best to respond to them. Everyone should know a little more about people with mental illnesses so that we are better equipped to address early signs or even existing struggles of mental illnesses that our loved ones may be going through.”
I asked for final comments to which he quickly, almost instinctively, replied, “Checkout @foodpathnyp!” What a way to seize the opportunity, David. -_- He also happens to be publicity committee in his community engagement event.
So that is it! The Unspoken committee would love to thank our friends from FoodPath that readily volunteered to contribute to our event drama. Please do support them as much as you are supporting us!
