How should I begin to tell you how I feel?
We go to an Apple store, let the salespeople tell you about the latest retina display, spend hours browsing through thousands of apps that connect us to the rest of the world. But are we really connected? Murdering pregnant women is the right thing to do in Jordan. At SGD$5000, you can buy a little girl, stolen from China. Churches are bombed in Malaysia for referring to God as 'Allah'. We Singaporeans may love our iphones and NDP goodie bags, but what is not seen before our eyes is happening now. More importantly, we have the freedom to do something about it.
However, there are priorities that our culture and society has been ingrained to perceive. Education, job security and healthcare are almost always what we Singaporeans are most concerned of. The lack of passion for other activities that can potentially solve extreme poverty, ethical issues, and racial tensions is apparently, and ironically alright.
Perhaps an account with a real victim of illegal human trafficking might have made the difference for students like me to go fourth in risk to become a human rights activist. Perhaps the voices of despair in phone interviews with Jordanian women might have pulled at our heartstrings enough to even place it on our to-do list. But no, instead, compulsory research work was to be completed on the same deadline as 3 or 4 other projects and essays based only on general knowledge were to be written for the sake of good grades.
What I am trying to say is that students like me have so many distractions, thinking of making the world a better place is mere awareness. Fear of becoming like the less fortunate is rather, what I have learnt from WISP. The projects I've done on these issues do not make me want to go there because I can. I now feel that for one to be sincere and complete in this kind of effort is for one to have been from there. Therefore, the little awareness that WISP has created will mostly be forgotten, despite the severity of reality on the antipodes because it does not benefit our perceived core priorities.
Nonetheless, I enjoyed debating about the controversial issues in class. You, (Ms Noor), always encourage us to broaden our perspective and think unconstrained by convention or orthodox. The opportunities to speak our minds so freely are uncommon outside the classroom and I treasure the various views raised by you and my classmates. The skits and field trips were also very engaging. I most enjoyed the Dialogue in the Dark trip.
When we arrived at DiD, I knew there was going to be darkness and we were going to be out of it in no time. But when they gave out the walking canes, it really made me feel impaired and challenged. As we trod into the plunging darkness, I thought about the blind people I had seen before. One had been right in the middle of the big yellow X of a traffic junction; another had missed his bus stop. Then when I had difficulties finding my way around in DiD, it felt like a day went by. I imagined the blind man I saw being knocked over by a van and I bit my lips. How do these people live with their impairment from day to day? Then Halimi, the guide for DiD, told us that he had never been blind until a few years ago, after a brain surgery. His courage to live on as a strong and able man was heart-warming and insightful. After all, it was a Caucasian man who helped the blind man get onto the pavement then, and I felt that Singaporeans should improve on their community mindedness. Yesterday I helped a pregnant lady fight for a seat in the MRT and it goes to show that such field trips go a long way in their teachings.
These few words may not suffice in the gravity of your work, but thank you Ms Noor for your passion in teaching. I will make the most out of them to become a better person for the world. | 
Let's start with the gd one first shall we?
