washington dc memories

*currently seated with nice latin music, a hot cup of cafe francais, fan on my left, without a hoot in the world* 2pm

3 more days in wildwood. so many things seemed to have happened..the latest was really a bang. i'll touch on it later. God is a really gracious God..whatever I have, I pray that he uses it for his plan. I know I'm alive now not cos of my own merits..it's cos of his mercy and grace. I commit everything i have to Him. so thankful for i can count on him for company and protection.

We headed to Washington DC last weekend. Amos, Leon, myself, 2 taiwan gals and steven. what was supposed to be a carefree trip nearly ended on a fatal note. the trip there and time spent there was ok..pretty str8forward. headed down to white house, abraham lincoln memorial hall, fbi building, capitol..and some other other places to snap shots and clown around. We stayed one night over in the courtyard hotel cos we didn't have enough time to visit everywhere. (we reached there 5pm) cos it was a 3 hr drive. anyway we had a nice dinner..went back..played some cards and headed to bed. was a smooth day..next day we woke up to carry on with our visitation. had hot dogs as we roamed around the washington monument, fooling around, laughing,whiffing the air, enjoying the green sights that lay before us. we made a few stops b4 we decided it was time to head back. cos the gals had work at 5pm, we left at abt 12pm.

since i was the one who navigated when we were making our way to DC, Leon (Kok ming) navigated back, with steven as the driver. the initial trip was ok..got disoriented only a few times, but things were def in control. we stopped at a convenience store..and that was when amos and i changed seats. i still remember asking him if he wanted to sit in the middle, while i sat near the window cos i felt it was abit stuffy, but he too wanted to sit by the window. so the seating arrangement was finalised as such :
Front : Steven (driver),Leon
Back: Angela, Jessica, myself, Amos

We moved onto I95..we were moving on..the atmosphere was kinda tired i suppose..cos we din have much sleep the night b4. worse, it started raining.very heavily. to make the worst worse, our driver was a reckless one.haha.i'm not exaggerating when i say we reminded him more than 10 times on the way there not to speed/adruptly change lanes/clown ard on the road. personally i was a little scared during the first 5min i saw him drive..cos he is used to china driving style, which is very anti-traffic rules.haha. he's also rash and aggressive by nature, and i believe a person's character is exemplified in his driving techniques. so u can guess it wasn't a very pleasant journey to and fro.

anyway, our car was tailgating another car in front, which came to a somewhat adrupt stop. I vaguely remember myelf freezing in fear when i saw the distance we had behind the car and our car speed, keeping the wet roads in consideration. 2 sec before everything happened, i knew we were going to hit .it was only a matter of how hard we were going to hit. i remember shouting "stop stop stop!!" and then it happened.

First collision: wham bam into car in front
I suppose when steven realised he wasn't able to avoid contact, he swerved right.
Second collision: SUPER SUPER SUPER wham from a pickup behind us. no joke..dat impact was really insane..burnt metal, intense motion, screams and all, panic, i remember hearing amos calling out really loudly.
Third collision: a black car hit us from the back this time,lesser impact, prob cos it braked hard
Fourth impact : we ran into a tree and that was the end.

it was insane..i just lay down in shock. it wasn't somiuch of a shoch cos i had like 2 sec to prepare. for the rest i knew it had to be worse,cos the gals were napping, and i don't think amos was watching the car in front. leon was awake but i think he wasn't really prepared for it as well.

We evacuated the car...the gals, steven, amos and myself managed to climb out. to my horror i realised leon wasn't moving. i really cannot beginto describe the kind of fear i felt at that point of time. i remember the first thought in my mind..."am i going to lose my best friend just like that??" i rushed back into the car..and i saw his eyes flickering. he wasn't making any sound..he was just stoning in the front, his eyes half opened. it reminded me somehow of how he would look when he was very very very bored in a school lecture and was about to doze off. I knew he was fighting to remain conscious..so i held him gently by the cheeks and tried calling out him. i kept going "leon..it's me,ken.you're going to be ok..u'll be ok..i'm here". I felt something warm on my hands. turning to look what was it..i experienced a really really tremendous wave of fear. my hands were covered wif blood. i recall thinking to myself.."shit i have the blood of my best friend on my hand!!" i was just paralysed with fear and shock for a gd 5 sec..i sat there..helpless..about to go crazy. i din really dare move him too much, for fear of aggravating any broken bones.all i could do was move his cheeks, encouraging him. it was then he made some noises, responding that he was awake. imagine seeing ur friend with blood and glass over his face, only 30% awake. it was really a huge nightmare.

a kind father and his daughter stopped by..they were paramedics so they took control of the situation. they did a spinal support for him, while 911 made its way. amos was sent off in an ambulance cos of neck injury, while leon was evacuated in a helicopter. i took the ambulance with amos..and when i reached Christiana Care Hospital in Newark, leon was just about to arrive as well. i remember on the ambulance..i kept praying..praying that things will be ok...i kept praying for leon and amos..and somehow i must say i didn't feel too much fear. I somehow knew things would be in control. it was just a feeling...something that cannot be described by the human flesh.it was sort of like...if god is in control,what can go wrong? i surprised myself then.. that i could still muster these shreds of childlike faith admist such a disaster. but i really din feel very scared..i just knew things were in control.don't ask how exactyly i know,but i just knew it. also somewhere in my heart, i was overwhelmed with thankfulness i wasn't hurt. i recall repeating over and over again.."thank god i'm ok thank god i'm ok thank god i'm ok. this is the second time god has preserved me from a fatal accident. i'm living on his time. lord use me for ur purpose lord..whatever plan u have, use me lord." those thoughts kept rummaging through my mind throughout the entire journey..each time panic arose within me, these thoughts re-surfaced once again,giving me an extraordinary peace.

We reached the hospital in about 15min, i followed amos in.

Miracle 1: it was then i realised he just strained his neck. no sprains,no broken bones.
all he had to do was to x ray to reconfirm. next i hunted around for leon..they wouldn't let me in, all i saw was leon being pushed into the emergency room.on it was written "for trauma patients". it was something like a scene from ER. about 6 doctors/nurses tended to him,shutting the door on my face.
Miracle 2: after awhile, a kind lady came out and told me he was talking..and he should be fine. at that moment, i was somehow engulfed in a huge wave of emotion. the pent up shock, fear, panic whatever just erupted..and my nose started tingling and my eyes stinged. took me a few minutes to recollect myself...b4 i went tofind amos. from that point onwards,things were much better. knowing that my 2 friends were verified by doctors to be ok eased off 90% of the load on my shoulders. The rest of the night, i spent moving from amos to leon in hospital,and settling the admin issues. steven and the gals arrived later, and while the gals rested in the waiting room,setevn had to settle the car/police issues.
Miracle 3: We only had to pay $47.00 for the whole accident. Yup..which steven for, on account of "careless driving". That was it. Medical bills summed up to a hefty amount, but CIEE'shealth insurance settled it. car had insurance as well, so it was ok. car was scrapped by the way.
Miracle 4: i managed to contact a very kind hearted soul from CIEE who helped us through the night. she was like an angel..really. so reassuring and patient. right after the accident, i tried contacting moreys piers for assiatance. informed them that we had 2 patients under critical observation, i had 2 gals who were in a state of panic, and we were broke with no credit card. asked for assistance in any way,preferably if someone could come down to guide us. i was just hoping a local could come down and give us the assurance we needed.but very sadly, melissa from morey's piers recruiting office just shrugged it off. i'm notexaggerating, she said she couldn't help..and just tried to hang up. at that point of time,making a call was so difficult, cos we were from another state, and it was so expensive and we couldn't find any coins. the second callwemade, we reached melissa's call answering machine. really really screwed up feeling..i remember thinking this thought to myself.."we fell into a dark pit..we need some assistance to climb out..and the only pple we thought we could depend on just turned and walked away" it was really bad. imust really say i'm very disappointed in the way the recruiting office handled the situation. it not only reflected a severe lack of professionalism, it depicted a small worth of...yes..heartlessness. (to make matters worse, when we got back,our friends told us melissa told them she was in contact with us the entire night,talked to each and every one of us and we were all ok...F*** you man..big time). anyway yup miracle 4 was when i called ciee and this lady called angie eased us out of the situation. arranged for lodging for us at day's inn, a cab from day's inn to wilmington bus station the following morning, reserved tickets for us from wilmington bus terminal to atlantic city,all on her credit card. so we didn't have to pay anything.
Miracle 5: we were about to set off on foot from the hospital to the Day's inn to spend the night when a doctor arrowed the security officers to drive us there instead. miracle for us,sai kang for the security officers.lol. so we got a nice air con ride to the inn.

at that point of time, we were all evidently physically ok.leon still had blood stains on his face,and he was still in a large daze. amos was doing ok,with a stiff neck. so we spent the night there,b4 setting off the next morning.

i felt i learnt so much from this experience...themost impt lesson was how to be thankful to god for everything. it was heartwarming when i was toking to leon about this incident, and he never once mentioned why were we so unlucky to have an accident. instead he kept saying he's very thankful he's alive and walked out with just cuts and bruises. i feel such a spirit of gratitude breeds a very simple childlike faith in a larger being(which is God for me) .but for him, he's a free thinker so i suppose it just makes him wonder about the larger picture. had dinner wif him at panda last night and he mentioned he has been filled with such thoughts. i suppose this whole experience has changed him,and he's become more aware of the realism of life.

the whole experience can be summed up with this > God is our only provider.in Him we put our trust.

3 more days to the end of our working phase, and the start of our travel. i pontang work tdy..hee.and tmr too.wana really slow down time and do things i'll enjoy. time to walk out to the beach without a worry..stretch out my arms, feel the warmth of the sun on my shoulders and smell the atlantic breeze. time to roll along the wildwood sands and feel like mua ji, time to spend more time with my friends laughing at everything, time to sip on ice cold gatorade while watching the sea's horizon,time to walk through the streets of wildwood, which has been my home for the past 2months and so. and of cos, time to slow down the pace of my life and just medidate on a spirit of gratitude for everything i have.

beach,here i come.

*currently seated with nice latin music, an empty cup, fan on my left, without a hoot in the world* 2.50pm