Once in a lifetime

On the roads
I witnessed an accident right in front of my very own eyes 2 weeks ago. It happened at the road junction outside my house. I was waiting for the traffic light to cross the road. Opposite was the entrance to mindef, and there was a bus(its size was equivalent to a usual school bus), ferrying a group of soldiers. Behind the bus was a small car(If I didn't see wrongly, I think it's a KIA picanto. Or something of that size.) Also, a van and another bigger car following behind. When my eyes were on these, the bus started rolling backwards. It seemed like slow motion and I heard a loud "Bang!". It sounded and felt like I'm watching an accident in the movie theatre. Not fake at all, but not as real too. The picanto behind the bus was pushed backwards and it turned 90degrees to its left. The van following behind the picanto turned 180degrees and the car behind the van turned 90degrees as well. Everything was pushed backwards, covering the left lane of the main road. To me, watching from the other side of the road, it felt like a few pieces of lego or toy cars colliding into each other.

The banging sound is exactly what you can hear from a car accident on the TV. You know when you see someone is in danger, for example, your friend crossing the road when a car is approaching fast, you'll definitely pull your friend's arm back on the pedestrians walking pavement. I had this urge to pull the "arms" of the picanto, but I couldn't do anything but to watch helplessly.

Eventually, the picanto's driver alighted and I can see she's having a serious headache. Fortunately, I don't think she's seriously injured. Some soldiers came down to help her and some were making phone calls. I managed to cross over and took a closer look of what had just happened. Accidents... Even though it wasn't a very serious accident, I was quite traumatised by it. I thought, what if one day I happened to be involved in an accident too. It is not very difficult to be in an accident. One second of not concentrating enough when you drive can be really fatal.

The other day when I was having my driving lesson, it happened. Many times of escaping banging into the side road kerbs and even crossing pedestrians, it still happened. I was reversing to get out of the parking lot. Because I forgot to check the back, I heard a soft bang. It felt like two balloons(harder ones. Maybe a softer version of a solid stone) crashing into each other, on the verge of bursting but it did not. Instead, both balloons bounced back and repelled at once. This was the feeling I got on the driver's seat inside the car. After that, I felt like crying. What have I just done... Will there be dents? I was in a state of shock. My instructor quickly went down to check out the work I've done. Many other driving instructors looked into my direction upon the bang and many gathered around to see my masterpiece. I dare not get out of the car so I just sat timidly in the car. My instructor said it's just a little bit of scratch but I don't know if he's lying or not because they spent quite some time analysing my abstract work. That driving lesson, I drove like a snail and my engine stalled more than twice. I really felt very vulnerable on the roads. 马路如虎口 好真实 真的要很小心才可以

***

Security
I experienced activating a shopping mall's alarm twice. I stepped into the closed shop because I forgot something without realising that there's an alarm on standby mode. The alarm immediately rang off. I jumped up(not exaggerating!) That was when I know what exactly is "cold sweat". I had cold sweat that very second. I didn't know what to do and I felt like I'm a criminal who's so guilty when I in fact did nothing wrong at all. I stood at the entrance, expecting a security rushing to me, pointing a gun at me. But no, I waited for so damn long but nobody bothered me. Passers-by were really just passers-by because they just passed by and didn't bother me. They just looked and they really passed by me!! I gave up waiting for the inefficient securities and proceeded into the shop and made a phone call to the securities. They picked up the call sounding like they didn't know the alarm was sounded. It was quite funny. I called and informed my manager and the big boss. Then the alarm stopped so it was quite alright. After everything was settled, I walked out of the shop, and ta-dah! The alarm went off again. HAHA, I really gave up and just went off. Come to think of it, it was really a once in a lifetime experience to sound a shopping mall's alarm twice and eventually walking out of the mall safe and not feeling any tinge of guilt.