rants&musings
Saturday, October 16, 2004
farewell assembly took place yesterday. relatively simple low-key ceremony which was also combined with prelim results day, making for lots of worried people. many people brought their cameras along, taking photos of the school, their classmates and teachers for one last time. indeed, there was this sombre feeling in the air..
as we entered the hall, t goh started giving out little slips of fancy paper to us. the contents of the paper was actually a poem he wrote himself.
An Ode to 4-1/3/6/8/11
(aka We've had a good run)
I am forever grateful
For this opp'tunity
To have shared this fleeting moment
In your esteemed company
With so many individuals
And as many idosyncrasies
It's been quite a unique experience
Not to say it's been a breeze
Physics was such a challenge
Science made it all the more
English almost impossible
To teach, but not to bore
Some feathers we have ruffled
Some nerves we've worn too thin
Such times have quickly faded
From my memory deep within
But the times of joy and laughter
And the care you can display
Will always seem to me as if
It happened yesterday
So let me put in record
The joy I've felt at heart
When help I could you render
Your growth to play a part
Now when I count my blessings
The goodness that I find
My cup doth runneth over
I have a hundred six and nine
~t.g.~
really started to get me sad.
lhb began talking and told us the good news about prelim results. then came the dedications to the students by the teachers. alice long devoted 3 screens to 4-2 and one each to her other two classes while jeff only placed one photo of our class (considering we never took any photos in the first place). then t goh was asked to represent the teachers as a whole to speak, and he recited this poem:
IF
Rudyard Kipling
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!
closing the farewell assembly. report books were then given out and we were briefed about the
Provisional Admission Exercise on
25 Nov 2004. thereafter there was a reception set up for us. perhaps as a final farewell the teachers were serving the food. had two plates of food stuffed down me courtesy of ms tan soak cheng and mrs long, the former who *enthusiastically* called me to pass me a plate of food..
goodbye cat high. its been a wonderful 7 years.
darryl was chasing the sun at 22:27.
