In Remembrance: Frankie Jeffrey

Today after I updated the SHS blog I clicked on Frankie's blog. I don't know what prompted me to do it - maybe I just suddenly remembered him.

Anyway, his sister had put up an entry on her blog on the first anniversary of his passing on. You can find it here.

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The sadness of losing a dear friend still remains strong, tempered by the knowledge that he is now in God's bosom.

Welcome Isaac !

A baby boy was born into the world this morning 2am at Sarawak GH. Mother Ivy and son both are healthy.

We are all waiting with long necks now....was relieved to receive a sms from her this afternoon (probably just woke up from sleep after heavy labour in the wee-wee hours).

Hope to have his cutie look soon...cheers

Discipline

The other day, one of my friends was lamenting how strict the Chinese school that her daughter attend was. That got me thinking about my own time at SHS.

One of my most enduring memories of SHS was the good discipline its students had. Sure, there were still bad apples, but overall, the students were well behaved.

The La Salle brothers who used to govern the school played a big part in this. If you really think about it, Brother Albinus never really did cane a lot of people, but the threat of it was enough to make most people shudder and think twice about going against school rules.

This theory was proven true when, after Samuel Tan took over in 1987, discipline began to deteoriate rapidly.

There are advocates today of a non-violent way of disciplining students, and this group of people abhors the use of the cane. In fact, parents even confront teachers if their children get caned. During our time, if our parents ever got to know that Brother Albinus caned us, the assumption was that we have done something very wrong and we got another round of caning!

But I think a key difference about the way the La Salle brothers disciplined us was that they did it out of love, out of care and concern about our education and shaping us into persons of character. Discipline out of rage and hatred will only breed resentment or worse, hatred in return.

Ultimately, I believe for many of us the success that we have today is in no small part due to the discipline we gained when we were in SHS.

Girls Meet-up at Kenny Rogers

The girls had a short meet-up at Kenny Rogers' outlet at The Spring yesterday evening (11th July). Ai Ping is in town, so I thought I'd use the opportunity to round up the '88 St.E girls in Kuching. There was supposed to be 7 of us....as I said, supposed to be. It ended up with just the four of us (well, 5 if we include Leh Ning's little Josephine who was camera shy).

The other few WANTED to come BADLY, but were just unable to escape from family committments at the last minute. Anyhow, I find comfort in the fact that they WANTED to come BADLY....heh heh heh, whether I'm making this part up or not, you decide!

11th July was Leh Ning's birthday, so HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY! She told us that yesterday evening was the first time she knew that Big Apple Donuts exists in Kuching....we almost asked her to seat at the next table.

Gr8Buds sms me as Ai Ping & I were settling down at Kenny Rogers asking how come the guys didn't get informed....specifically, he meant why Heroes didn't get informed about Ai Ping's presence in Kuching. Hai ya, I meant it as an evening for the '88 girls lah....still, I did say Ai Ping "is" in town, not "was". Heroes can always make it a productive weekend!

And girls, next time give lah more support ya!

SHS Alumni, Kuching Chapters - AGM

I was at the height of giving my staff the piece of my mind yesterday....suddenly my handphone sings ' Hai Guo Tien Kong" by Beyond (Cantopop group) and I have to stop to answer the call.

It was a sweet reminder (earlier I have already received an email from Seo Kok Ing, the current president) from a lady, our Junior who is now working in KTS with Dr. Lim (who is also a SHS senior)...a reminder to me to attend the Alumni's AGM schedule on next coming Sunday...20/7/2008 at Tempayan, Crown Towers, Kuching.

I am however unable to confirm my attendance as I have another prior engagement in outstation that weekend though much I would like to mingle around. Thus, I have promised to inform all my friends who reside in Kuching about this important event and encourage them to participate.

So, folks in Kuching...please do give your undivided support by attending this important event.

Nation-building from Hansac

I have one specific post that I have been cooking in my head for quite some time, and that is race relation in Malaysia as seen from a Sarawakian Malay perspective in the Foochow-dominated town of Sibu.

There is something about nation-building, about friendship, about you and me, about all of us, that I want to talk about, talk in the open, without fear, but with some prejudice and bias.

I will readily admit, at certain times in my life, I was a racist. Whether I still am, is something we can talk about.

But I am now in my 30s going to the big "four zero" in life, and my outlook towards reality and life in general and interpersonal relationship in particular has changed quite a bit.

Gone were the days when I was a fanatic Islamist.

Gone were the days where I believed in Malay supremacy ("ketuanan Melayu").

Gone were the days where I looked down on the beliefs of others.

And I do this not to curry favor from my non-Malay, non-Muslim friends.

I changed because I believe in the change.

I believe if I do not change, others will not change.

If I continue to be a racist, others will continue to be racists.

So I sat down with non-Muslims, non-Malay friends, and share the food they eat, drink from the same cup they do (of course in light of Hepatitis B and all, this may not be the in thing to do, :P), joined them in mock military combats, etc etc...

So what say you...

You ready for nation-building?