Girl-Next-Door

Tracy is my student. But ironically, I don't teach her. She's doing the IB programme in my school. I first knew her when I brought a bunch of kids on the service trip to Jogjakarta.

Tracy is Vietnamese (her Vietnamese name is Mai Trang) and is a very bubbly and charming girl. I don't know why, but I feel that we share a special bond. So I brought her along with me to meet my brother and Ngoc Anh. Turns out that Tracy and Ngoc Anh came from the same hometown. Talk about coincidence! Vietnam is not exactly small you know!

I'm not bullying Tracy! Just trying to get her away from the water source.


There you see it!

She's wet but I'm still dry!

I like the baby Merlion. But Tracy thinks it look silly. National pride!

My Bro and I

My Vietnamese brother, Tuan Anh, finally visited me in Singapore. He brought his fiancee, Ngoc Anh, along. He says he wants me to meet her first before they get married next year. Is he asking me for approval? Haha..... Either way, they are getting married next March. I'm so happy for them! Also looking forward to attending their wedding in Vietnam since it will be the school holidays for me. Congratulations!

Aesthetics Day

It was Aesthetics Day and I was to go out with my students for a SoMA workshop. No idea what SoMA stood for until I was there. SoMA - School of Music and the Arts. We were herded into a recording studio like room to wait for the instructor. I was so worried that the kids would ruin the expensive equipment inside, so I took photos to keep them occupied.

At first I though we were there for a song-writing workshop, but this very un-song-writing-looking instructor turned up at the studio. He was so casual and started talking about beat-boxing and introduced to the kids some beat-boxing techniques.

Check out Peter's videos. The most amazing thing I thought was that he could beat-box and sing at the same time.



My students enjoyed his workshop so much that they were beat-boxing the whole afternoon and on the bus back to school.

True to what I originally thought, there was a song-writing workshop after lunch. The second half was boring in comparison to beat-boxing. But the students picked up some very handy song-writing skills. Song-writing didn't seem so difficult after that.

At the end of the day, I discovered that my students were not only talented, but very sporting. I would absolutely die if you made me beat-box or sing in front of the class.