Happiness is to be in school!

July is a month packed with many courses and meetings for most principals. I have already attended 3 long courses and I still have one and a half more course to go! Today I returned to school after my ICT course to attend the PIBG Committe meeting at 5pm. In the short time I was in school today from 4.30 pm to 8 pm, so many things make me happy just to be in school .

First, as I was getting out of my car and struggling with my many bags, a tall young student approached me. Initially, I thought she wanted to ask me a question but her question was " Can I help you?" She then proceeded to help me carry my bags, laptop and all. This was such a lovely greeting for me since I had been away from school for a week! If I am not mistaken, her name is Tan Yen Hui from Form 1 but if I get her name wrong, please leave a comment on my post. I got to know she was there near the car porch because she was on her probation prefect duty. I really like the way she was helpful and how she allowed her helpfulness to give her courage and overcome her shyness. Girls, you must emulate Tan Yen Hui. Often we want to help others but we are too shy. Let your helpfulness give you courage.

Secondly, when I had settled in the office and had finished signing some documents, Datin Cheam my PK Koko excitedly showed me the plaque our afternoon girls had just won for being champions in the Inter-School Choral Speaking Competition (Klang Valley)  in KDU today. Bravo! Congratulations to the teachers Pn Siti Syaheedah and Pn Siti Hasrina and the wonderful girls who make the school proud ! Keep up the good work! Teachers, thank you for your hard work in training and grooming our students to be champs! We also won RM 700 together with the plaque.Champions --Yes!!!



Datin Cheam posing with the plaque
 on behalf of the teachers and students.



Then I popped out into the office after signing the documents. Imagaine my surprise when another young Malay student approached me and hugged me saying -" Rindu, cikgu, lama tak jumpa cikgu " I enjoyed being missed. Who wouldn't?

I decided to just go walk around the classes and the hall for a quick round before the meeting started, more because I missed the students and teachers rather than because of duty. I always enjoyed seeing students learn in and ou of class. Teachers were all teaching in the classes I observed. Happiness!

Then something melodious caught my ear. I heard the sound of sweet piano playing. My first thought was "Oh maybe the girls are having choir practice and someone brought the keyboard to school." So I walked to the hall and saw a group of girls gathered around our very very old piano. When the girls saw me approaching them, the pianist stopped playing and the other girls were a little apprehensive. The reason was they were they were also probation prefects on duty. I invited the pianist - a young Indian girl to resume playing. She played " My heart will go on"( from the show Titanic) beautifully. I loved the way she coaxed the beautiful melody out of our very very old piano with so many missing keys. One of the items on my wish list for Convent Sentul  is to repair and restore this old piano. Even when I continued on my rounds away from the hall, I heard the beautiful music. May beautiful music always fill our school and our hearts!

More pleasant surprises. Datin showed me the boxes of books Ms Navam  had personally donated towards the needy students of the school.

Beneath the many books in the boxes, I saw beautiful hard cover books. Ms Navam's  instructions were very clear. "These books are to be given to the needy students.These books are not from the alumni, they are from my personal collection." For your information, Ms Navam is an ex-teacher of SMK Convent Sentul and also a very important and crucial person in the Alumni and the Board of Governors. She is still very active despite having retired for so many years and her love for Convent Sentul is very strong evident and inspiring.

Thank you Ms Navam for your gift to the students. For those of you who do not know Ms Navam, she is a legend!.  I first heard about Ms Navam from Marina Chin, an  ex-student of SMK Convent Sentul.       The story went something like this. Marina had only about RM 25/- on her but the running shoes cost       RM 49/-. Ms Navam and another teacher topped up the balance needed and bought Marina her first pair of running shoes. Marina's running shoes have set her on the running track to success! She represented Malaysia on many occasions and bought glory to Malaysia ( and to Convent Sentul and to Martha's house) Today Marina Chin  is the principal of the National Sports School in Bukit Jalil . I know her career started with Ms Navam's gift. So students and teachers, emulate Ms Navam and leave a rich legacy!

I was shown two newspaper cuttings - one from the Star Metro and the other from Sin Chew Jit Poh of our students posing with the awning Suntrack had installed for us.

We had a very fruitful and pleasant PIBG meeting where PIBG pledged help for the many requests of the school. Thank you PIBG.

 So many pleasant things happened for such a short time spent in school. So worthwhile!