UNBELIEVABLE Teacher's Day + ACES Day

It's 31st August 2009 today.
The school was celebrating ACES Day cum Teacher's Day (Teacher's Day is tomorrow actually, 1 Sept 2009).

What happened was, the students had their dose of Yoga for ACES Day, followed by a short Teacher's Day celebration.

I guess I had a good...no, make that GREAT Teacher's Day celebration.

Here's why....

1. My class (3H) gave me a size 1 Arsenal soccer ball. My heart goes out to them. I can't believe they'd do thay for me.
2. My student, Chin Siong of 4H, gave me something too (need to open it up). Still wrapped up.
3. Zi Yin (last year was from my form class 1I), gave me a bear. I'm no longer her FT... and never expected anything. I was touched....very touched.
4. I received heaps of notes from students...extremely touched.
5. Hairuddin gave me a Nike water bottle - to be used after fasting month.

and last but not least.....the highlight of day....

My very dear ex-students, that's right, from AISS, actually came. They literally walked into the staff room to look for me. I was stunned, flabbergasted, astonished, surprised, dumbfounded etc etc etc....I was so very caught off guard.
I mean, I was talking to some ex-students, Vinee, Harwinder etc, when suddenly out of nowhere, Cheryl, Weiwen and Eileen (plus one boy whom I don't recall his name...don't think I taught him), just came up and said "Happy Teacher's Day". They were like the only ones in GREEN skirts. Geeezzzz.....it was truly a Kodak moment. If only someone had taken my picture there and then. I couldn't believe my eyes....who and what in the world was happening.
School ended at 10am for them and they took a cab to see me. We talked for a while. They gave me their cards and we spoke for a while. It was a FANTASTIC surprised.
It's times like this, really times like this, that makes me wonder.... did I make the right choice...of becoming an educator. It's times like this that I know that I made the right choice...
I didn't know how to react.... just ecstatically surprised... if there was such an expression.
Fantabulous......
One thing's for sure, for the next year, maybe five or even ten, if I'm still in this industry, I will never ever have expected such a bigger surprise than this.
This would probably be ranked as the greatest surprise of my life as an educator. I least expected any of them to drop by. An SMS maybe, a phone call maybe...but to drop by and enter the compund to look for me...not in my life. Not in this lifetime.....
Words cannot describe how I felt.....unbelievable...

After they left (if it wasn't fasting month I would have gone for lunch with them), a few of my ex-students who are now in ITE came. We chat for a bit and looks like they're doing fine. I taught them EL last year...4E. I practically see them everyday...

Raj (ex-student) just called too. He's asking if we (my wife and I) wanted to go to Orchard tonight to makan with them. It's at Lucky Plaza....a makan place that belonged to one of my colleagues. Most likely not huh? Gotta check with wife first.

I just hope I have made a good enough impact on the future of our nation.

Now, everytime I'm not sure, or feel bad at work....I'll know what to think of.
The day that 3 of my devils visited me ...Teacher's Day 2009.


Astounded-for-the-next-decade,
RuDy