Question: How did you spend your wedding anniversary this year?
Answer: Well, most of it was spent attending our College board meeting.
Well, not quite, but one of the hazards of working in schools is that there is very limited discretion in how one’s time can be allocated, even on one’s wedding anniversary. And in a boarding environment such as LPCUWC, that lack of flexibility extends well into the evenings as well.
Actually, I may have given a slightly distorted picture here. Only the morning and early afternoon of my wedding anniversary on Thursday were spent in the board meeting, although a large part of my week was also concerned with board-related functions, including attending several board committee meetings, preparing board and committee reports, following through decisions made the board, and so on.
Members of our College board give extraordinarily generously of their time, without financial reward, without counting the cost, and almost always without the thanks they deserve. I think LPCUWC is extremely fortunate to have a board that is steering the College so successfully yet sensitively through the current global financial turmoil. While we at LPCUWC debate the management or the size of this or that budget cut or increase, other colleges are talking about staff redundancies and reductions in student numbers. We are not, and I think our board deserves some recognition for this achievement.
On the afternoon of our anniversary, coincidentally, we had a music recital scheduled in our home. Music recitals in the Principal’s home are a tradition at LPCUWC – the acoustics in our living area are great, we can fit just over 60 people (with some squeezing as we found this week), the College’s baby grand piano is housed in our living room – and we love having students in our home! Although it wasn’t planned as an anniversary gift, bringing such wonderful music into the living room of our home was one of the best presents we could have received. The recital finished with a spine-tingling string quartet performance of Pachelbel's Canon, followed by Christmas carols performed by the choir – we may still have a week to go before the term ends, but those beautiful harmonies told me that the end of term is now in sight!
A link to a gallery of 18 images of the music recital appears at the end of this blog. My thanks go to Nick, Tiffany and Ronald for organising the recital – Di and I are already looking forward to the next one.
Immediately after the recital, I attended the weekly GIF (Global Issues Forum) meeting. Each week, a student or a small group of students presents information and leads a discussion on an issue of global significance. This week’s presentation was on the theme of religions in the Middle East and South Asia; the topic was chosen in anticipation of the Middle East and South Asia Cultural Evening that was scheduled for Saturday evening. An excellent presentation with extraordinarily ambitious scope was given by Abhishek (from Nepal), Roei (from Israel) and Asad (from Pakistan), and this stimulated an excellent discussion among the 70 or so students who had chosen to attend – with precisely the right balance between robust debate and respect for others’ viewpoints that marks the spirit of UWCs at their best.
Yesterday (Saturday) morning, five students from my GCAT (Global Concerns Action Group) were invited to give a one hour illustrated presentation on our medical clinics project in Guizhou province. The seminar was organised by the Amity Foundation and was attended by about a hundred students from local schools at the SKH Tsang Shiu Tim Secondary School in Sha Tin. The photos (right and below) show our students during the presentation.
The keynote speaker at the seminar was Dr Zhang Kaijin, who had come from Nanjing especially for the seminar. During the Cultural Revolution, Dr Zhang had served for three years as a Barefoot Doctor (a paramedic serving remote rural communities) in Hebei province, and is now a well-known professor of Public Health at the South-East University in Nanjing. Dr Zhang has also helped with the evolution of the Amity Foundation’s village doctor training program and was one of those encouraging the establishment of Amity’s village clinic building project of which GCAT is now a part.
After Dr Zhang’s address and a short presentation by Tong Su from Amity, our students gave their very professional illustrated presentation, which was designed as an awareness-raising presentation that will be used (we hope) in several other schools next year. The GCAT students’ presentation brought forward some excellent and very perceptive questions from the students in the audience as well as from Mr Anthony Tong, Chairman of the LPCUWC Board who chaired the seminar in his new role as Executive Director of the Amity Foundation’s Hong Kong office (shown in the photo here).
A few hours after returning to the College it was time begin the Middle East and South Asia Cultural Evening (MESA). The students from these regions had been preparing for several weeks, and the evening was certainly something to remember. It began with a feast of Middle East and South Asian food in the canteen, sitting on the floor in Middle Eastern style (except for a few of us who were worried that we might not be able to stand up again and for whom Raymond, the Canteen Supervisor, had thoughtfully provided one table).
After dinner there was a sensational show in the courtyard that was entertaining, informative, emotional, and reflective – a show that had us laughing, crying and shaking our heads at the amazing talent all within a matter of a few minutes. The students who performed the show had spent tens of hours practising, and the effort was certainly worth it. Well done to our students from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Egypt, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Mauritius, Nepal, Pakistan, Palestine, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Turkey and Uzbekistan.
A link to a gallery of 33 images of MESA appears at the foot of this blog.
Usually when I write my blog I try to focus on just one special thing that has happened in my life during the week. This week, it has been impossible to do that, simply because so many interesting things have happened. Of course, as well as the events mentioned here, there are the ‘usual’ things like teaching classes, meeting with teachers about various matters of concern, negotiating with overseas national committees, and the thousand or so other issues (mostly unplanned and unanticipated) that make up my typical day.
And then there were the things that were less usual, such as planning for a memorial gathering tonight to pay tribute to Martin Breen, and the car crash last Sunday evening when a car ran into the back of us while we were stopped at traffic lights. Our car had to be towed away, but fortunately both Di and I were basically okay. We are both stiffer and certainly sorer for the experience, but extremely grateful that the crash was not worse than it was.
To see the gallery of 18 images of the music concert, click HERE.
To see the gallery of 33 images of the Middle East and South Asia Cultural Evening, click HERE.