Unexpected Emotions

Dear Matt,

Your final day at Noddy was unexpectedly quite emotional. Noddy's Principal had arranged the usual farewell graduation ceremony, this round about 25 or so children were moving on to other places, some were leaving the country, but mostly moving on to other schools.

 
There was a big flood at Noddy, so things were very difficult (getting in and out), ended up having to drop you and your mother off first, then drove across the small road to the parking area, after leaving the shoes and socks back in the car and rolled up my jeans to just below the knee (absolutely dashing), I had to slowly stomp across the water to the school and ended up having to borrow this lady's flipflops (red, which went really well with my office attire).

 

 

So by the time I got into the School, the first break of the day had just started, kids were running and playing all around, suddenly I saw Daniel who beeline towards me, shouting your name, 'Panop up stairs', then suddenly turned around and headed to the stairs that  lead to the third floor, what can one do apart from following your best friend. He led me up all the way to the ceremony room, then suddenly left. At that moment I knew I was going to truly miss him, probably more than you will.

Anyway, the ceremony went well, started off with a tear jerking song ("What the world needs now is love sweet love"...) which was sung by your older peers (from other classes who were staying at Noddy). The the Principal made a tear jerking speech (going into some detail of where everyone was going and how long some of them have been at Noddy), followed my a tear jerking graduation ceremony, and a crescendo ending with another tear jerking song.

I had expected you to run up to Elizabeth get your certificate and ran back down, I could not have been more wrong, you should ask me to see the vdo ok. As this was the final day of term Noddy was letting all children off school early, so today everyone was going home at around 10:30, but the flood certainly slowed everything down to a crawl, we decided to hang around and let you and Daniel play while most of the others queued up to leave (trust me it was a very long and slow queue, but luckily the school was giving away free ice-cream... even for parents :), before Daniel went we had a quick chat with his mum, promising each other that we would meet up (she only lives down the road from our place).

So that was it, finally day at Noddy, actually not quite, your summer school starts in a week, but Daniel and most of the others won't be there, so for me it won't be the same, but I would imagine that you will enjoy yourself the same as ever :)

There are load of photos of you and your friend, especially several gorgeous ones of you and Daniel, ask me to show it to you, I don’t feel comfortable posting their photos without their parents’ permission :)

Noddy’s International Day

This is supposedly the biggest event of the year for Noddy, and I can see why, each group of students (actually
the parents) would represent their country by setting up a stall with mostly food and sweets, together with information to highlight their country, all laid out in a wonderful display. Having grown up in the UK, I was particular drawn to the India’s stall (this will probably sounds strange to a non UK resident, but there is a very large India community there, so I kind of grew up with it, and besides they had superp Samosas).

























 
  

The stalls are all over the school, and here is the fun part that is a great foundation for your OCD behaviour (LAMO), each student was given a passport… which to me akin to a class 1 narcotics, because in the middle of the passport there is a double spread with 18 square boxes, standing tall and ready to receive 18 stamps from each stall, which we got (it was probably more difficult than running a full marathon, not that I have ran a marathon or anything).






















Had to squeezed this one in, he loves the Kangaroo, it could have easily been ‘Fatal Attraction 2’.
  
 
The stalls were not the highlight of the day though, as each group of students also have to put on a show… most would come on and do a song and dance (totally adorable), my favourite (no bias here) was the UK because they decided to put on a mini play about King Arthur… and they had a huge magnet in the play… and it was used very appropriately :)

On this actual day we were discussing if whether we should have joined the Chinese group instead, I am Chinese and Gio is mostly Burmese… or perhaps we should have had our own ‘Burmese’ stall… oh the gift of hindsight :)

Our Thai group was also fantastic, we decided to show off traditional Thai games for children, so on the show was ‘Lee Lee Kao San’ and ‘Dern Kala’, a huge applauds to the mums and dads who directed it.
  
 
We always knew that Matt has a very close friend, because he keeps mentioning the name Daniel at home, it was not until today I realised how close they were. Out of no where Daniel came and took Matt by the hand and led him up three flights of stairs to the play room.







 
 

And when Matt wanted a lollipop that Daniel was eating, Daniel actually went to each stall (they were in the process of packing up) and asked for a lollipop for his friend Matt (he ended up going to three different stalls), that have made my day :)





 


 
  
While they were playing Daniel’s mother popped in, when she realised that it was Matt playing with her son she let out an ‘aaahhhhh’ just like when I found out 42 was the answer to everything. As Daniel have also been mentioning Panop (Matt) non stop at home too, it was good to put a name to a face at last.

(Can not post Daniel’s face, haven’t asked permission from his mum, hee hee).


What a wonderful morning this was… :)

Noddy Playgroup: Sports day 2011 :)

The photo (left) is a bit of a spoiler… :) your team (Green) won the gold medal! Trust me baby, you and your team mates have no idea how stressful that was. Right from the very beginning, we were told the organiser had deliberately put together a weak ‘Green’ team, as ‘Green’ had already won the cup for the past two years.

There were four colours (teams) in all, Green, Red, Blue and Yellow, each colour was made up of a selection of children from different classes and also from different age group, so you and your class mates were split up between different colours. (By the way, it rained, so the whole event had to be taken in door').












Now getting back to the ‘Green’ being a weak team… right from the very beginning, I knew that this wasn’t so, the older children was taking real command of each game played.

You participated in two team events, winning one and came second in the other, I am sorry that I can not post any photos here, as it just doesn’t feel right posting photos of other people’s children.

The ‘Green’ and ‘Blue’ were neck and neck heading into the final event, the “Tug of Gory Death” (sorry, a bit dramatic here, it was a ‘Tug of War’)… (queue back the dramatic music), in the first semi-final, ‘Green’ had a hard time dispatching the ‘Red’, but they were through to the final, while the ‘Blue’ had no problem getting rid of the ‘Yellow’ in a somewhat one sided match. So, this was it, the very final event will decides who lifts the cup of champions… the atmosphere was intense, the sound of cheering parents were deafening, the passion was overflowing… it was time…

Each team strained the rope, the referee lifted his foot and the match was on! The ‘Blue’ had immediately took charge of the pull, the ‘Green’ was looking in disarray, each team member was swaying from left to right like a set of unorganised pendulum, the ‘Blue’ was fulfilling their deadly form they had shown in the earlier semi-final. You have to see the vdo to understand what I am about to say… like a phoenix, ‘Green’ being a millimetre away from loosing everything, sudden found their rhythm… pulling in unison like a team with a purpose… In a blink of an eye, the match was won… Now I know how the people of England felt in 1966 :) (only kidding).