Infinitas 2014

INFINITAS

Inaugural Magazine of the SJI International Alumni Association 2014 St. Joseph’s Institution International www.sji-international.com.sg 490 Thomson Road Singapore 298191 | Tel (65) 6353 9383

Cover photo by Ricardo Seah Inside cover photo by Kushal Shah

CONTENTS Messages..................................................................................................................... 2 SJI International Voices: Some things never change | Sandesh Sambhi Kaur....................................... 4 Being taught how to feel | Joanna Chuah....................................................... 6 A community that suffers & shines together | John Ooi................................ 7 A step closer | Srushti Santosh Kamat............................................................... 8 My musical journey at SJI International | Laura Sekarputri........................... 9 Snapshot of Africa: my dream vacation | Kushal Shah................................. 10 From law to teaching: how SJI International made a difference | Mary Tay.................................... 12 What makes a Lasallian? | Dhaneshan Thirugnanasambhandan............... 13 My Challenge Week | Samuel Tan................................................................... 14 I had a dream where‌ | Anh Tran Le Bao...................................................... 16 Alumni come home.................................................................................................. 17 Infinitas interpreted | Ricardo Seah..........................................................Back cover

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MESSAGES Message from the Director of Advancement and Communications

The word “infinitas” is the feminine plural of “infinitus”, and means “limitless extent, endlessness, eternity, infinity or the Infinite”. This aptly describes the phenomenal growth in the SJI International family of current and former students, as each year’s cohort sees a bigger batch of graduating students.

What sets SJI International apart from other schools is our culture of making each member of the School feel that they are a part of the big SJI International family. As a family, it is important for us to remember our roots and to keep in contact with one another. When family members connect, there are endless possibilities that can be achieved, both individually and collectively.

It is known that our students hail from 35 countries and, upon graduation, move on to universities all across the globe. Regardless of the distance, our alumni always make it a point to come back and pay a visit to SJI International—where they belong. We are heartened to receive a constant stream of visits by alumni all year round. Some come to visit their former teachers, others to share their experience with juniors.

The recent Summer Reunion was a perfect example of how our alumni have grown in strength and never fail to remember their roots. The overwhelming turnout of former students had the chance to mingle with fellow alumni and to tour the school buildings while reminiscing over the memories of their school days. The growing enrolment has resulted in the need for bigger amenities and means that with each visit there is always something new to discover in the School.

It is my vision that one day we will have a network of alumni that actively runs activities that further strengthen the ties amongst alumni and with the School. These activities can become platforms for the alumni to connect with one another, to network, share experiences and contacts, as well as to find or create opportunities. Most importantly, the alumni must reinforce their shared and common identity — of being part of the SJI International family.

This inaugural publication of Infinitas comes at an opportune time as we will witness our sixth batch of students become alumni at the end of this year. I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate all alumni who have done well, and extend a warm welcome to all graduating students to the big SJI International family of alumni.

Vincent Anandraj

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Message from the Principal

Dear SJI International Alumni, I would like to start this message by thanking you all for your continued interest and support of our school. As alumni of a fairly young school, you have been very instrumental in making SJI International what it has become. The outstanding reputation developed, in a very short time, is largely due to the fantastic work that you, the recently graduated students, have done. It is through your commitment and hard work that SJI International is now one of the top international schools in Singapore. Your legacy has ensured that the current SJI International students constantly strive to do their best in all areas of school life: academic, service, sports and activities, and outdoor education. Most importantly, this is all done within the Lasallian core values of our school: Faith, Service, and Community.

This is what sets SJI International apart from other international schools in Singapore. Your ability to balance all the aspects of school life and still obtain outstanding academic results has shown our current cohort that this is possible. It has become the way an SJI International student simply does things. SJI International looks forward to your continued support and involvement. Thank you for helping to make our school what it is today.

Bradley Roberts

Message from the President and CEO

Memories are the living links that stitch together the fabric of our life’s journey. One of the great benefits of an alumni association is that it provides the opportunity for such links to be strengthened, nurtured, and further developed. In the case of SJI International, the already strong connections forged by you during your time at the school can mature, in alignment with personal growth, through such an association and become a trusted means of being “at home� with a group who know you better than you probably know yourself.

What you will also find is that friendships from your days at the school deepen and expand, while new friendships develop with former classmates who previously you had only noticed from afar, or with whom you wanted to develop a friendship but where there was never the opportunity to do so during your school days. In other words, alumni gatherings are wonderful family-like events wherein the foundation of trust and shared history bring both comfort and a sense of potential adventure among known and yet-unknown relationships.

One of the functions of a magazine such as Infinitas is that the school is able to maintain and extend its genuine affection for its graduates, and the positive relationships that graduates and their families have among themselves, by providing a way for people to stay in touch with the lives of those who previously were so important to them on a daily basis. Much more than a newspaper or magazine, an alumni publication has a personal dimension that is more like a family newsletter. You will first pick it up and glance through it quickly to learn about people you know or knew in the past, and then you will go through it more slowly and learn about the ways the school has grown, the staff members who have come and gone, and the places where your school memories took root.

All of this is rightly meant to give life to the connections that you treasure. It has as its audience both past, present, or potential future members of the school community. Because of the school and its ongoing vibrancy, our own life journeys can continue to be enriched because of and through one another. Surely this is something that should make us glad.

Br. George Van Grieken FSC

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SJI INTERNATIONAL VOICES

Some things never change Sandesh Sambhi Kaur | SJI International Class of 2009

Curtains up. Two women stand alone, spotlit, onstage, dressed very much alike. They glance at each other and draw a breath.

“My husband Mike,” they say, in perfect unison. “He comes home from a long day at the hospital.”

way with a smile on his face, and puke ousness. The older one’s face falls, and on his shoes.“ She smiles quietly. “So I she looks away. In that moment, the told him -“ audience sees them for what they are: a “- so I told him,” bursts out the young- freeze-framed before-and-after.

er-looking one, “If you’re so happy about Onstage, the actresses exhale. puke on your shoes, we should have I find myself exhaling too, a breath I kids.” didn’t know I’d been holding.

One of them, made up to look a little The younger one beams, shining out older, says, “He’s standing in the door- at the audience like a beacon of oblivi-

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wrote a play last year. It’s about the adventures of a female comedian, and the dissolution of her relationship with her husband, who’s a nurse at the A&E department. Over time they’ve drifted so far apart that they no longer know what to say to [or about] each other. It was staged in December 2013 as part of a theatre competition within NUS Medicine, by which point my only job was to chope a good seat.

The expectation was that the play would discuss medicine somehow. So I decided to talk about what it is like being married to a medical person; having to suddenly realise that, in their minds, they never really leave the hospital. Or, conversely, how a medical person is so used to the humdrum of advising [and dosing] a particular illness that they’re caught completely off guard when the patient is someone they love.

A more personal struggle crept in as well: you’ve got the archetypal “artsy side” versus the hard-nosed “scientific side”, which seem fundamentally incompatible, doomed to a lifetime

of one letting the other down.

Leaving a haven of liberal arts like SJI International for a course as hardboiled as medicine tends to produce a schism of interests. I started the play in a very elegiac mood, since I figured it was my last chance to write before I surrendered my brain to a lifetime of ward rounds and cannulas. I managed over 60 pages of text while procrastinating on the fourth year of medical school. [Did I say “procrastinating”? I meant “succeeding with swanlike grace”.] And along the way something interesting happened.

Instead of drifting through the wards as I had expected to do, I found myself sitting up and listening to the stories our patients were telling — or trying to tell. When we did our O&G posting I met several mothers whose babies had died in utero; against their wishes for surgery, and the blessing of amnesiac sleep, the doctors preferred to induce labour. The idea of a grieving delivery room stayed with me, and I wrote a monologue about it for the male lead to try, just for fun. But when he read it aloud, the whole room went silent, and then broke into the loudest applause I’ve heard at a reading.

That was when I realised we had something special on our hands.

As I continued to write, I realised that I’d been taught many of these lessons already, during my time at SJI Interna-

tional; that a course is never really just about one thing, and the idea of potentiation is a very powerful one. At SJI International, the economics class informs the literature class, which in turn gives you an interesting idea for a TOK essay.

Even in a course like mine, the philosophy of mortality informs the importance of legacy, which makes us attentive to vulnerability, which informs how we listen to grief and think about pride, which might well give us a cool idea for a play.

Even now I hear people quoting scenes in the corridors. Somebody did a Facebook post recently about how playing a certain character had reshaped their perspective. I’d written the play to come to terms with the fact that I’m not at a place like SJI International any more, but writing the play helped me — and our entire production team, almost 150 people — return there in spirit. [And we went home with all the awards!]

[Sandesh is studying medicine at the National University of Singapore]

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SJI INTERNATIONAL VOICES

Mary Tay | SJI International Class of 2009

From law to teaching: how SJI International made a difference

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y entire path had been lined up perfectly for me. After graduating with a law degree, I would pass the bar in two years, qualify as a lawyer and find a stable job at a mid-sized law firm. I had even gone as far as securing a training contract at a law firm. There was only one problem: I didn’t want to be a lawyer. Now, I’m forging an entirely different path heading towards a career in teaching.

As a shy 17-year-old on my first day at SJI International, I never believed I would end up with a law degree from King’s College London, at the litigation department of a law firm, or even with friendships that I now know will last a lifetime. I certainly never expected to have the courage I somehow mustered to alter my career path.

The person I am today is vastly attributable to my time at SJI International. I now realise the massive impact that one’s education can have on one’s decisions throughout life. It is partly for this reason that I have chosen to teach, despite having been en route to qualify as a lawyer.

The low student to teacher ratio at SJI International meant not only strong academic support but also that students were more engaged in each lesson. Suddenly I was forced to find my own voice.

No longer could I hide in the shadows

of my fellow classmates. These lessons challenged the boundaries I had become so accustomed to and did wonders for my self-confidence. It played no small role in my decision to train in the litigation department of one of Singapore’s leading law firms. Equally, it gave me the courage to stand up in front of my own class to teach English at the age of 18, when I realised that teaching was something I could spend my life doing.

Being in the pioneer batch of IB students at SJI International, my cohort had a distinct and rare advantage akin to having a pen in hand, hovering over a fresh page of a long book that is St Joseph’s Institution International’s history. There were no pre-conceptions as to the “ideal” SJI International IB student; we were setting our own standards.

Clubs and societies had yet to be started. This meant that attracting members outweighed any notion of imposing daunting auditions or prerequisites to get in. Whether you wanted to join the choir or the rock climbing club, you would be welcomed with open arms. Your skills, or lack thereof, entering the club did not matter, what mattered was that you left as a better, more confident version of yourself. By the time I left SJI International, I had joined the choir, rock climbing, creative writing,

tennis and photography clubs. I had even helped to start the SJIeye newspaper, as it was then called.

Graduating from SJI International, I was tempted to study English literature but was strongly advised by my parents to study law, and I do not regret my decision to pursue a law degree. It gave me an excellent grounding in critical thinking and the ability to construct and sustain a logical argument. A law degree does lead seamlessly into a legal career, but that does not mean one is deprived of the liberty to choose a different path in life, as I did.

If it weren’t for these experiences, I may never have found it within myself to make a fundamental change in the direction my

life was taking. I might have convinced myself to stick with law out of practicality.

Instead, I made a conscious decision to quit and do something purely for myself, unadulterated by parental and societal expectation. I know, without a doubt, that I will be happier for it.

Sometimes we are so caught up in the relentless race for academic success that we forget to stop and think about the kind of person we are becoming. SJI International gave me the freedom and opportunity to figure out who I am and who I want to be.

[Mary is currently on the path towards a teaching career]

John Ooi | SJI International Class of 2009

A community that suffers & shines together

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reetings fellow alumni J How are your eye bags lately? For some of you it has been many years since you graduated from SJI International.

For others maybe slightly over a year or even just a few months. At this very second we are probably scattered all over the world because of our diverse backgrounds and bold desire to explore and experience more. But whether in Singapore, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Canada, US, Europe or Australia, I am glad that we all share the same roots, as that is what keeps us tied together. Our alma mater has definitely grown in size and achieved new heights ever since her first day, and so have we (for some like me this actually refers to physique).

Since graduating in 2009, I have climbed to the peak of Mt Kinabalu in Sabah, studied at the University of Queensland in Australia as well as the University of California, Los Angeles in America, and have also recently started work in Intel as a Finance Busi-

ness Analyst. Yet even after all this, the IB remains one of the best and most memorable experiences of my life! The close-to-traumatic experiences that you have from balancing CAS and the many assignments of IB (EE, IA, TOK) teach you how to manage your time well and prepare you well for university. Additionally, they show you how important coffee can be and that getting eight hours of sleep (not to mention having a social life), are myths. Okay, maybe I exaggerated about the social life part, unless you scored 45 points! I still remember the many vampire-feasting blood donation drives that were organised and the large groups of teachers and students (both male and female) who sacrificed their ability to get into a relationship by shaving their heads to raise awareness and funds for charity. Oh, the nostalgia! These are some experiences that I cherish, and they are more rare than you expect. We are truly a community that suffers and shines together. It is no sur-

prise to me that many of us are still in touch with one another despite location barriers.

The diverse array of people you meet at SJI International really summarises the “awesomeness” of our school. “True story”. Even though SJI International’s IB Programme only started in 2008, our young batch of alumni have made it to HKU, Oxford, Harvard, UBC, Yale, NUS, SMU, Melbourne University, and many other prestigious universities around the world. We created our own pieces of history and should be proud of our achievements. We have leaders, sportsmen, intellectuals, musicians and artists in our midst who have blossomed from SJI International. Someday I will expect to read about all of you in my local newspaper because I know how global your impacts will be. Until today, I still recall the SMILES values of our Lasallian heritage — Spirituality, Mutual Respect, Internationalism, Leadership, Experiences, and Service, as it helps me in my

everyday life. I dare say that many of my achievements were built on foundations instilled in me at SJI International, and I really hope that as a community we keep on SMILING J We are a young batch of alumni, so we don’t yet have much history to follow. But that just gives us more reason to create our own. We are going to be Legen…dary! Just wait for it J [John is currently working in Intel as a Finance Business Analyst]

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SJI INTERNATIONAL VOICES

A step closer

Srushti Santosh Kamat | SJI International Class of 2013

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f life prepared you for everything, there would be no excitement. If you knew every hurdle and obstacle in your way, then maybe the thrill of seeing yourself through it would vanish. The “real world” that we hear of at school, is a very subjective, broad and hard concept to understand. Which is why getting internships is highly important.

Getting the opportunity to work with an advertising film in Mumbai, India, was my good fortune. Although I had been involved in theatre at school, I had never worked on films nor had any prior knowledge. So I started my internship with a blank slate. When it came to working, I learnt that you have to push yourself, learn and pick up.

Although I was assigned to work in the direction department, I worked with the production team for my first few days, organising old work tapes and understanding the system that goes into documenting the work of a production house. Whilst at it, I made it a point to ask my colleagues questions about their job, and what attract-

ed them to it, and what working in the industry was like. I got several different perspectives, which I highly appreciated. Over time however, as I began working with the direction team, I was introduced to specific jobs like referencing, which involves pulling out references from movies, music, and images to reflect the director’s vision.

These are then used when communicating with the department directors for art and costumes. At my first two attempts, I failed, but by the third, I began to understand how and why referencing was important.

Yet, I knew I wouldn’t be perfect. As an intern, I made it a point to ask if there was anything else I could do and slowly, after persisting, I was able to be a part of the auditioning process for actors. In a week, I was conducting auditions.

It has only been around three months since I graduated from SJI International, yet it feels like a lifetime ago because of the situations I have put myself in. I was lucky enough to get an internship with one of the best production houses in India and I went in well aware that I was one of

the lucky few. It then became about creating opportunities for myself and striving to push myself to get work.

At SJI International, I was involved in theatre, which means working with people — a fundamental aspect of working on films. So when it came to chaotic backstage work and understanding the stress a lot of people are under, I was neither shocked nor taken aback. Having involved myself in extra-curricular activities at school, I was able to communicate with people far better. But what struck me was that had I not taken part backstage at SJI International’s production of West Side Story in 2012, I probably would never have understood how the making of any entertainment piece goes. It is important to make sure you involve yourself in some activity you enjoy at school. You never know where or when some skills may prove useful.

Work experience helps you understand a small fragment of what it could be like, to eventually begin work, while also realising that starting a career may be closer than you think, or miles away. It is about gaining perspective so that you may get an idea of the direction you are about to take. But more than anything, you should be seeking opportunities to make yourself stronger as a person. Nothing “prepares” you for tomorrow entirely.

Ever. But each project and experience you involve yourself in, should help you grow.

For me, this internship was a test of how far I was willing to push myself to make an impression and take risks. As far as how much of an impression I made, I will leave that up to the people I met; but as for my growth as an individual, the perspectives I got leave me eternally grateful for this experience.

[Srushti is studying Journalism at the University of Oregon]

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Laura Sekarputri | SJI International Class of 2013

My musical journey at SJI International

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ess than four months after my High School graduation, I found myself witnessing the ever-entertaining Musical Moments concert, which featured all music extra-curricular activity (ECA) ensembles at SJI International. As soon as the Jazz Band opened the night, its soothing harmony rekindled the unforgettable memories of my musical journey at SJI International.

During my first year as an FIB (Foundation International Baccalaureate (IB), Grade 10) student, I always looked forward to the weekly music class and Orchestra session, both of which prepared me well for IB Music Higher Level. I also enjoyed collaborating with one of my classmates as we often performed guitar duets in various school events.

Inspired by a multi-instrumentalist senior, I decided to join many music ECAs such as Balinese Gamelan and Samba Drumming in Grade 11. As an aspiring musician, I also strived to expand my musical experiences and understanding through participating in those ensembles. Hence, my first IB year was filled with a lot of musical per-

formances and activities on and off campus. From playing electric guitar at Rock Night, to beating the cajón at Acoustic Nights, to providing instrumental accompaniments at assemblies, to rolling the timpani at the Botanic Gardens, to playing bass in the musical West Side Story (which music became the subject of my IB Extended Essay!), to organising concerts with the Music Performance Committee, to playing solos during IB Recitals (and many more), I truly had the time of my life rehearsing and making music with my friends, as well as sharing music with the supportive audience and teachers, particularly Mrs Thorpe.

In my final IB year (Grade 12), I pulled out from many music ECAs due to academic priorities. However, as much as I wanted to shut myself away from the music scene at school, I just couldn’t take my eyes and ears off it. As part of the IB Music course, I wrote an original composition for the SJI International Jazz Band (which was later performed at the Hard Rock Café) and an arrangement for the Orchestra, which was also performed during my Graduation upon

receiving the Dick Lee—Artist of the Year award.

My musical journey at SJI International was a transformative experience for me; it has pushed me to realise my potential in ways that I could never have imagined, and made me determined to pursue a career in music. I am grateful for the countless opportunities that SJI International has given me to channel my passion and improve my attitude towards learning.

Currently, I am interning at a small Christian music ministry in Singapore, where I have applied some of the musical skills I learnt at SJI International, such as transcribing songs with notation software. I am also involved in the production of music videos and the arrangement for an upcoming musical.

Terima kasih, SJI International!

[Laura is studying Music at Berklee College]

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SJI INTERNATIONAL VOICES

Kushal Shah | SJI International Class of 2013

Snapshot of Africa:

MY DREAM VAC

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CATION

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SJI INTERNATIONAL VOICES

Joanna Chuah | SJI International Class of 2013

Being taught how to feel

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aving graduated from a history course at SJI International, the concept of cause-and-effect is infallible to me. I’ve grown sceptical of coincidences and believe that everything happens for a reason — my 4-month writing internship with MOE is no exception. Back in the day when white and green was my only fashion option, I was taught English under the same teacher who headed the CAS programme. Being involved in many service projects himself, he had a big heart and was fond of teaching English from the soul.

There were times when the class would remain in total silence, listening to his stories and feeling how they related to the books we were reading. I remember being in awe at how he used language to facilitate an inquiry into values. Every lesson was about asking what we believed in and why; tough questions that made our gears turn. Safe to say that at 1.50pm on Friday afternoons, we were not taught English, we were taught empathy.

This classroom culture inspired me so much that I took up Journalism Club and Riding for the Disabled (RDA) as my CCAs — language and service. At this point, one might assume that my 12

choice was driven purely by sentiment but think deeper into it and it’ll start to look like a logical progression. RDA was the toughest service activity around, imagine trekking through thick bug-infested forests whilst controlling a horse and making sure the child on top of it is safe; not everyone’s cup of tea. And just when you think it’s over, the bug bites and the muddy shoes will get to you, then the aches will creep in to remind you that maybe you’re too old to be doing this. But when the next session comes and the most notorious child asks “Can you please ride with me?” you’ll hug them, hold back the tears and say “Yes, of course”. As you can imagine, RDA was a test of patience and perseverance. While the children learnt how to hold their reins, I learnt to hold my temper. Keeping calm was key, whether you were riding a horse or trying to love a difficult child. With that said, it was these experiences which gave me the emotional capacity to write articles for the Journalism Club; it added a different dimension to my pieces, giving them a unique flavour. And so from this I noticed something quite interesting: it was my experience in service that gave me sparks for my writing, and strange-

ly enough, it was through my writing that I served too, by providing a moral compass to my fellow peers. Once that clicked, my next two years at SJI International were spent exploring this cycle of kindness but inevitably when graduation came I was left with a choice­— do I move on or do I keep going?

The answer was obvious to me. I was going to keep at it, but how? I wanted to take part in something that embodied what I stood for, something that was true to my beliefs. After two months of searching, I found it in the form of a writing internship with MOE. Currently, I write articles which focus on character building and holistic education. Sometimes, in the middle of

crafting a piece, my eyes get a little tired and my head a little fuzzy. This is when I find myself drifting back to my 1.50pm lessons or revisiting the stables in my mind — thinking about my SJI International experience. I’ll recall the merging of ethics and language, of empathy and writing and all of a sudden, the penny drops — and the story falls right into place.

[Joanna is pursuing law at SMU]

Dhaneshan Thirugnanasambhandan | SJI International Class of 2014

What makes a Lasallian?

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aith, service and community. People often ask me what it means to be Lasallian. Being Lasallian to me is simple; being Lasallian is those three words.

Average was the word that I lived with throughout my primary school education. I was a “nobody” and aspired towards very little. SJI International changed me. This school gives me a chance, and I would not have been the same today without it. At first, I didn’t understand nor did I want to accept the idea of being Lasallian: the values, the principles.

Everything changed when I was 14, in Grade 8. I challenged myself and went on a service trip to Thailand. That trip was sobering yet enlightening; only after witnessing how much poverty surrounded me did I begin to realise how

privileged I truly was. It made me understand how lucky I was, and what anyone my age in that village would have given to have the same opportunities I have.

Since that trip many years ago, I am now a leader in the School’s Lasallian Youth. Along with Yu Kai Yan (Class of 2013) I have organised many events to promote Lasallian values. I have been to the Bamboo School in Thailand and built a classroom for them. I helped organise Poverty Week and then the One Day Without Shoes event at SJI International.

I believe being Lasallian is not about how much money you donate. It is, of course important, but being Lasallian is bigger than that. I believe Lasallian values are a moral compass, something that guides us to care for others and treat people as you’d like them to treat you; helping others not for the credit it may bring you, but because you know that all the effort you put in could make a difference in someone’s life.

I am in a Catholic school, but I am not Catholic. I believe

the values of a Lasallian should not be hindered by race or religion; being Lasallian is and always will be a universal concept. I believe that, based on my own beliefs, I will always remember where I came from, and strive towards giving those who have nothing, something.

[Dhaneshan is currently in his final year at SJI International]

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SJI INTERNATIONAL VOICES

MY CHALL Samuel Tan | SJI International Class of 2014

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hallenge Week: the week-long service project saw the six of us in Siem Reap, Cambodia. Cambodia, the country thought to be underdeveloped and dangerous, had, in fact, an unspoken sense of wonder and beauty.

This beauty was not just in the trees and rivers, but also, in its people. The Cambodians treated people, foreigners and locals alike, with a special warmth that is hard to find in Singapore. We arrived in Cambodia on 13th October, and we made our way to the school on the second day, the 14th. This was when we

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encountered our very first challenge of the week — the school we were meant to be volunteering at, Savong’s School, turned out to be closed for examination leave. It is hard to forget that sudden moment of panic and disappointment.

We had to think on our feet as a team.

Fortunately, there happened to be Savong’s Orphan Centre not too far off, and we made our way there.

The Orphan Centre had several volunteer opportunities that we could participate in, and we readily took them up.

The children were adorable, smart and

friendly, and clung to every bit of attention they could get. Initially, I felt slightly uncomfortable with all the hugging.

However, after thinking about it, I made sense of the situation. I suddenly realised these children hardly get any love from an older person. This absolutely changed my point of view; never had it occurred to me how much I, or we for that matter, take for granted.

We taught them both English and Mathematics, helping out in their classes. We went through vocabulary in English, even playing Pictionary and

LLENGE WEEK

Hangman with them. While the games seemed so simple to me, most of the class gave a blank stare at each question — except for So Gei (pronounced Kai) and So Kim. Those two must have been some of the smartest children I’ve met, and they continually answered everything correctly. We never gave up, and although frustrating and tedious at times, the satisfaction of knowing that we were making a difference was worth it. It was eventually time to leave. I will never really forget the hospitality they showed us during the short time we

spent there: mental images of one of the orphans, Srey Am, jumping up and down to catch a last glimpse of us; Siv being lifted up so that he could have a final look, are faithfully etched in my mind. These minute details really bring out the entire notion of love for people whom they had only known for four days. Though painful, it was time for us to leave them.

Each and every one of these childern’s lives is significant — a war can take place in Syria, conflicts can arise in Afghanistan, but these children have

entire life stories ahead of them. Though I may have only made a small impact, I am happy to have made an appearance with the main characters of their stories — themselves.

[Samuel is currently in his final year at SJI International]

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I had a dream where...

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Anh Tran Le Bao | SJI International Class of 2010

Alumni come home!

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lose to 60 alumni from near and far returned home to SJI International on 19th July 2014 for the Summer Alumni Reunion. The evening kicked off with an Opening Prayer from our new Brother President, Brother Lawrence, and warm welcomes from the Principal, Mr Roberts and Mr Anandraj, Director of Advancement and Communications.

The school has grown quite a bit since it started in 2007, both in size and reputation. Mr Roberts reminded the alumni that the success of the school and how far it has come is a credit to its alumni.

Alumni arrived early to re-live the memories they had of their school days, and explore all the new additions such as the IB Student Lounge, the Elementary School, the Sports Hall and even the actual event site, the pool, which our older batch of alumni had a hard time finding.

Students from our very first graduating Class of 2009 all the way to those who have only been away for the last seven months

gathered by the school poolside to reunite with old friends and teachers and staff, especially Auntie Glenis who was delighted to see the students return.

She says, “I was very happy to see everyone come back to SJI International. The students are very close to my heart and it felt as though my children who had left the nest had returned! It was good.”

All in all, it was a great time to catch up, reminisce, and explore how far the school has come.

Hilda Foo says, “I found the reunion so homely and welcoming ­— everyone was just filled with joy to embrace and converse with old friends. It warmed my heart to see how the SJI International alumni has grown!

I think these are platinum moments that allow us to re-live our golden days at SJI International.

Even if the turnout could be even larger, the people who come suffice; they make the joyous reunion what it is.”

17

INFINITAS INTERPRETED

Ricardo Seah | SJI International Class of 2010

Advancement and Communications Office St Joseph’s Institution International 490 Thomson Road | Singapore 298191 Tel (65) 6353 9383 | Fax (65) 6354 3103 www.sji-international.com.sg Enter to Learn, Leave to Serve Elementary School | Prep 1 – Grade 6 International Primary Curriculum | CPE Reg No. 201009321K High School | Grade 7 – 10 IGCSE | Grade 11 – 12 International Baccalaureate | Co Reg & GST No. 200607833C

A SCHOOL OF THE DE LA SALLE BROTHERS