The ACS (I) Boarding School has always strived to provide the best home-away-from-home experience for her boarders. In its essence, “Home” should conjure up images of a warm nurturing family environment. With this in mind, several special events in a year are celebrated to help make the boarding school experience so much more then just a place to stay. Christmas, embodies the spirit of caring, loving and sharing. It is no coincidence then that the annual Christmas celebration has always been one of the top four events here in the Boarding School.
Curiously taking place on the 17th of October 2008, a full two months before the actual day, it was therefore to be expected that there was no Christmas spirit in the air. Even moments before the event opened, there were many boarders looking skeptical about the whole event, bemused even at the prospect that somehow, by some magic, that this plainest of plain evenings was to become a blaze of light, filled with Christmas cheer and song. Sheepish looks jumped from boarder to boarder with eyes flirting towards the more adventurous, already decked out in Christmas themed clothes and red elfish fur caps.
What an evening it turned out to be! Whatever initial skepticism the boarders had, soon melted away with the sumptuous spread that was laid out for everyone. It was a time to eat, drink and be merry! Both staff and students sat shoulder to shoulder together in the joint appreciation of the feast. Young boarders conversed happily with their seniors and the seniors talked to their teacher mentors as old friends. Truly, all barriers were broken between age and rank.
Next came the performances put up by our very own JCRC committee, students as well as some guest items by the staff. Each item was met with ever increasing enthusiastic applause by everyone present. When the time came for the boarders to sing Christmas carols in union, those initial few sheepish looks at those better dressed soon turned to good natured envy with everyone wanting to have a go at wearing their own elfish cap.
With all the celebrations on ongoing, Dr Ong, Chief Warden of the Boarding School, also took the opportunity to thank the hardworking custodians as well as announce the winner of the ACS(I) Boarding School Sports Challenge Shield donated by Dr Lee Li Eng (Hall 7.) On reflective note, Pastor Reverend Kenneth Huang gave his heartwarming Christmas address, reminding everyone of the more spiritual aspects of Christmas.
To end the evening with a bang, came Santa Claus himself! All dressed in his red robe, bellowing “Ho Ho HO!” whilst dragging his sack of gifts to the children present that evening. Truly, the Spirit of Christmas must have come down that evening as everyone left with warm smiles on their faces.
Monday, December 29, 2008
Christmas dinner report
It so murky going ahead...
From the POEMS daily report:
As the U.S. stock market heads into the last week of the year, what was inconceivable just 12 months ago is now a stark possibility: 2008 could be the worst year ever for Wall Street.
The U.S. market's most tracked benchmark, the S&P 500, is down 40.6 percent since last year's close with only three trading days left in 2008. Given the market's hair-trigger volatility this year, that's just one bad day away from surpassing 1931's 47.1 percent drop, the biggest yearly decline ever. As it is, the market's swoon this year will cement 2008's place in history by at least one measure: eviscerated
wealth. A record $7.3 trillion of stock market value has been obliterated this year, according to the Dow Jones Wilshire 5000 index, the broadest measure of U.S. equity performance.
Investors ran for the exits this year as a collapse originally thought to be contained to the U.S. home mortgage sector morphed into a full-blown global credit crisis that now threatens global recession.
The fallout from frozen credit markets permeated all sectors from banks to autos to resources, while unemployment climbed, house prices plummeted and cash-strapped consumers curtailed their spending.
