CELEBRATING MID AUTUMN FESTIVAL IN SCHOOL

14th SEPTEMBER 2019 ~ The Chinese Language Society of SMK Dato Jaafar celebrated the Mid Autumn Festival in school in the evening. This was the second time for me attending such event but this year it seemed to be more exciting. There was this mini concert and besides the boys doing the usual performances like singing. martial arts (wushu), Chinese drums and playing musical instrument, the Convent girls were invited too to perform the Chinese Yoyo (diablo). There was also another girl singing solo but I didn't where she was from.

The highlight of the event was the lighting of the lanterns and then we all walked around the school compound one time with the lanterns in our hands. Another significant item related to the celebration would be the mooncake.

This should be one of the rare moments I got to hold a real lighted lantern and walk together with my friends. You have to google it yourself about the history of this Mid Autumn Festival in the Chinese culture to understand better. It was fun for me except I still needed to wake up early for school the next day. ☺

MINGLING WITH THE DISTRICT'S YOUNG POET WANNABES

27th APRIL 2019 ~ Another competition was held for English at district level. SMK IJ Convent hosted the Poetry Recitation Competition for this year and 21 school took part this time.

There were two sections for this competition - the prepared poem where contestant had to recite a 5-minute poem, and the impromptu session where the students were given the theme on the spot, and they had to prepare the poem in 20 minutes and then recite it on stage.

SDJ's representatives

While waiting for the results, the Convent Choir sang two songs during the intermission: "Heal the World" and "You Raise Me Up" and they sang them beautifully.

The Convent girls emerged as the winners. Unfortunately for my boys, they did not get into the top five places even though the audience seemed to enjoy their recitation and gave them loud applause after both performances. Guess being popular would influence the judges' verdict. I was anyway glad that my students had done well for the competition and they had worked really hard and I still have to congratulate them. Maybe we should try again next time.