Friday, May 29, 2009
So yesterday was our last lesson with dearest coolio LA teacher, Mr Gavin Swee. It was really quite saddening and the thought of Ms Kheng coming back is unbearable.Anyway, Mr Swee stepped in the class nonchalently, like as though he wasnt leaving us. He came in, wrapped up To Kill a Mockingbird and touched a li'l on speeches, something which apparently he's been wanting to teach us. He let us watch and hear Martin Luther King, Jr. I remember him letting us hear the speech on his first lesson with us. Now as we recall, it seems so long ago since Mr Swee first joined us. It all started out with the miserable gallery walk with Ms Kheng. Mr Swee joined us and was walking about with us and explaining the different literary devices. I started to like him as a teacher then, though majority of the class didn't.And then Ms Kheng left. Mr Swee came in. Many people thought he was eccentric, whatever, for he simply loved screaming "TALK TO MEEEEE!" in class. I didn't, though. I thought of him as a really special and different teacher whom does not behave like a teacher yet still succeed in doing the job of a teacher. I thoroughly enjoyed LA lessons with Mr Swee because he made them all so interesting and he explained everything clearly. He never failed to return me with satisfying answers whenever I popped him questions, unlike certain teachers who always claimed that they would "get back to me" but didnt eventually. Mr Swee put in a lot of effort in teaching us and I've learnt a lot with his guidance. I've developed a stronger interest in LA as compared to before when we didn't have awesome teachers like Mr Swee.Classmates used to complain about how Mr Swee was lazy and strict. But I never thought so. Lazy just because he took weeks to return our assignments? No I don't think so even till now. At least he didn't feel obliged to mark. He marked it only when he knew he had the time and energy to and therefore would mark seriously. It beats teachers who mark just for the sake of marking and return you scripts with barely any comments. And strict? Well isn't that for our own good? What good do you have if you get a super-lenient teacher who marks you right even if you say Singapore is bigger than America? But well, at least now the whole class loves Mr Swee. Just look at the amount of time and effort (and of course love) we put into the lovely scrapbook just for Swee. We stayed at Marine Parade library till 6.3opm, we stayed back after school, we secretly did the scrapbook during CME and PC, I got Melanie to accompany me to go back to class during our recess one day to do; we spent time, we spent money. Everyone, or at least most of them, made it a point to memorise the song 关怀方式 for Swee. Everyone wrote notes to him, most of which are longggg notes. And most importantly, we all felt sad that he was leaving us.And that's the impact that our INTELLIGENT and DAMN COOL (all that self-praises) LA teacher left on us. People started out disliking him. Now we all miss him. I guess it's all those fun he brought in to class. His funny antics like sitting on the teacher's desk, shouting in class, getting high over summary etc are all really memorable and I know that's one part of Swee that Im gonna miss. 
Yesterday was the last lesson with Swee. Before he ended class, he shared with us 2 poems. One: Last Lesson of the Afternoon. Two: The Best of School. (Check them out if you are interested) He said that sometimes, the first poem applies to us but other times which are quite rare, we are like the second poem. It really touched me and it kinda make me feel bad because I feel that our class had not been giving Mr Swee what he really deserved in class. We weren't exactly active in class, some did not hand in assignments on time etc. We weren't doing Swee justice, were we? Oh well, it's a li'l too late now since we aren't gonna have anymore lessons with him. 
And so with Mr Swee, we went to Fort Canning Park yesterday to watch the play "Much Ado About Nothing", starring Adrain Pang. We were early and so we got to occupy the front places. We lay our picnic mats and poured out food. We waited for Swee to come and started yelling GAVIN upon his arrival to embarrass him. He sat next to us, together with his 3 other friends.
The play was really awesome. The cast were good, especially Adrian Pang. Jason Chan is good-looking and everyone agrees yea. Anyway you are gonna be jealous of us but throughout the play, we had the best LA teacher next to us explaining the different parts and helping us to understand the play better. See, told ya Mr Swee's awesome and the best. During the 20-min intermission, we presented the pretty scrapbook to Swee and we all know that he was touched. Awwwww... We embarrassed him once again but singing 关怀方式together, all 20-30 of us present. 
ALL THE BEST TO YOU, MR SWEE, FOR YOUR FUTURE ENDEAVOURS. YOU KNOW THAT WHATEVER IT IS, DHS2B'09 WILL ALWAYS BE SUPPORTING YOU. YOU'LL ALWAYS BE REMEMBERED AS THAT AWESOME AND BEST AND EGOISTIC LA TEACHER WHOM WE TRULY LOVE. WE WILL MISS YOU, MR GAVIN SWEE. YOU ARE THE BEST LA TEACHER EVER. 
(More pictures of Swee will be up after he tells me which pictures can be put up.)
TODAY
is the last day of T2. It's been a busy term and Im surprised I actually managed to survive. Heaps of assignments and revisions to do that sometimes I felt like breaking down. My GPA didn't turn out good but Im glad my percentage is fine. I know Im losing to many people, but I also know that during this process, I've learnt many things that some people didn't. Having to juggle SYF, SC (EAS Day), piano, assignments, revisions etc, I've learnt many values and Im glad I did eventually. I've become stronger, more 'resistant' to stress and like Mr Gilbert Lee has said, it is only when I step out of my comfort zone that my comfort zone will expand and therefore I can withstand more hardship. At least I know in terms of character and value wise, I am not losing out.
With that, this marks the end of T2. Enjoy your vacations, people!
-We'll miss you, Swee!
-ANYONE WHO HAPPENS TO SEE MY CHINESE RING FILE N SCHOOL, PLEASE RETURN IT TO ME. FYI, MY FILE IS ORANGE IN COLOUR AND IT HAS PINK FONT IN THE CONTENT PAGE.
-I need to rest now.
