Leavers Dinner

After our whirl-wind trip to Hyderabad, it was back to normal school life. Except there is no such thing as normal school life. There is always something happening. The next happening event was the beginning of the end. That's right,we had to start the French Oral exams and then the French Listening exams all before Exam Week! Tension mounted as we went through the week with the students complaining about the amount of work they had to do and wondering how they were supposed to prepare for exams when the teachers kept piling on the work!!!!! Somehow they and we survived! (no photos) On Saturday, May 26 the Leavers Dinner was held at the Stirling Hotel in Ooty. What a wonderful view of a spectacular sunset we had that night. The students were dressed in their finest. the boys looked so smart in their suits

and ties and the girls looked so adult in their fancy dresses. It was a great night and we all had an enjoyable time. The evening concluded with the Standard 12's paying tribute to the Standard 13'2 and then the Standard 13's paying tribute to the 12's. All was in good fun and laughs were enjoyed by both sets of Leavers. The students thanked the staff who are leaving and some amusing stories were told!

Somehow I ended up as the designated pianist at St. Stephen's Church on Sunday, May 27. Thankfully the tunes book was available during the week and I was able to photocopy the music and enlarge it for easy reading. I was also able to get to a piano a couple of times before the Sunday. Following church Gigi and I took Tom and Valsa to King's Cliff for a birthday luncheon for Valsa. Little did I know or realize that was just an excuse. When we got there, I discovered Gigi had arranged for a group of our friends to join us to celebrate my 70th birthday. We had a wonderful meal together in very pleasant surroundings. The week of may 28 was Exam Week. All classes were cancelled and subject examinations were set for each Standard and subje

ct. Some students had as many as 15 exams over a 5 day period. There were two exams in the morning and one exam in the afternoon. Obviously teachers had to invigilate and mark as all marks were due by Monday June 4! My last French exam finished at 3:50 P.M. on Friday afternoon. I spent some of the weekend correcting and worked all day on Monday, my "day off"!

There is always a Dorm activity on the weekend and last weekend was no exception. On Saturday morning we walked up the hill for our breakfast. I am not sure exactly where we went but I do know we had a good view of the school and of Ooty. From where we were the Holiday Inn Gem Park was just across the valley. On Sunday afternoon we celebrated another birthday for one of the Standard 12 girls. T\We. the 12's,boys and girls were bussed down to Coonoor to the home of the student and had a wonderful afternoon. The view from the house was spectacular and the food was absolutely delicious. Thanks so much for inviting us to your party Carina!

It seems almost impossible to believe two (2) weeks from tonight most of the students will have left and gone home for the summer. The standard 13's will have said their final "Good bye's"and will be on their ways top new fields of study or work. We will have started to pack our suitcases for the homeward journey.