Soon, it was time to be seated in the school hall. I was at Table C and was surprised that it was right next to the VIP table, lol. Soon, another 3 gentlemen came along who were at Table C too and they were the architects for the school. Sometimes, at the end of a long working day, I just don't want to talk, lol. But being such a joyous and special occasion, small talks were inevitable. When they found out I am a psychologist and counsellor, I was asked a lot of questions! I guess people are still not very knowledgeable about how/ what psychologist or counsellor works/ does. :P There were choir and dance performances while waiting for Dr Balakrishnan to arrive. Once he arrived, there were the opening prayer by the Archbishop, addresses by the Principal, by the Chairperson of IJ Board of Management and by the Guest of Honour, Dr Balakrishnan and of course, the official opening of the new school building by Dr Bala.
We soon had dinner and were entertained with performances by the English drama, Tap Dance, Choir and Fusion Dance. Of worthy note was one of the Fusion Dances, where one of the dancers performed the difficult Art of Face-changing! It was not an easy feat and she was flawless in her performance! She gathered the most rounds of applause and she definitely wow-ed everyone in that school hall. Well-done! The dinner was great, there were only 4 of us at a table for 10! Hahaha, you could imagine how much food we were stuffing ourselves with. :P Dr Bala's PAs were seated with us for a while before they left around 7:30pm as Dr Bala had another function to attend. While his PAs were seated with us, I naturally struck up a conversation with the one who was seated closest to me.
Just as Dr Bala was leaving the hall, his PA whom I was conversing with, spoke with him. To my surprise, Dr Bala came over to me, shook my hand and spoke to me. As his schedule was tight, Dr Bala didn't have time to interact with others except those at the VIP table. So it was kind of embarrassing to suddenly have the spotlight on me, hahaha. I was asked by a number of people later how come Dr Bala came over to speak to me. You see, I know his wife and his daughter. Mrs Bala taught me GP and I taught his daughter in SCGS. Lol. One full circle. :)
The dinner ended around 9:30pm and every guest had a take-home gift. I was touched by the thoughtfulness that went into the selection of the gifts. Yup, there were two gifts in the bag. One was a crystal block with the old school building in it and the second was a hand-crafted clay angel by a student. The angel was doubly meaningful to me because it was made by a student, and also because my angel happened to be made by one of my counsellees! What is the chance of that happening?! Very rare. I will treasure my special angel for a long time to come. :)
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