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"This is the end...."

Yes it was great!!! I hit Singapore up in the biggest night of my life so far, all night out: finishing whiskey from a random impromptu party the night before in the hostel until midnight, last orders for a Singapore Sling at the Raffles with Hamish and Euan, then a classic Blacker 'I know the way' mental map to the Ministry of Sound club until closing @5am, Mc Donalds until 6.30am and then brekkie, shower and pack. I then got the afternoon flight to Sibu in Sarawak from JB!!
I did all 4 show caves, the PINNACLES(wow, so much harder than Kinabalu yet a weirder view...like a moonscape of granite fingers from the middle of Gng Api [Fire Mountain]) random swimming in waterfalls and freezing mountain rivers,ankle deep barefoot mud trails, 3 million bats leaving a cave at dusk watched from lying on a grassy knoll, card games with pornographic cards. All this done with Jimmy's (and now my mate) mate Dominic Ow Han Jie, his Shanghai friend Jiang Yu Fei, Andy from Cologne in Germany and Joseph from USA...what a crowd, Mulu was fantasic with this motley crew...now i am in the richness of a lounge in KLIA, this internet is RM30 for 1 hour!

AHHHHH the Western World.....NO! Inflated prices, newspapers, politics, shoes, bins, cleanliness,..... I love Borneo so much...and I don't ever leave it behind.


x

p.s. pictures later...promise, I have the card, not the time to upload. Thanks for the patience and the fact that the updates have really really been bad. As in non existant.
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Saya ma'afkan, sila sila sila Tuhan (Allah)

Saya suka Sabah dan Sarawak, orang-orang dan Pulau Borneo.

La Salle Gemilang, Terbilang dan Cemilang

JOHAN

"This is the end...."

Yes it was great!!! I hit Singapore up in the biggest night of my life so far, all night out: finishing whiskey from a random impromptu party the night before in the hostel until midnight, last orders for a Singapore Sling at the Raffles with Hamish and Euan, then a classic Blacker 'I know the way' mental map to the Ministry of Sound club until closing @5am, Mc Donalds until 6.30am and then brekkie, shower and pack. I then got the afternoon flight to Sibu in Sarawak from JB!!
I did all 4 show caves, the PINNACLES(wow, so much harder than Kinabalu yet a weirder view...like a moonscape) random swimming in waterfalls and freezing mountain rivers,ankle deep barefoot mud trails, 3 million bats leaving a cave at dusk watched from lying on a grassy knoll, card games with pornographic cards. All this done with Jimmy's (and now my mate) mate Dominic Ow Han Jie, his Shanghai friend Jiang Yu Fei, Andy from Cologne in Germany and Joseph from USA...what a crowd, Mulu was fantasic with this motley crew...now i am in the richness of a lounge in KLIA, hope London is all pretty and sunny. Enjoy it while it lasts!!!!!!!!!!!

"This is the end....

Yes it was great!!! I hit Singapore up in the biggest night of my life so far, all night out: finishing whiskey from a random impromptu party the night before in the hostel until midnight, last orders for a Singapore Sling at the Raffles with Hamish and Euan, then a classic Blacker 'I know the way' mental map to the Ministry of Sound club until closing @5am, Mc Donalds until 6.30am and then brekkie, shower and pack. I then got the afternoon flight to Sibu in Sarawak from JB!!
I did all 4 show caves, the PINNACLES(wow, so much harder than Kinabalu yet a weirder view...like a moonscape) random swimming in waterfalls and freezing mountain rivers,ankle deep barefoot mud trails, 3 million bats leaving a cave at dusk watched from lying on a grassy knoll, card games with pornographic cards. All this done with Jimmy's (and now my mate) mate Dominic Ow Han Jie, his Shanghai friend Jiang Yu Fei, Andy from Cologne in Germany and Joseph from USA...what a crowd, Mulu was fantasic with this motley crew...now i am in the richness of a lounge in KLIA, hope London is all pretty and sunny. Enjoy it while it lasts!!!!!!!!!!!

My 19th and the last week of La Salle

Thanks to all who rang, sent a text, left a facebook message or comment, sent cards in the post, sent money (pounds and ringgits) sent emails...I was really suprised and thankful for all of these. Thanks guys! Really reminded me of home in a nice way and that it was my first birthday away from home!

On my birthday, I was congratulated by teachers at school and then the boarders had bought a cake with a 'Happy Birthday Tom' message on. Now Bro. Charles is back, he joined in the sponge and cream cake fest! Happy Birthday in English and Malay was sung, it was really cool and the cake was the most filling thing ever! There's a piece left in the freezer as it will go off in the fridge, what with it being between 30-35oC all day, everyday!

I will miss all of them. It's been a real home from home. Just regular people my age who really live up to the friendly stereotype of Malaysians and have thanked us for improving their English and giving differences that I think has broadened them as people. It's not corrupting them (as people accused me of corrupting Jimmy way back!!), just Euan and I being ourselves.

The school is in a week of exams, this gives me time to reflect now. The best way to sum up the school is to post a two-page review I wrote about the highs and lows, here it is:

From 8^th January, the first day of the new term, we were made to feel welcome at La Salle. The School Principle, Puan Julia Willie Jock met us in her office. After, The Head Prefect, Leader of the Parliament and the Opposition Leader of the Parliament took Euan and I on a tour of both blocks of the school campus. This included both staff rooms, both halls, the La Salle Archive (museum of the school) and a computer lab that was installed in 2007.

The boarding house was equally as friendly. The borders and Brother Charles greeted us and we settled in as though it was home.

La Salle School itself is a Catholic missionary School set up in 1903 by the Mill Hill Brothers and then in 1957 was re-founded by Brothers of La Salle. Being a missionary school, it receives no money from Malaysian Education authorities except for teachers’ wages. There are over 1,000 pupils, most being boys as Upper 6^th is co-educational. Each class has between 45-55 pupils, with 5 sets per year, from 13 to 19 years old.

Until the first week of February, we took part in seemingly constant sports events: Standard Sports, sports practice and a grand Sports Day. Plus, winning a bronze medal in the open 4x100m and a gold medal in the alumni vs. teachers tug-of-war were great events. During the schooldays we observed all years in their English classes in both blocks and attended assemblies every Monday morning. Our experiences were new every day with the adjustments of a new climate, people, culture and style of living in a new house with new people. Some examples being: washing clothes by hand and always being sensible about the tropical climate and thunderstorms.

I taught English in the Junior Block for forms 1 and 2, this together with rugby coaching for U14 and the occasional form 3 class made my time very focused. The teaching was done by helping in the classrooms for the top 2 sets and taking small remedial group of 10-12 to a spare classroom to teach the same lesson but on a smaller scale. For these students, this improved their abilities as they were not in a large class of 50 which is difficult to teach all at the same level. From January to May I taught everything from English games; limericks, Literature such as Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18, Robinson Crusoe and Malaysian poet’s work. When needed, grammar rules were taught so the understanding of English was comprehensive, fun and a new experience. I found the teachers to appreciate my input, though the true test was the improvement in written and spoken English I noticed.

I had many further opportunities with the school outside the classroom, such as: rugby training form 1 and form 2, who went on to be Sabah state champions and will represent the State in Kuala Lumpur in October. Added to this is the school sponsored jogathon, many school rugby festivals, the school mooting team who became Sabah state champions, school choir practice and inter-school competition, organising a treasure hunt for 20 pupils and other activities for English week, special assemblies and meetings for Chinese New Year, graduating as La Sallians and attending the local church with Brother Charles. Taking part in these activities integrated us further into the local area and increased the fullness of the experience in Sabah.

We showed that volunteers can add value to people, a community and a school. Hard work does bring good outcomes and truly learning from mistakes and difficulties helped our own development at La Salle Being the first gappers for La Salle, Euan and I supported each other through the five month term through difficulties and the many enjoyable times. Now reflecting on our volunteering, I feel we made many positive differences that were appreciated and will always remember that La Salle, Sabah was our home and community for part of our lives.

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Just last weekend, I completed my PADI open water scuba course over on Mabul and Sipadan island, east Sabah. It was really great. We even had two MASSIVE tropical thunderstorms with the loudest thunder I have ever heard. The first one was worse: very high waters, strong winds, a leaking roof and lightning made for quite a worrying time. I thought our hostel room with metal bunk beds would be blown over or the roof would get ripped off -- this is what happened to some 'kampung' or village houses in the area. They were badly damaged. Even when we arrived on Mabul Island, the weather over was awful and the journey took 90 minutes, more than double the 40 minutes Lonely Planet says...! Anyway, we saw lots of starfish, tiger fish, box fish, sea turtles, white tipped sharks, schools of barracuda, amazing 50 metre++ wall of coral, a sunken toilet, sunken wooden fishing boat...really great place. Cool family run house that our diving company operated from; they even took us out to a birthday on the other side of the island where we had some coconut wine (to add to the 3 kinds of rice wine I have tried), some rum on the beach and then dancing the Pocho Pocho at a wedding reception. This was a large stage, whole village on the island seemed to be there; the party went on until 5am. Thankfully I slept from 1am without disturbance!:



Wow, great time away! Now it's goodbyes and farewells to La Salle...

Photos - Highlights of the first half term

1/2 term and KK

I can't believe that on Thursday we break up for 1/2 term. Half way through the placement at the school! There's national elections on Saturday so we get Friday off. There's loads of media interest and banners EVERYWHERE. It was so weird, getting a taxi back with Euan from KK late on Saturday night, we see a roundabout near our place absolutely covered to resemble a huge maypole of the government's party. It just appeared in a few hours before, yet no-one else seems to pay any attention to the streets being bathed in political party's colours.


6 days until we fly to Hanoi, Vietnam. Be Le, a gapper out here we see every week is letting us stay with her grandparents in Hue. Her story about how most of her family escaped civil war to Hong Kong and then Australia and being half-way in between the Socialists from the north and the Democrats from the south is amazing...especially as they wanted to escape to Canada but then settled for Australia!

KK is rocking still. We've got a few favourite hang outs here now.

Ah, bad news: Tom Askern, a gapper nearby at Sabah College has to return home to Australia because of family reasons. We're all sad to see him go but hopefully, he can come back out to do his gap year as he intended.

Anyway, must go, it's always busy busy busy!

Selamat Tinggal!