The thousands of applauses from the students rocked the hall when the guest of honor entered. Everyone was so excited about who the guest was. When he had reached his seat, we rose and sang the Buddhist Hymn – our school is a Buddhist school. After the hymn, the host invited the principal to give the graduating pupils her speech and the guest after her. Although the first speech was quite dry, the second was pretty interesting. He talked about the teachings of Buddhism and it made a lot of sense.

Another round of applauses thundered across hall after the speeches while students from each class lined up along the corridor. Many waited eagerly for their turn to go onto the stage to receive their souvenirs – a video of the school in a CD - from their form teacher. When it was our turn, we were all very happy. I am the class monitor and I had to assist the teacher to make sure the souvenirs were given out to the correct pupil. I was the last one to receive the souvenir from my form teacher, Ms. Tay. According to the organizers of this event, class monitors were to present a bouquet to their class form teacher. I held the bouquet with both my hands and transferred it to hers. We shook hand and hugged slightly. I was quite shy at that time because it was the first time I am hugging a female other than my mum. The class arranged themselves on the stage and shouted, “We love you, Miss Tay!” before everyone went back to our seats. I was not aware that our classmates intended to do this because other classes did not do this to their teacher. I was bewildered for a second but was glad that we were special.

Soon when all the souvenirs and awards – for the prefects of our school – were given out, our school’s chairman, Venerable Ming Yi, gave everyone in the hall a blessing for our coming Level examination. He invited another venerable, whom he said was a student our