Well, we came out 2nd at the National Educare Carnival for choral speaking. And here's my reflection on this unbelievable feat done by "Swami":
"..It was truly, truly a gift from the Lord.. I was more nervous and full of anxiety and tension when comparred to our choral speakers themselves. Before the our speakers were ushered into the arena, I could see how tensed our young speakers were and this worsened my own confidence as a teacher just minutes before the finals. I had already lost my voice when I stood nervously near the stage to usher our budding heroes and heroines to deliver Swami's message to the adults entitled "Peace Not Pieces!"
We were the fourth to go on stage and my heart pounded even more rapidy when a few of our students told me that they were very scared... I was equally scared too as almost all our kids had never gone on stage for any performance in their life.. And what more, after having seen the first 3 performances by other states, I knew our kids were at a disadvantage in many aspects....I knew that the KL and Selangor teams went through elimination rounds before they were selected to represent their respective states. And ours was an impromtou choir comprising of students from ages 10 to 14 years from all centres on the island and they all had varied linguistic ability. Getting them to properly utter the initial vowel sounds like "arr" and "orr" was a challenge as these initial sounds are heavily influenced by their own mother tongue.
As our speakers took the stage, I suddenly saw myself hiding near the wall and shying away from the stage... like a kid myself, I dare not even look at the choir directly for not wanting to see any flaws in them but preferred to see the reactions of the judges. There I was, like a teacher trainee ( despite having 35 years of teaching experience ) all eyes glued on the judges and hoping to get some consolation and compassion from them in their asssessment.
In the midst of their performance, I sighed with relief when I noticed that the judges were excited with our students' performance and they did actually reacted positively towards our their performance...there was some laughter amongst them...and I knew the Lord was pleased with the theme and message of our presentation."
(Contributed by Bro Bala Chandran, SSBCNED, Penang)
