My School – Follow Up

As I mentioned earlier in a post simply called My School we have a large and active international community at our school. Tonight, our dining hall is hosting a dinner of Chinese food prepared with the Lunar New Year (sometimes referred to as ‘Chinese New Year’) in mind. Today at our school assembly time our chaplain delivered a typically terrific talk, this time with Pete Seeger being the focus of his chat. When he finished – a little earlier than usual – he turned the stage over to one of our international seniors named Oliver. He mentioned that at this holiday time many of our students cannot be with their families to celebrate. He then introduced a video put together by another student who goes by the nickname Bobo. Bobo and Oliver had the idea of having the parents of our Chinese students (Bobo and Oliver are each Chinese but we certainly have many other countries represented here) send their holiday wishes to their children. We saw a five minute video of moms, dads, siblings, etc. all wishing their children a happy and safe new year. It was such a terrific gesture by these two young men and it had a great impact on the room. Many of the adults in the community were brought to tears by how sweet this was. Many of the messages were in Chinese and subtitles were presented for some of them. Our chaplain could not help but remark that the wishes of parents – be happy, do well in school, eat well – all transcend cultures. 

What a great moment and a reminder of how terrific this community is.

By the way – remember, we have an opening in our math department. Think about it…