Last week, the college was very honoured to have Professor Jocelyn Bell Burnell, a visiting professor from Oxford University, to give a short talk on her field of expertise : Astrophysics.

Now, my dear friends, this living legend is no ordinary guest speaker. (to be fair, none of the last few guest speakers were ordinary. There was that 9 language speaking gentleman who's current fascination was with lion conservation; and then there was the Irish Ambassador to Malaysia). This scientist helped discover pulsars! Pulsars, for the uninitiated or too bothered to click the wikipedia link, are "rotating neutron stars that are observable as sources of electromagnetic radiation." She discovered them while doing her thesis work at Cambridge in the 60's. Groovy, baby!

The talk was very informative and lovely, and she is definitely a master educator from the way she was able to express all her ideas clearly to the GH audience (which included non-science stream students as well as people who scored very low for their astrophysics A2 option.)

And sidestepping into the realms of astrology, it was probably no coincidence that she came on the third day of the week, and gave a talk during block three (which was incidentally cancelled college-wide, to allow every student to attend the talk.)

Professor Jocelyn came with an entourage comprising of the reps from the British Council along with some students from KTJ, and others. After the brief talk, students with actual interest, guests and nosy people in general had a more technical session with her in the lecture theatre.

She ended her session by declaring that "We're all made of stars!" What a nice thing to say =)

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Many more master educators were stars in their own right last Friday. I'm talking about the wonderful teachers in KYUEM, and the Teachers' Day Celebrations.

Now, I'm not sure when Teacher's Day was first celebrated in college, but I can safely say that this year's was among the best in recent memory. I judge this on the basis of having shifted through all the college yearbooks. Beg to differ? mail me.

In any case, I certainly had a great time. Kudos to the SC members! =)

There were some performances from seniors and juniors. The juniors came up with a radio drama (which had some sentiments of college bashing. oh I think inserting the phrase "college sucks!" was no mere artistic decision. but since it was done by lit students, it probably had a deeper level of satire altogether. hehe), a choral speaking performance, and a nasyid. The seniors presented a wonderful medley comprising of kompangs, sajak-poem and some talented singing people.

The best bit of the celebration definitely came from the teachers. They were subjected to games ranging from cake decoration to blindfolded drawing with the tower building of induction week fame thrown in for good measure.

They (this is the awesome-est bit!) also had a sketch (so much better than last year's! And that was good too!) where the teachers dressed up as students and it was the funniest and craziest thing since, well, since ever! I laughed till tears trickled down my cheeks. There was Mr. Hayten as a big bully with Ms. Sree as the ever-so-cute victim. There was Mr. Hamdan and his cowboy machoness, Mrs Parker and her history books bucket, Pn Kat and Mdm Magdeline and their fashionista personas. The best ones for me would have to be Puan Rog's character as a school rebel (oh sweet irony!) and the Bursar's WiFi joke (he had a huge TV antenna in his hand! Brilliant!). Oh and not to forget, Dr Foord's character as a physics student late for class (more irony!). Having been late once or twice myself, I am sure I wasn't alone in recognising some of the excuses he gave for being late, to the point of wondering whether I had used the exact same one!

It's so nice when teachers can have a go at poking fun at themselves and their students. Coupled with a display of pictures from their previous lives (that being pre-KYUEM.), the day has made the teachers that much more endearing in their students' eyes.

As another thumbs up to the SC, the inclusion of Pn Rog, the Bursar and Ms Kasturi into the celebrations is an ingenious move. All three have played a great part in educating us students from day one in induction week, and we wouldnt be where we are without them. The equal stress on academics and non academics education is what makes this college so wonderful, in my opinion. =)

To all the Master Educators of KYUEM, we salute and we thank you. We may all be made of stars, but us students are mere neutron stars and you educators are the supergiants.

There can never be enough blogspace to help express how much we love and appreciate all that you've done for us.

May you continue to shine and inspire many more generations of KYUEM students.

God bless you all. =)