Brother Albinus

Brother Albinus was my school principle at Sacred Heart Secondary School up to Form three. I knew him before I became a student of Sacred Heart. I used to see him playing tennis and coaching the rugby players through the corridor of my house. When I was a kid, me and my neighbourhood freinds trespassed the school and we outrun him when he tried to catch us.

When I became the student of Sacred Heart, he became my head master. He is a very special principle and he had changed a lot of people life. As a boy school, a lot of the students are rebelious and without the dicipline introduced by Brother Albinus, many of us will end up as gangsters.

There is an assembly every day before the school start and Brother Albinus will give a speech in English. Mr.Chee will translate his speech to Chinese. The fascinating event in his speech was his ability to identify the students "fooling around" in town after school hours. Those students who was identified would be warned or canned and if persistent will be expelled from the school. I still don't understand how he is able to do that.

What I knew during the wonder year was "Brother Albinus is watching over me and I better behave myself". This is particular true whenever I did something I was not suppose to do like whispering to my classmate while the teacher is teaching. He will appear immediately at the window outside the classroom or from the corridor of the opposite block with his finger pointing to me. He was able to walk without noise and appear whenever we did somthing wrong.

How he is able to do that remains a legend and mystery to the boys of SHS. What he introduced to us and moulded us is the dicipline. We came back to the library at 2pm in the afternoon after our morning session to study until 4:30pm. Then we have to participate in the sporting activities at the school field. At 7pm sharp, after our dinner, we came back to the school classrooms or library to continue with our self revision and homework until 9:45pm. These diciplines kept SHS the top school in Sarawak both academically and in sport. During the after official school time in school doing self study, Brother Albinus is again watching over us and will appear whenever we did something wrong. However we have already accepted the dicipline and really enjoy staying in the school. I have to acknowledge that the self study class after school hours have changed the life of a lot of SHS students and most of them are the leaders in their respective professional field.

After every examination, Brother Albinus will visit each class. The students who failed to make progress will be asked to line up. Then start the canning section. This is the most fearful event of SHS boys.

I respect Brother Albinus commitment and sacrify during his time in SHS. He worked from early morning until midnight in policing his boys and ensure his boys were doing the right thing to excel. SHS with a student population of 2000 is a big school and the special attention he provided to each of his student is second to their parents.

Brother Albinus is a servant of God who sows the good seeds in the field and may God continuos to bless him.

Parafield Gardens Primary School

This morning I tried to find out the use of public transport to my future house at Parafield Gardens. The reason of doing so is to assess whether it is necessary to get a second car. Car is not expensive in Australia but if taking into account the petrol and maintenance it could be a hugh sum to have an additional car.

I started by taking a train at the Railway Station. The train took about 20 minutes to reach the Parafield Railway Station which is 20 minutes away from the city. I have to walk for approximately 15 minutes to reach the house.

I then tried the route to Parafield Primary School where my children will be studying. The trip is less than 15 minutes by walking. But walikng under the sun of a hot summer day for 15 minutes or 30 minutes round trip could be very exhausting. In addition, winter will be rainy and windy. I think initially I will ask my wife to drop me at the railway station so that I could go to work by train and then a connecting bus. She can then drive the children to school and doing some shopping or other business using the car.

Roll and Roll Sushi

This suhsi shop at North Terrace opposite the Railway station is operated by a Korean couple. This is the best shusi that I have ever tasted. Each slice of the shusi contains crab stick, a piece of shasimi and lots of fish roes. It is so finely wrapped and rolled compared to other shusi. The shusi is really a piece of art and the taste is the best ever I tasted even better than the shusi in Japan. The price is surprising reasonable as 4 pieces only sell for less than $4.00.