So give it up to Students Incorporated.
Audience Applause
Music
Welcome to Students Incorporated podcast where we dive into relevant topics and issues related to the world of business,
technology, education and design. I'm your host Mr. Jason.
Episodes include student conversations, interviews with thought leaders and inspirational stories with an international flavor.
This podcast is created and produced with the help of students from the International Community School of Bangkok.
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Today's show is being recorded live in front of an audience of students, teachers, administrators and staff.
And we are excited to share this experience with you.
Audience Applause
In this episode we'll be talking with several members of our school community, three of whom are alumni of ICS
and one of whom I could refer to as a near alumni and all of whom have come back to school not as students but as teachers.
Which affords them a very unique perspective we can all learn from.
In our first segment we'll welcome Mrs. Asia and Mr. G and then our second segment we'll welcome Mr. Tent and Mrs. Lin.
I'm also joined by our co-host Lion and Ronnie.
Audience Applause
But first let's hear the quote of the day and get some positive headline news.
Our quote for today is, I promise to keep on going but maybe keep on going means coming back first.
That quote was said by Patrick Ness from his science fiction novel, The Knife of Never Letting Go.
Ness is an award winning novelist who has written for Sunday Telegraph, Ailens Radio 4 and is a literary critic for The Guardian.
His awards include The Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, The Book Trust Teenage Prize and the Casa Children's Book Award.
Now onto our news, also by Yours Truly.
Here's some positive news from around the world.
The world's first 3D printed school opened its 3D printed doors.
In less than 24 hours the affordable housing group named 14 Trees built an entire school in Malawi using 3D printed technology.
There is hope that similar initiatives will help increase the number of schools and classrooms that are accessible to not only children in Malawi but the rest of Africa as well.
This initiative will enable children to travel shorter distances to school and provide better access to education.
Also, a new phenomenon has been catching on in parts of the US of A called bus bikes.
Bus bikes are parent led or volunteer led group bike rides to school.
These bike riding groups join up in different neighborhoods around the city and then ride as a large group to school like a herd of wildebeest.
Members of these groups have already noticed the positive things that take place from riding a bike together with your friends.
Kids are healthier and happier and it's reduced traffic congestion during school drop off and pick up times.
And finally, a dog named Gucci was adopted by a wonderful lady named Joanna who happens to be 100 years old.
Joanna grew up in war torn Germany in an orphanage and never had pets growing up. Tragic.
She loves Gucci and 11 year old Chihuahua and they have formed a strong bond of friendship and trust.
Quote, research has shown that pet ownership and human animal interaction can provide important forms of social and emotional support that can encourage routines of daily living, reduce loneliness and improve overall quality of life.
And that wraps up our news segment for this episode.
Thank you for our quote of the day and the news.
Okay, let's welcome our first guest on stage, Mrs. Asia and Mr. G.
Okay, Lion will kick off this segment with our first question.
Mrs. Asia and Mr. G. Thank you so much for joining us today.
Please introduce yourself and tell us what year you graduated from ICS, when you started teaching here and what you teach.
Let's start with the one and only Mrs. Asia.
Hi, Lion. Thanks. Hi, guys.
When did I graduate from here? 2015.
And I came back to teacher in 2019. So like as soon as I could.
And I was teaching middle school visual arts until this last year when I just had a baby. So I'm not teaching here anymore.
Cool. I'm Mr. G or Gersom or Gert Simon Arnoldus de Koning. And I graduated. I was there at the beginning when it all began.
Actually, I was there when we moved to this campus in ninth grade.
And so I graduated 2008 and I started teaching in 2017, I think it was. And this would be in my sixth year.
So like, yeah, fifth or I don't know. I lost count. Sorry.
We know it might be hard to choose, but what are some of your favorite memories from ICS?
Okay. My favorite memories would be, well, two, maybe three.
I was on the volleyball team with no volleyball team for quite a while. And so I started a JV volleyball team with my friends.
So that was quite a fun memory because it was specifically my group of friends.
Then also playing a sport, which is funny. You know, you have long, long bus rides to ISB to, you know, fool around and do stupid stuff, essentially.
So that was that's one really fun memory. And then the second one would be all the shows.
We did a lot of shows when I was in high school. I did like almost shows every year except ninth grade, I think, on the stage here.
So those are definitely favorite memories. Back then, we would stay till 10 p.m. every night.
And I'd go home on the BTS in full makeup. So one of my favorite memories is being with my friends on the BTS.
And I'm in like ghost makeup still. And all these Thai people were like looking at me like, oh, these white people, man.
It's bad for our country. So yeah, that would be those two favorite moments.
And the third favorite memory, there was lock in back then where we would stay overnight at school. I know nerds, right?
But anyway, we liked it. And so we there was one night like that we did capture the flag,
but it was all over different parts of the school. And the school was really new back then. Right.
So there's lots of hidden places. So I think it was four teams all playing off against each other at the same time.
And then we all were black. And then a way that we would like make each other more visible is by throwing flour on each other.
So white. Right. So and that was just super fun getting there with each team had a jail and all that.
And we played that for like two or three hours. Got really into I think at some point half the people had stopped playing.
But me and my friends were still like, yeah, so we that was a really fun memory.
I think a lot of those after school events that were kind of back then we didn't have student ministries,
but it was pretty much student ministries led events that were really fun for making like those memories that actually stay with you for the rest of your life.
Yeah, I was going to say the same thing. Basically, obviously the teachers at ICS are top notch. Right, guys.
Okay. Not as excited as I was hoping for. Let's try again. The teachers are top notch. Right.
Okay. Yes. So teachers are fantastic. They were, you know, definitely made especially those after school and outside of school experiences so much fun.
I think for me personally, just the memories I shared with like my smaller group of friends was stuff that like I'll never forget. Just really special.
Yeah, this this did not happen to me, but I do remember the senior class ahead of me.
I remember the story came out later about senior trip that I just thought was hilarious.
One of our good friends, so a bit older than me, was like notorious for being disorganized and late for everything.
And they told everyone be at the bus for senior trip to go to the beach at this time.
And of course, everyone's there except this one kid. And they waited for him like an hour or two hours maybe.
And finally, they're like, we got to go because we need to catch the ferry to get to the island.
And so they left just as he was arriving in a taxi.
And so he literally paid the taxi to chase the bus all the way to the ferry at the port.
And at the last second, lost them. They crossed the water without him.
He sees them go and he ended up having to like stay at a hotel that night because he was like that eager to get on senior trip.
He stayed at a hotel, caught the next ferry the next day and was able to go.
But I feel like that's a short little picture of how valuable those outside of school experiences are.
Even for this guy who like he didn't show up. But at the end of the day, he made it to the beach.
That's what matters.
There's some great anecdotes. Thank you very much. And here's our next question.
Yes, I'll give you time to laugh. Are you done yet? Okay, cool.
Now, what inspired you to become a teacher? What was your calling?
And then what led you back to the school where you graduated from?
For me, becoming a teacher was something I always wanted to do. My mom is a teacher. My dad, Mr. Jason.
I don't know if you guys didn't know this is my dad. Mr. Jason is a teacher. My grandma's our teachers.
Everybody in my family basically are teachers. And so it was something that I always was interested in.
And then in high school, I had a couple of key teachers here that really poured into me.
And I thought, you know what? I want to do what they're doing for me in the lives of other students.
And so that's why I chose this path.
So let me tell you a little story line.
Actually, I did want to be a teacher. Not immediately. I first started off wanting to be a Spanish teacher.
CC. That's all my Spanish. No, just kidding. I do remember more of that.
But back then I was dating a Puerto Rican girl, so that's why I was really into becoming a Spanish teacher.
Anyway, we broke up, so then no more Spanish teacher. I wanted to become a history teacher.
And I did want to do that for quite a long time.
But then eventually I realized that the thing that I was, I guess, most interested in was doing theater.
So then I didn't actually study teaching. I studied event management and theater.
So I did that first. And I did a couple gigs teaching, some with my best friend who hates teaching.
And he came after the workshop and was like, that was horrible. Those children are mad.
And I was like, that was fun. Those children are cool. And he was like, okay, you're the teacher. I'm not.
So we started doing some stuff like that. And then eventually I got into applied theater,
which is specifically working with groups of people.
And they also said, dude, you should go for this teenage range. That's probably where you're going to be best at.
So I was like, okay, cool. And I wasn't actually going to teach at ICS.
I was going to start my own company in Singapore and do business to business coaching and theater and acting all at the same time.
But then I got a message from Mr. Darren, who I think is visiting ICS today.
And he said to me, hey, would you be interested to teach ICS even if it was just one year?
And I was like, I'll think about it. I'll let you know. I'm not sure yet.
So I talked with my wife about it. We were expecting our first baby at that time as well.
And then she was like, you know what? Let's just try it out for one year.
And then it was actually Mr. Luke who convinced me by being a great boss to stay till now.
And now Ms. Amber, of course, is keeping me going as well.
So kind of the admin team convinced me through being great bosses to stay and teach.
And now I love it because you guys are awesome. So yeah, round of applause for yourselves.
By the way, I got to throw this in there. Shrek was great. So thank you for that.
So thank you for all the student actors and all the tech people. It was great.
So now that you both are parents, what are some important qualities you look for in a teacher,
especially if your son or daughter is in that teacher's class?
You must have a different perspective now that you're both parents.
So I'm going to keep this short because my baby is six months old. He's not in school yet.
But I must say, as I'm looking forward to the future, I think oftentimes as a student,
some of the best classes, best quote unquote, are the ones where you can really goof off a lot
and just have fun, maybe not even really study that much. It's so chill, you know?
But now as a parent, I think, I don't know, the better version is to actually have something more rigorous.
So in my mind as a student, it's like, can I slack off a little bit here? That sounds really fun.
But probably what's better for my baby is to be in a class that's going to push him.
So maybe that's where my mindset has changed a bit now that I'm a parent.
Still have fun, but also study.
I feel like a diverse experience is the most important, getting different perspectives from different types of people,
different types of specialisms, right? So I feel like being well-rounded and holistic in the approach is important.
But I think the most important thing, and I do think that's something that ICS does have,
is teachers that care that even if their opinion is different than yours, they'll still respect you as a person.
I think that to me is the baseline of extreme. Like me and the teacher could disagree completely on something,
but as long as I felt like the teacher was trying their best to teach my child, I think that's the most important thing to me.
And then obviously growing in character. When I didn't have kids, somebody asked me,
would you rather have a smart kid or a kind kid? And I said smart kid. And now I'm like, no, kind kid.
It's much more important to be a good person than it is to be smart. They're the smartest in the room.
So I feel like if they teach that aspect, I think that's really important to me.
I think kids know too, if you care about them, they can tell.
So I think that even from a really little age, it's important to be with people who care, truly care.
Thank you for that, everybody. Time for our next question.
This question is more in line of our chapel's usual questions.
What did you do to maintain spiritual health after you graduated from ICS or university?
Okay. So I'm an example of what not to do after.
My parents took me to an international church, which was a tiny international church,
and they said, go here, it's near your house. And I was like, and this is my face the whole time.
This was the type of church they didn't allow electric guitars because electric guitars are from the devil.
So I was like, no, bro, I'm not going here. And so I didn't go, even though it was literally a five-minute walk from my house.
I was like, no, I'm not going. However, thankfully, my best friend, who's still my best friend to this day,
we met in opening week of my university. He showed me a little book. His sister had written, and there was a cross in there.
And I was like, hey, are you Christian family? And then he's like, yeah, I'm Christian.
And then we had this really long hug, even though we just met each other.
We're very passionate people. And then and so that did maintain some sort of spiritual growth.
But I wasn't going to church for quite a number of years simply because every time I would go to one,
I would find something I disagreed with, even if overall it was good.
I would find I would nitpick the one thing I didn't like.
So, oh, well, that pastor mentioned something about women that I didn't like. And so the whole church is gone.
So I did that for, I think, a year and a bit. And then my wife flew over and she was like,
let's just go check out that church that you hated so much that one time you visited and judged in one go,
because maybe you were judging too fast. I was like, no, I don't judge too fast. Totally do.
Anyway, and so I went again. And that ended up being a really great church because because I kicked back at them
a little bit about certain things like electric guitars, they they they wanted that they wanted to grow as a church.
And so we ended up joining their worship team. I even brought an electric guitar one time and got away with it.
And the church grew quite a bit from that and from being a from being in a place where I was judging others
because they didn't do that, interpret that verse the right way or whatever.
They I went to more of a place of like, OK, how can I contribute to a community in a meaningful way,
even if I don't agree with everything that this specific pastor or whatever believes?
And I think it's really that Bible verse looking at the splinter in your own eye rather than the log.
I was sorry, the log of your own eye rather than the splinter in someone else's eye.
I think that's really what I was doing. I was really focused on like their errors and problems,
whereas I obviously had judgment issues, which I've I've worked on now.
You're perfect now, right? Yeah, I'm perfect.
I think along the lines of obviously being a part of a church is important if that's important to you.
But choosing friends, I think is just as important.
Who you're surrounding yourselves with, not just on a Sunday when you're going to church,
but who you're spending your time with the rest of the week is key.
Obviously, not just insulating yourself with people who only think like you and only act like you,
but maybe making those inner people who you trust the most and want to grow with,
people that you agree with and have similar values because they're going to push you to be the person that you want to be,
rather than all of a sudden, five, six years later, realizing, oh, my goodness,
how did I get off track from this vision of who I was going to be when I was 18 years old?
Choosing those people, especially if you're far away from family, is really important in maintaining those relationships.
Yeah, I would even say like finding people who challenge you.
Like a lot of my I went to a secular university and a lot of those friends of mine that I made there that were the right friends,
they questioned me on things in my faith, even though they're not Christians.
So why do you Christians believe the X, Y, Z? And I'd be like, oh, actually, I don't know.
You know what I mean? And it forced me to actually examine things that I believe rather than like blindly accepting things,
which it can be easy to do if you're surrounded by that.
You can kind of go, oh, that makes sense, right? But does it? You know, and getting those smart people that actually sharpen you.
Yeah. And that's a really good point.
OK, thank you for that advice. And now breaking from our normal format slightly, we've got two questions from our audience.
Go ahead and step up to the microphone, introduce yourself and ask your question.
Our student question can come first.
My name is Eliza and I was just wanting to know what were some cultural challenges that you guys faced when transitioning from high school to university in a different country?
OK, the biggest one for me, obviously, there were lots of probably little things like I remember a friend telling me she went to the States for college and was like, what are mailboxes?
Like things like, you know, little things that are important in life you just don't think about.
But the biggest thing for me was probably like going to the U.S. for college, which is where I went, and then getting a job, which in certain cultures, American culture,
most kids get jobs really early and start driving cars at like 14, 15, and they have jobs throughout high school.
So I was like showing up as an 18 year old and like hadn't really had a real job.
I had a driver's license, but I could barely drive, like just things that I was not adjusted to.
So learning like what it looks like to have a job was really important to me.
And I think my first my first job experience was kind of like a fail.
And it taught me a lot because I didn't know what I was doing going into it.
And I think my bosses were expecting that I had more wherewithal than I did that I had more experience because obviously they assumed that I had been working before.
So that was probably my biggest thing.
But there's not really any way you can prepare for some of that until you just have to go through it.
Fail. Get back up and keep going.
OK. My biggest one, starting as a city boy in Bangkok.
There's no 7-Eleven in the Netherlands.
And if there is one, it's not open 24 hours.
This baffled me. I got to the store at 6 p.m.
And they said, sir, we're closed at 6 p.m. Who would shop after 6 p.m. for groceries?
And I was like, I would. Can I go in?
And I had no food.
So I begged the lady to please let me go grab some food.
So she let me in and I in five minutes I grabbed some crap.
I don't even know what I got.
And then I went home and ate it poorly cooked as well.
So that was shock number one.
An on-time culture is very different than a Thai Sabai culture.
I would go to meetings.
We'd have meetings with our uni people, say it's at 9 a.m.
I'd show up at 9.15 because you know, oh, I can still up a little late.
And I show up with food and I'd be like, oh, I'll eat more.
I wouldn't say that, but in Dutch I'd be like, yeah, go ahead, eat, whatever.
And then they're looking at me like, dude, so rude.
Why are you eating at a meeting? That's so weird.
You've got to get work done, man.
I'm like, oh, sorry. And you're late.
I was so late that my lecturer called me out in front of a lecture hall this big
and was like, you can never be late because you are not inconspicuous.
And so things like that, I think.
And then another thing would be like a direct blunt culture versus a Thai more like
conflict avoidant culture or you use friends to talk to other people about problems,
whereas Dutch people are very, very direct and very blunt.
One of my first questions I got, I think that the day of my first day of class,
somebody went, oh, you're a Christian.
What's your stance on abortion?
And they just met me like, and I was like, whoa, okay.
So, you know, that blunt versus I think, again, those cultural shocks,
not something you can prepare for that much. You just have to go through it.
The time thing, though, like if you can practice being on time now,
if you plan to go to a college where you're in like a Western setting,
practice being on time now because it will pay off.
I feel like I'm still learning to be on time.
Tech class is a great place to practice that, FYI.
All right. Hello. My name is Mr. Mike.
What's the weirdest thing you have found either in the teacher's break room,
refrigerator, or the classroom that you moved into?
The weirdest thing?
You probably have found really weird things.
The weirdest thing I found was I went through a stash of old photos, okay?
And so I've been at school here.
And so some of the photos I was like, okay, that's just me on stage. Cool.
I found a photo of me in that play. That's so cool.
And there's one photo of me doing tech stuff, but it looks like it was taken
secretly around a corner.
And like I'm not even looking at the camera.
I'm like focused on what I'm doing.
And I'm in one of those weird working positions.
So it's a very creeper like stalker photo.
And I was like, who took this photo?
So I asked Michelle, I like, did Mr. Phillip take this photo of me
or did somebody else take this photo of me before?
She's like, no, we never.
Maybe somebody from the yearbook club took it of you.
I went back to the year that I was in.
And I looked at the yearbook club and I was like, it's nobody from the yearbook club.
So it means I had a secret admirer who took that photo of me unbeknownst to me.
But the fact that I found it is the weirdest part because like it's not even a good photo.
It was just there in the stash.
Is it hanging in your office?
No, I kept it just because it's a weird memory.
Yeah, that is unnerving.
It's very strange.
Mine is not that exciting.
I found like in the art room, I was going through my first year all the closets
and some of the cabinets are like really high up there.
So I was like up on a stool and opened these really tall cabinets up at the top.
And there were just like these heads, fake heads sitting up in the closet.
It's like, whoa, really shocked me because a lot of the cabinets were empty.
But that one, just real surprise, some heads.
All right. Thank you, audience, for those questions.
Okay. Thank you, everyone.
That concludes our first segment.
We'll return for part two right after this short PSA announcement.
At the Yotel in Singapore, it's a hotel, by the way, on Orchard Road,
the televisions in each room have a channel dedicated to a show of people yawning.
Yes, you heard that correctly. Just people yawning.
According to WebMD.com, a very credible source,
yawning is a common reflex where you open your jaw wide,
taking a deep breath and then quickly exhale.
Typically, you feel more relaxed right after you yawn.
There's no exact reason why people yawn, but there are many theories,
none of which are listed here.
If you glance over at your neighbor and you see them yawning or sleeping,
feel free to gently or not gently elbow them to wake them up.
Okay, back to our show.
Okay, we are back for part two, and we welcome our next two guests,
Mr. Tent and Mrs. Lin.
Ronnie will start us off with our first question.
Can you please introduce yourself, say what year you graduated from,
what you're teaching, and when you started teaching.
Okay, I guess I'll go first.
I'm the secret pseudo-alum from ICS.
I actually graduated from Dulat International School,
and the year I graduated was 1996, which is why I did not graduate from ICS,
because when ICS started, they only went up to grade eight,
and I was in grade 10, and so I was too old for ICS.
But I have seen ICS from day one onwards as a close onlooker,
as my mom was a teacher from the first year of ICS,
and she's still working here today.
I am teaching geometry here at ICS.
I started teaching geometry just last January, actually.
But speaking of coming back to your alma mater,
I actually taught at the school I graduated from in Malaysia,
Dulat International School, for nine years,
and then took a break and then had to come back to teaching.
It's wonderful.
Applause
Hi, guys. Mr. Tent.
I graduated in 2013, and I started teaching.
I was a TA at a school down the road called Verso.
I was there for two years.
So this is technically my first year teaching as an actual teacher full-time.
So, yeah.
Applause
Mr. Tent, looking back on when you were a student here at ICS,
could you share a funny experience or story you had?
I'm sure you had plenty.
Yeah. Well, first of all, hearing your voice, I don't want to speak anymore.
It's too good. It's just so soothing.
I do, actually.
I sent in a video this morning, and it was too late.
You guys would have seen it.
So if you can imagine the cafeteria right now,
there's a table right by the door,
and I'm going outside where there's a bathroom and the water fountain.
So me and my group of friends, we are lazy people,
and we don't like picking up our dishes and then putting it back.
So what we do is we play Baing Shoop, like rock, paper, scissors.
Whoever loses picks up everything.
And we always have fun, right?
And usually it's one of the guys that has an amazing reaction,
like, oh, I don't want to do it.
But this one day, we came up with a plan that whoever loses,
there's a plate of spaghetti that nobody wanted to eat.
Like, some guy bought it and he didn't want to eat it anymore.
So we played Baing Shoop, and we decided the loser will stick his face
in that spaghetti for five seconds, right?
And I don't know if you, anybody know, the teachers would know,
Drew Clarkson, right?
Drew Clarkson lost.
So he's one of the guys with the most amazing reactions ever.
So he was trying to muster up the courage to put his face into the spaghetti.
And we were cheering him on.
He said, guys, shut up.
I'm going to do it, all right?
Give me some time.
So he did. He put it in the plate and he not only just left it there,
he swirled his face in it.
And of course we were all laughing.
And then in the midst of that, one guy had a brilliant thought to go
and lock the door, right?
Because the door to go to the outside is like a glass door to go to the bathroom
where he has to go wash his face.
So while he was contemplating to do that or not, right,
one of our friends locked the door.
So while he was like swirling his face in, he had spaghetti sauce in his eye.
And then the camera panned out, but as the camera was panning out,
we saw that there was an eye imprint, a nose imprint,
and a mouth imprint on the spaghetti plate.
So that was great.
We were all laughing.
And he quickly got up and got to the door and he smacked his face
into the glass, right?
There was obviously spaghetti sauce in the shape of his face on that door.
And we were all laughing really hard because of that.
So yeah, that was the story.
Sorry you guys didn't see the video.
I sent it in too late.
All right, Mrs. Lin, here's your question.
It's different because you're different.
Mrs. Lin, what were some memories you had when you came to ICS
for various activities and sports like a mission trip
or a funny basketball experience?
Okay, so since I was not a student at ICS,
I attended DeLau International School,
which has a longer Christmas break than ICS does.
So I was back here in January, still on our Christmas break,
but ICS had started again.
And since I was based in Bangkok, went to boarding school in Malaysia,
I had friends who attended ICS.
And one of my good friends, her name is Erica Jenks,
she talked to her basketball coach and convinced him to let me play with them
against Patena for one of the games.
Remember, this is back in the early days.
You know, the basketball program had just started at ICS.
I did play basketball for DeLau,
and I was actually, due to my lack of height, had to be a guard.
And so I played as a senior with the ICS basketball team against Patena.
I thought that was pretty fun, pretty cool.
They made me do the jump balls.
I was like, why? I'm so short.
But it was a great experience,
and actually there happened to be a yearbook photographer at that game.
So if you happen to look in the 95-96 yearbook,
you might see somebody wearing number 9
who actually is not in the yearbook anywhere else.
And just to clarify, I might have to ask Mr. Jack,
would they still use this play? And I didn't know what it was.
But there's a play called Wedgie.
So of course, what is the caption for one of the pictures?
It's like, who is that number 9? Does she know Wedgie?
I'm like, oh, great.
Because of course it's like a picture of me standing backwards to the camera.
I'm like, okay, I think it was just the play, and that's what my friend told me.
So I may have to ask Mr. Jack, would they still have that play called Wedgie?
Yes.
If you could start high school all over again,
what would you do differently this time?
What would I do differently?
I'm not sure. Probably nothing.
Study harder.
That's it.
That is a good one, study harder.
But also for those of you who are very rigorous in your work,
and I tend to be that kind of a person,
I would also encourage you to try some classes or extracurriculars
that you may not necessarily be your top choice or first choice,
because who knows what you might find that you enjoy.
For example, of course I'm a math teacher, so I really liked math and that kind of thing.
But I more recently stepped into a side career of doing fitness,
and I had no idea about that,
or the fact that I never ran farther than two miles in high school.
It was like terrible. The worst thing in the world.
And I hiked up this really steep hill with a bunch of kids in my youth group and barely made it.
And now if you know me, I love running, I like trail running.
So these things I could have started enjoying earlier on,
I would have actually had an open mind to try some of these other things.
So don't just stick with the things that you know you like or the things you're good at,
but try a few other things and be willing to maybe not be as good at them,
but just give them a try too.
That's a good answer. I'd probably say the same thing then.
Yeah, sure. Yeah, going off of that, I'll change my answer.
I would study harder and try other sports, right?
The only sport I ever played was football, soccer,
and that's the only thing I know how to play relatively well.
And now as a PE teacher, it's a little bit embarrassing when you can't make free throws,
and you're trying to teach the kids how to do free throws.
Yeah.
All right, Mr. Tent, back to you again.
Now that you are a teacher at ICS,
how does it feel being colleagues with some of your former teachers?
It's really, really weird. It's really, really weird.
I still call some of them Mr. and Mrs., and I call some of them just by their first name.
I'm trying to figure it out. I don't know what I'm supposed to do, to be honest.
I call Jack Jack, and I call Tim Tim, but Mr. Stephen is Mr. Stephen, right?
And I don't know, Miss Carly is always going to be Miss Carly.
I think the difference there is because I spend more time with the PE department,
so the coaches and all that stuff, so I'm closer to them, I guess.
It's also been really fun.
If you don't know Mr. Jack before, Mr. Jack was really scary, probably still is,
and he doesn't make a lot of jokes when I was here.
But Mr. Jack has a lot of great one-liners.
If you guys don't know, it cracks me up.
And also, he roasts people in the PE department so much, especially in the line group.
You can't get away with it. You just get burned constantly.
Can you give us an example?
No. I can't think of one.
There was one time he just took a picture of his bicep.
I don't know what the context was. I forgot, but he was like, I'm big or something.
Just a picture of his bicep, and that was it.
All right.
I'm sorry. Excuse me.
Now, Mrs. Lin, another question for you.
Since ICS only went through A-frame when you were in high school, like you said,
what were some interesting things about ICS that you remember that first year?
Your mom, yes, was an elementary school principal.
Okay. Well, ICS actually started before my mom became the elementary principal.
She actually started off as a third-grade teacher.
But I do remember walking around campus, helping to get things set up for her in her classroom.
And ICS is now on its second campus.
Its first campus was back in Pungi, and it was an old teak wood, no air conditioning,
no window screens, talk about mosquitoes, kind of hot.
I think there were fans, but if you had the fans on, then all the papers like fly off the desks
and things like that.
And there was one computer for the whole school.
That was it, one computer.
And this, I didn't know, but my mom told me that at lunchtime,
the headmaster and the teachers would sell ice cream at lunchtime.
So how different, how far have we come now?
It's so different, but you can see from that that the teachers cared about the students,
and not just, well, I know ice cream is not healthy, but not just for them to educate the students,
but also just to be with them and to create an atmosphere of kindness and caring and belonging as well, too.
One other thing, too, you think sometimes the flooding might be bad here on campus.
It got pretty bad over there because of the location.
You're talking like wading through up to your knees, things like that.
Books in the library got wet.
But you have come a long way, so just appreciate the comforts that you have,
like an air-conditioned indoor meeting space for things like chapel, things like that.
I also remember seeing boats because it was flooding.
I think Miss Sheila might have that photo.
I'm not sure.
Boats, they had to use a boat because it was flooding so bad.
So moving on to a more serious topic, were there any times when your faith was shaky in college,
and what advice would you give people to help them in this area?
I'll go first.
I graduated from an international Christian school just like you in Southeast Asia,
and then I went to college in the U.S., and I thought I was pretty knowledgeable about the world
because I lived multi-culturally and I had experience in different cultures,
and it just blew me away how many different ideas and opinions and thoughts
that people strongly believed when I encountered them at university.
And it made me really start to question, so even though I grew up in this faith,
because I am a Christian, even though I grew up in this faith,
what's really true?
Because I mean, what's like the absolute?
And I had to decide because I was encountering all sorts of different things.
Even I did go to a Christian university, I went to Wheaton,
but even there the professors would tell you things and introduce you to things
to make you think and really analyze why you believe what you believe.
It's not just, oh, that's what I grew up with, and that was really, really challenging to me.
And I realized that I had to decide what was absolute.
Was it what I felt? Was it what I thought? Or was it something else?
And it is beyond me, it's beyond you, it's beyond all of us.
God, Jesus Christ, is absolute, and he is still God, even if I don't think that.
And that was really foundational for me.
It's not what I think about it that makes it true. It is truth.
And then because I could stick to that truth, then I was able to move on from there
and be confident in my faith.
Alright, guys, to anyone sleeping, wake up, because Mr. Tent is about to drop some fire advice about life.
It's a lot of pressure.
How my faith was shaken? Yeah, it wasn't necessarily shaken.
It was kind of a challenge, like Ms. Lin and Mr. Chi has said.
I went to a Christian university as well, and much like Ms. Lin, I thought I would be okay.
I would go to Bible class, I was like, oh, I wouldn't know this, it's fine.
And then the professor would drop something, and I'd be like, wait a minute, this is also a story.
It was Noah's story, right? It was also a story in another culture as well, the Gilgamesh or something like that.
If I remember correctly. And then that got me thinking, okay, if this is also the same, what else is the same?
And what is the truth and what is the absolute?
And what is the story that is being told, just as a parable or whatnot?
So that challenged me a lot, and like Mr. Chi as well, it was difficult for me to find a church where I was like,
I don't agree with this, I don't agree with that.
But in the end, yeah, I just had to pick a church and I had to go with it, and I made the right choice.
So, yeah.
Okay, and with that final piece of advice, thank you very much.
We are running out of time. Can I have our other guests join us on stage, please?
Let's give all our guests a big round of applause again. Thank you.
Okay, as always, this podcast would not be possible without the hard work and support of our international student production team.
Thank you to our co-hosts, Lyon and Ronnie, our tech engineer, Micah, for his help, our producer, Poo Cow,
our administrator, Machi, and our outreach coordinator, Darren.
And thank you to our live audience, you guys.
You'll be able to listen to the entire episode when it releases on November 24th, which is Thursday.
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