brian souter

Farewell Assembly created so little impact among the J2s because it was a half-hearted attempt at farewell when the time isnapos;t even ripe. Everyone knows that the As are still due, and before it is over few would feel that RJ life has really passed. So the perplexing question is, why even try to bid farewell?

I think that the school probably thinks it meaningful to gather all of us J2s together properly to send us off at some point in time, just like how we were inducted together to RJ life during Orientation last year. And I agree with them. This said, it probably doesnapos;t work to hold it on 24 November when the A Levels end for everyone (as facebook informs me), because we would think it a chore to return to school after the end of the A Levels, when we no longer feel bound by the school with the end of our last paper. So, ironically, the only time to hold our farewell assembly, which is before the A Levels when we still feel bound by the school somewhat, would inherently not be the time for farewell, because the A Levels, our real final obstacle, arenapos;t over.

Instead of bowing down to impracticality and inappropriateness of holding a batch-wide, school-based farewell event at point any time, the school has apparently decided to stick to its practice of holding an awkwardly timed farewell assembly a few weeks before the As. What they donapos;t seem to acknowledge is the inherent time-sensitive nature of farewells, such that inappropriately timed ones, somewhat like wrongly timed birthday celebrations, are wholly meaningless.

Its failure to serve as proper farewell aside, many aspects of the farewell assembly were rather notable. For one, the effort by the higher-ups to document our school life in the video was commendable, although we donapos;t expect people who arenapos;t even RJ students to know what school life as a student is like, let alone capture it properly in any medium. For instance, one wonders how they managed to find out how Kenneth (the 7-11 guy) was a personality among the student body.

TBC.



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