Cruel Summer

On a day when a nation celebrated Jφss Sticks’ 200th post and a historic ping pong victory by their foreign talents, Miss Loi taught her final lesson to her own class of ‘foreign talents’.

It’s a cruel, cruel summer
Leaving me here on my own …

… says Bananarama in that eternal Ah Lian retro anthem.

It was literally going to be a “cruel summer” for a handful of overseas Singaporean students the moment word of the fabled existence of Miss Loi’s Temple reached the shores of their adopted homeland.

And so for a month of summer, The Temple was turned into a mini United Nation of sorts, with devotees hailing from from Beijing to Zürich to London, as they journeyed a thousand miles to burn those exotic made-in-Singapore joss sticks in its virtuous, sterile environs, while their counterparts partied away in sinful environs like Ibiza.

It proved to be an eye-opening experience for both students and Miss Loi alike, with the former marveling at the supposed grandeur of Singapore’s killer Math Syllabus, while the latter marveled at the … umm … unique ways that some of their workings were expressed.

Furthermore it was enlightening to know that in some countries,

• reference and assessment books are difficult to find. No Popular Bookstores, unfortunately.
• assessment books are often rented from schools – kawaii multi-coloured notes strictly prohibited on their sacred pages.
• only 20% of the textbooks are typically used.
• math homework are given out at an average rate of once per two weeks.

… which led to one of Miss Loi’s local student exclaiming

I want to migrate!!!

That aside, even cruel summers have to come to an end, and it’s now time for goodbyes.

Thank you for your cute little gifts and for gracing the Temple during this summer vacation. It has been fun and it was an absolute pleasure teaching all of you and exchanging shopping tips for various cities.

Make sure you go through the questions we’ve done again by yourself and may you pwn your peers back home with your newly-acquired mystical Singapore Math powers!

頑張って!!!

Miss Loi