Night of Incredible Energy

Once a year, the various departments in our college are urged to have special events for our students.  This semester, our civil engineering group planned a 'Makan Malam' (evening meal) at a local hotel and made it into a masquerade party.  I mistook the instructions, thinking that it was a COSTUME party, when in fact, people were to dress up in dinner wear and then wear a mask.  Instead, I dressed as a pirate and was the most under-dressed person in the entire hall!  (For once, the students dressed better than I did.)

Girls in Masquerade

Lecturer (R) and Spouse, in Masquerade

There were the usual musical performances, some serious, some silly, with the added benefit of a Rickenbacker guitar, certainly one of the few in Malaysia.

How can a student afford a Rickenbacker?

Even us lecturers got into the act, either supporting student groups with our guitar-playing, or else attempting to sing songs ourselves.

Hard to remember those lyrics

Girl singers, my Queen choice on far right

Prizes were given out and a King and Queen of the Night were chosen.  Each of the five lecturers were to go around and pick their King and Queen candidates.  For my Queen candidate, I chose a lady whose attitude made a dramatic change over the four semesters (two years) in which I taught her.  I could tell she was smart in the first semester, but her lack of effort meant that she earned only C marks.  She began to hang around with a better crowd of girls and her marks began to improve.  Finally, this semester, with only two subjects left to study, she took four former subjects over in order to get higher marks.  As a teacher, it is a pleasure to work with such young adults and see them overcome some of life's speedbumps.

King of the Night (R) as Phantom of the Opera

Queen of the night (R) as an Arab

The evening was thoroughly enjoyable and even though the time went well past bedtime for the DW and I, we were able to cope with the increasingly manic energy expressed by the students and lecturers, all much younger than us.  Interacting with students outside the classroom is very important for developing an ability to work with them.

BTW, the answer to the rhetorical question posed above is: He can't.  He borrows it from his wonderful lecturer.