Happy Birthday Mr. Sam!

Today was our very own Mr. Sam’s birthday!

We surprised him this evening with a cake made specially by Fanyang and Jiarui! It was delicious.

Mr. Sam’s old friend Mr. Callum from Olympus joined us as well and helped distract him while we set up the surprise.

 

Gianni, Firdavs and Joao with their eyes on the prize

Fanyang and Jiarui’s delicious creation! Look how amazing it turned out!

Our Talented Boys!

Over the last three weeks, our talented Concha boys have been rehearsing hard to put together an amazing performance for the Boarding Talent Show!

Eduardo and Emir spearheaded an original choreography to go to the song Baby by Justin Bieber.

After plenty of nights (and days) spent rehearsing, we are so very proud of the boys (every single one of them!) to have the courage to get on stage in front of the entire Boarding community and have an absolute blast, all together.

Regardless of the final results, they will forever be winners in our eyes.

Post our final rehearsal and on the way to the Eiger Auditorium….POSITIONS!

 

Buen Provecho!

This evening, for our weekly international dinner, we all enjoyed some lovely soft shell tacos from Mexico! (Javi went back for three plates!)

Roner was here

These boys take dinner seriously

 

 

A Good Book Has No Ending

I remember reading the last book in a long series as a kid, and even though that last page would turn over … the book never really truly ended. That world lived on in my mind – growing, breathing and flourishing.

Another evening of reading with the boys flies by. Book 2 of the Mistborn Trilogy is on my agenda this evening.

Fanbo started a new book today, one that Adrian has read as well, so he had a lot to add while Fanbo talked about what he read.

Sam proceeds through the 48 Laws of Power, and today he learnt about Michael the 3rd, a Byzantine king as well as the lessons his life has to offer.

Zhengtai continues through his Sherlock Holmes anthology, Javier dives deeper into the Outsiders and Adrian just wrapped up Number The Stars, an incredibly touching book by Lois Lowry.

Some pretty fun words to say this evening (I know that seems odd, but try saying them out loud for yourself and maybe you’ll understand what I mean):

Encumbered, Totally, Condescending, Memorise, Although, Wept, Dreading and Tag-along.

“There Is No Frigate Like A Book…

…to take us lands away.”

– Emily Dickinson

This evening our boys spent some more time in lands away.

Zhengtai started a new Sherlock Holmes mystery, Sam moved on to a non-fiction business related book, Jiarui started his second book from the Diary of A Wimpy Kid series and Firdavs is discovering the fun of the Magic Tree House books!

We had some pretty complex words today:

Abstruse, Cussed, Poise, Incumbent, Dazed, Attached, Transcendental, and Remonstrate.

Martin looking comfy!

Multitasking at it finest!

The return of Javier, we’ve missed you in Reading Club bud, especially Feydya!

In Firdavs own words “Maximum effort!”

Fanbo’s looking comfy…a little too comfy…

Zhengtai delving into some more Holmes mysteries

“That’s The Thing About Books”

“They let you travel without moving your feet”

– Jhumpa Lahiri

Another evening of reading flies by as the boys continue on their little travels through their books.

We learnt lot of new words today, myself included! Patrick Rothfuss has quite an extensive vocabulary.

I learnt the words askant, which means to regard something with suspicion or disapproval, and effulgent, which is when something is particularly radiant or shines brightly.

Adrian inquired after the word homeroom, which the other boys were a bit perplexed about…but then Adrian explained that in the French section, it’s called Vie Scolaire.

It’s always quite entertaining finding different ways to explain words in the context of the house, and we definitely have some very… creative…examples.

Here are some of the other words:

Calmly, Receiving, Silence, Exclaimed, Indecisive, Fortunately, Genius, Wrapped.

What A Wednesday!

Wednesday are always quite a busy day, with so much going on that it goes by in the blink of an eye!

For our international dinner, we enjoyed some delicious Chinese food!

Our dear Mr. Jack reunited with the lads!

Yet another round of spot the Roner!

Nice to see that Gianni’s evolved to a thumbs up!

Matthew and Vincent, livin’ la vida loca like usual

“Wait, wait! Daniel will be here in a sec, he’s just going for round 3!”

After our House Meeting, all the boys gathered round to see their rewards for being punctual and discuss some trading strategies.

Samwise hunting for rewards, no one is safe!

Pillar 3: Building Positive Relationships

This evening we launched Pillar 3 of our Well being Program!
This pillar focuses on building positive relationships, and what better way to kick it off than to talk about one of the most important relationships you could ever cultivate: the one with yourself.
Self-acceptance, self-love, understanding your emotions and your thoughts; these are all vital aspects of positive friendships as they impact they way you interact and develop relationships with others.
We spoke about how self-acceptance can be difficult sometimes, especially at this age and provided some tips to help our boys in case they found themselves struggling with it.
Lastly, we played a game where we threw a ball around and each of us said something we liked about ourselves or that we felt proud of. It was lovely to see that so many people were quite proud of helping others! There was a lot of giggling and clapping, but overall a lovely way to get the boys to see how great they really are.

Joao’s turn with the ball!