the school concert through pictures

Over the weekend (yes, the weekend!) Niamh's school had their annual concert. Being the master communicators the school is known the be, we had no details leading up to the event of what time, where or what the overall plan was. The only thing we were informed in advance about, was that a ticket cost $25 a person. As you can imagine, I was ecstatic to spend $75 to go watch a pre-school performance.

The most annoying part of our school experience thus far, as you may remember, is getting a phone call while on a business trip in August to say "are you sure Niamh isn't going to be here for the school concert? She cries everyday at school when she has to sit down and watch the other kids sing and dance."

I think smoke may have blown out of my ears (like in the cartoons!) and I had to ask myself if these people had ever, worked with children before!

I calmly (ok, maybe sarcastically) replied, "we've been asked to move out of our house, I'm not sure we will still be here. Can't she just practice with the other kids for now?"

The teacher explained that she could not practice unless she was going to be there for it because its THAT serious.

Naturally, I've been exceptionally curious about the school concert since then. I wasn't sure if I was going to turn up to see the nutcracker or find out that Niamh was on a Singaporean version of dancing with the stars. Either way, its got to be so epic that without her role the whole concert would have just been canceled.

So Saturday we left our nice hotel and celebrating our anniversary, and headed to a school auditorium.

Here is a summary of the school concert, in pictures...


What's this you ask? Why that is the program that all the other parents were apparantly given on arrival. Somehow, we weren't given one despite being the only people at reception and there being three staff on hand. Part of the plot to keep us in the dark perhaps.


Then, the 'graduating class' started coming out in a line. We clapped for them, they were cute in their little cap in gowns. Please note, these kids are 6 and in Singapore you start real school at 7 (you are expected to enter real school with a 7 year old's ability to read/write/function too. So pre-school is not optional really).

After walking across the stage to applause, each graduate started coming out one at a time, and giving a speech. (insert super hilarious things such as heavy breathing into the microphone, forgotten lines and such).

It was at this point that I started to panic about our lack of the above program. The hubby went on a mission...

Once hubby retrieved the above program from reception, I looked at the agenda.

My absolute favorite part is that it breaks down into two minute increments. Later on, when the program ran an hour late, I realized my new favorite part was how fruitless of an exercise it was to break down the program so tightly!


About three speeches (20 mins) into the program, I started to distract myself by analizing this bit of stage decor, and launching an internal debate over whether this was appropriate stage decorations for toddlers. I mean, she is in a mini skirt and hooker boots, right?


The last song on the agenda was Niamh's class, after all the other classes performed at least twice... There she is!


I was so excited to see her perform, it was worth what I consider the long prelude to the main event. :-)

The last song on the agenda was the teachers' song. This was priceless and made me really happy my company doesn't make me participate in a coordinated dance performance each year! One guess who the dance teacher is!



Niamh was super cute, she was so into the zone that she was shakin' it with the best of em. However, when she spotted us in the second row (at about the 47 second mark), she freezes up and looks away. I can only imagine she is thinking "oh no, what are they doing here! It's so embarrassing!"

I thought she wasn't supposed to be embarrassed of us for at least another ten years!

Check out the video below, she's the one in the green on the far right.