April, 2013

Editor’s comment

The month of April has come and gone , and there must

be at least one thing on everyone’s mind: summer. This

time around, the temperature in Thailand is rising rapidly,

and we have just discovered that Bangkok is the hottest

city in the world, have you heard about that?

Putting summer aside, we have only got a month or so left

for us in this school year school, and just in few more

weeks we will be saying bye- bye to our grade 10 stu-

dents. But before we start getting ahead of ourselves and

making plans for our summer enjoyment, let’s not forget

to pay attention in class and hit the books harder more

often in order to bring our grades up and end our school

year successfully.

I hope you'll enjoy this fourth volume as much as you did

with the previous ones, so take your time and enjoy read-

ing.

Christine (G-10)

A rollercoaster Ride Called life

According to Andre Gide, “it’s only in adventure that some suc-

ceeded in knowing themselves-in finding themselves”. He said

that almost 66 years ago, in 1947, just four years before he

died. His life must have been an amazing adventure but I have

never understood how people come to discover themselves

through adventure. I never really understood the meaning of

this quote, but I was determined to finally discover what it

meant during the Songkran holidays.

April 12th, 2013 sounded like the first day of the rest of my life.

“This is the day I will discover what it really means to live life.” I

said to myself as I grabbed my backpack and headed to the

door. I was

hyped up to

go to the

countryside. I

had a plan in

my head: to

visit as many

places as

possible, take

a lot of pictures and maybe feed the horses. I knew that noth-

ing could possibly get in to the way of me and my plan. Unfor-

tunately I was wrong; the worse storm of all time came to

Bangkok. It decided to come on 12th April 2013. I was really

disappointed because I longed for the adventure. I guess it was-

n’t my turn. It didn’t seem to bother anyone in my family as

much as it affected me. I was distraught so I grabbed a bag of

chips and sat down on the couch. I mournfully went through all

the television programs but found nothing to watch. “I gave up

the idea of adventure because it gave up on me”. I sighed. But

just as I said that, the clouds started to stop crying and Mr. Sun

decided to re-appear from his hiding place. Immediately we all

ran downstairs, got in to the car and left home.

We didn’t know where we were going but we knew we were

going somewhere. I was already in the car when I realized I did

not have my phone neither my laptop with me. “Can this day

get any worse?”, I asked myself as I turned and watched the

world outside our car window. I began to complain how boring

life was without electronic devices but my parents just looked

at me and sighed. A while after I had been staring outside, I

began to realize how beautiful the world is in the sense of na-

ture. I slowly began to fall in love with the way birds flew in

groups to search for food and the way trees stood as if they

were reaching out to the sky. Seeing this part of the world has

led me to an adventure deep in my head. I imagined being in

the middle of a forest without a large tent and a close group of

friends, being at once with nature, without a mobile phone or

any sort of electronic gadgets; just a guitar and our amateurs

voices singing along with the lyrics of familiar jams.” Click,

clack”, there went the sound of the car doors closing. “We are

here!” exclaimed my father. “Get your butts out of the car, it’s

time for adventure”, my mother continued. “Oh well” I sighed,

a little bit annoyed because I was forced to get back to reality,

but life gives you lemons, the best thing you can do is to make

lemonade out of it.

“Beep”, “Beep”, the aliens didn’t want to stop shouting at us. I

looked around to see the hopeless faces of my companions,

Mary, Melanie and James, their parents, my parents and my

sister. It was such a coincidence to see them there. Two fami-

lies lost in the middle of the “land of dreams” that decided to

get together and figure this place out. Now here we are,

battling aliens like we have known each other forever. We gave

up, surrendered to the aliens and dropped our guns. We ran

out and winded up in a room that smelled like old gym socks.

We followed our instincts and instantly got out of the giant

house. It was now time to challenge ourselves by doing some-

thing daring. We rode in the eye of hurricane and danced in

tornado, Like Aladdin, we flew on a flying carpet and we ex-

plored the Grand Canyon. We climbed the statue of liberty and

visited the Seven Wonders of the World. Overall, it had been a

thrilling day filled with unexpected adventures. It was awesome

how in one day we made new friends and did so many memo-

rable things all in one place. Life is simply amazing.

Maybe my holidays didn’t exactly start as expected, but it

turned out better than I hoped. I learned to be more optimistic

and that sometimes, better things come out when they are

unplanned and spontaneous. If things don’t work out, it’s

better to remain nonchalant because it’s all just temporary.

“It’s only in adventure that some succeed in knowing them-

selves- in finding themselves”, maybe I still don’t understand

the full meaning of this quote but I slowly am. Life is just one

crazy rollercoaster ride and it is during the unexpected twists

and turns that help us discover ourselves.

By Monique (G9)

Volume 4 Kindergartens in water fight……...

Our school celebrated many activities during April

2013. One of those activities was held on April 5th

which was the International Children's Book Day.

Students were allowed to dress up as characters

out of a book. Kindergartens students also partici-

pated in this activity. They wore their super hero

and prince costumes. Most boys were in their Spi-

derman and Superman costumes while most girls

dressed like princesses. Kindergarten students en-

joyed showing their attire.

We also celebrated the Songkran Festival on 11th

April. As a tradition, the school had the program

where students honored or poured water on their

teachers’ palms. After that program they were all

involved in “water fight” which was also a tradi-

tion. K2 and K3 students also participated as well

and really enjoyed the said activity.

By Ms. Camille (Pre-K teacher)

Elementary

Why is water everywhere? Why

are people splashing water eve-

rywhere? The reason behind this

in Thailand and some South East

Asian countries is very simple

most especially during the month

of April. Songkran Festival is cele-

brated in this part of the world to

mark the beginning of a new year

and we students at Kincaid also

joined in welcoming another Thai

year. To start the Songkran festi-

val, each team had to build a

sandcastle and we had some

presentations. We were actually

supposed to have games but the

presentations ended late so we

just had to have our lunch and

immediately after lunch the fun

began.

While we were having the water

fight, it just happened that it

started raining cat and dog. The

rain grew stronger and stronger

as the water fight grew wilder

and wilder. I also found that the

grade 9 students were really cre-

ative because they made music

out of buckets and sang random

songs. Everybody got so wet and

everybody was making the most

of it. When the time was up,

everybody went inside, changed

their clothes and went home so

they could rest and start their

one week long holiday.

By…..

Meteorological

Department

Field trip

When we first heard

about going on a field trip again, we were all excited. Then

when our teacher, Mr. Erik said that we were going to Meteor-

ological department we were even more excited because we

learnt about this in our science class and also it was exciting for

me because we’ve never been to a weather forecasting depart-

ment in Thailand. When we got there, the staff welcomed us.

We honored the King and said prayers.

After we honored the king and took a group photo, we went to

a small area with different measuring instruments such as the

barometer, siphon rain gauge, evaporation pan, thermometer

and etc.., we also went to the seismology bureau where one of

the staff explained tsunamis, earthquake theories, the epicen-

ter and more. After the total dysfunction with the computer,

we went to another room where they showed us a map of the

world and the different parts of the world that had experienced

tragedy such as earthquakes. Next we went to the meteorologi-

cal discovery museum. There we saw a lot of displays and mod-

els. In there I saw a huge board displaying four different scien-

tists and what they invented. The scientists were Aristotle who

provided early explanation of atmosphere phenomena; Leo-

nardo Da Vinci, who observed that clouds are formed as a re-

sult of the movement s of opposing air currents; Galileo, who

invented an instrument called the thermometer; and Benjamin

Franklin, who invented the lightning rod. When we went to the

second floor, we saw many different types of inventions. After

we were done looking around the museum, we went to anoth-

er building where they showed us another presentation. Before

the presentation, we were given the opportunity to ask ques-

tions if we had any. During the presentation we learnt about

weather maps and hurricanes, different seasons and a lot

more. After the presentation, we said goodbye and headed

back to our school. It was really educative as expected.

By Andy (G-7)

Teams’ events and updates

Blue Eagles Water here, water there, water everywhere! Why is

that? That is because we recently celebrated

Songkran. For the Songkran festival, every team had

to build sandcastles and prepare a performance. A

few of our senior team members really hard to build

the sandcastle that allowed us to win second place

and we all enjoyed putting together a short perfor-

mance and won second place as well. This month

was truly fun because it allowed our team to work

together and have fun at the same time. All the hard

work really paid off because we were able to battle

each other in the fun water fight afterwards. After

the celebration, it was time to get back to work. We

look forward to the upcoming events, especially the

sports day in May. It would give our team the oppor-

tunity to build our work and to strengthen our com-

radeship. The competition among the three teams is

getting tougher and we are all quickly catching up

with one another. We just hope for the best.

By Micole (G6).

Green Narwhals

It’s a great joy for me to be given the opportunity to

share with you the marvelous memories we have been

creating for the last couple of weeks.

It’s has been a wonderful experience and a proud mo-

ment for me to see our team members working together

and having all hands on deck to reach our goals.

We had poetry, speech and spelling bee competitions in

the month of April. We are grateful to our members who

did all their best to win the first place. At the end, their

efforts did not go in vain as we won first place in all com-

petitions.

As we are getting closer to the end of our school year, we

are getting more pumped up for the upcoming sports day.

We hope for the best and we encourage all our team

members to show their skills and have fun.

We hope to win the first place trophy this year. I am

thankful for each and every team member who gives us

their corporation and hope to have them continue work-

ing that would eventually give us this trophy

By Nafnaf and Liliane (G9)

Orange Ocelots

At the beginning of April, came a spelling bee and general knowledge

quiz competition. Everyone from the Orange team was very excited;

we prepared the students from grade 1-5 one whole week before

the competition. The first competition was the spelling bee. The chil-

dren did great and some of them even surprised us. They did the

best they could and got us the second place. We are proud of them.

After the spelling bee competition, the students from grade 6-10

participated in the general knowledge quiz competition. We were

very nervous, and excited at the same time. The Orange team didn’t

have a good start; we could only answer some of the questions, we

were a little bit disappointed because we were behind the other

teams and thought that we are going to get third place again.

As the competition went on, we were attacking the other team. We

started to answer every question including the questions from the

other teams as bonus questions. Suddenly we began to catch up with

the other teams and then we surpassed them. At the end, the Or-

ange team screamed and shouted out loud as we finally won the

competition.

The older grades helped in arranging all the benches for the poetry

and speech competition to begin. All the competitors were really

nervous before going up front. The first competition was the poetry

for grades 5 and 7. They weren’t so enthusiastic because they didn’t

memorize the words and all they were doing was just reading from

the paper. The judges weren’t so pleased.

Next up was the speech competition for grades 8-10. Everyone was

very good. They tried their best even though they mixed up the

words. Either way, all the competitors for the poetry and speech

were good.

The results came and everyone nervously waited. Mr. Eric an-

nounced the places for the poetry first; third place was the Orange

team, second place was the Green team, and first place was the

Blue. Next was the speech competition; third place was the Blue

team, second place was the Green team, and first place was the Or-

ange team. Our team was proud, ever though we were last place for

the poetry competition.

There was a Songkran celebration in our school on the 11th of April.

Each team had to perform a show about the Songkran festival; they

had to show how people in Thailand celebrate it. There was even a

sand-castle building contest. It was quite difficult for our Orange

team but we managed to successfully build it with the help of our

wonderful leader and members.

At the end of the school hours, we had a wet day! A lot of people

were splashing water at each other outside the parking lot. It was

really crowded with students and teachers. Plus, it was raining! Even

though after we went up to our classrooms and completely wet, we

all had a wonderful Songkran at school and we would wish for this to

happen again next year.

By MJ (G8)

Facts finder

IT IS A FACT……….. 1. Natural gas doesn't have an odour. Strong smells are added to it by humans so it can be detected

when there are leaks.

2. Hawaii is moving towards Japan at the speed of 10cm a year. This is because they are on different

tectonic plates.

3. The tiger is the biggest species of the cat family.

4. Sharks do not have a single bone in their bodies. Instead they have a skeleton made up of cartilage; the same type of tough, flexible tissue that makes up human ears and noses.

5. Some sharks remain on the move for their entire lives. This forces water over their gills, delivering ox-ygen to the blood stream. If the shark stops moving then it will suffocate and die.

6. A pup (baby shark) is born ready to take care of itself. The mother shark leaves the pup to fend for itself and the pup usually makes a fast get away before the mother tries to eat it!

7. A gorilla can live for 40 – 50 years.

8. Rabbits and parrots can see behind themselves without even moving their heads!

9. Butterflies taste food by standing on top of it! Their taste receptors are in their feet unlike humans who have most on their tongue.

10. Most of the dust in your home is actually dead skin! Yuck!

11. Sneezing with your eyes open is impossible.

12. The trickiest tongue twister in the English language is apparently "Sixth sick sheik’s sixth sheep’s sick". Give it a try and see for yourself. 13. Humans get a little taller in space because there is no gravity pulling down on them.

Announcement

1. The 2013 summer school response

form should be returned to the

school office before or on Friday

May 17, 2013.

2. Parents of grade 9 students who

wish to purchase the IGCSE books

through the school should send the

request to the school office not later

than Thursday May 22, 2013.

Picture Gallery for the month of April

Grade 1 & 2 visit to Pravet Police station International Children's Book Day 2013