All School Field Day

The year quickly came to an end. With lots of events and celebrations at the end of the year we stayed very busy. But somehow life has not slowed down since then. I know this because it was about a month ago today that we had our last day of school and I am just now getting around to posting this. Oh well, at least you will still get a taste of our all school field day.

It is a tradition at BAIS that at the end of the year we have an all school field day. It's a chance to celebrate as a school and have some fun. Our director had the idea to mimic a popular YouTube.com video that he had seen from a friend. Some of the other schools in our NICS network have also done something similar in their different cities, so we thought we would give it a shot. Watch the original here to get an idea of what we were up to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlfKdbWwruY

We created a "Where in the world is BAIS" video and did the jig all over Bandung. Our elementary students stayed together and went to some famous spots throughout the city of Bandung, including our old campus and a popular monument. The middle schoolers and high schoolers just made one stop near our campus and then kept driving to southern Bandung to visit the famous Kawah Putih (White Crater). Most of our staff and students had never been there before. It was such a cool place, but you had to survive the drive first, up some windy mountain roads. After we arrived and got out of the busses, we piled into some smaller trucks that took us the rest of the way up to the crater.

When we first got there there was a thick layer of fog that eventually burned off. But before it did it was quite cold and our 8th grade students all decided to buy matching hats to warm them up. Once everyone arrived we all did the jig together and captured it on video. Then we just hung out for awhile before heading back to school.

One of our teachers stayed up most of the night editing the footage and creating a video for the whole school to watch and enjoy the next day. He compiled all of the different jigs we had done so we can see what the other groups had been up to. The video still has not made it onto YouTube.com but hopefully it will soon. Our seniors on their senior trip did the jig around Malaysia and created their own version of the video. I think it is even better than our whole school video... they did such a great job on theirs. Watch it on facebook here: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/video/video.php?v=103149767652&ref=mf

The drive up to the crater. Our students decided to hang out of the trucks. Some people say that I am adventurous living in Indonesia, but I think my students are the adventurous ones. They are always finding something risky to do. :)

My middle schoolers on the left, my high schoolers on the right.

Finally arriving at the crater.

The water was such a cool color.
These pictures do not quite capture it, but you can see the thick fog.

Some other fun shots.

On the left some middle schoolers do the jig while waiting for the high schoolers to arrive.
On the right, the 8th graders show off their matching hats, with Aaron their homeroom teacher in there as well.

What a fun day. I'm so glad my students enjoy hanging out together.
It's fun being part of this big BAIS family!