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HSC Trial Exams Commence Who Year 12 When Wednesday 26 August 2015 Where HSC exam room will be Miss Assaf’s room Ultimo Powerhouse Museum Excursion Who Year 7­11 When Wednesday 26 August 2015 Where Supreme Court Law of NSW Excursion Who Year 11 Legal Studies When Wednesday 26 August 2015 Where Interfaith Youth Forum Who Selected students When Wednesday 26 August 2015 Where De La Salle College, Ashfield Vaccinations Who Year 7 When Monday 31 August 2015 Where S Room Year 11 Preliminary Exams Commence Who Year 7 When Thursday 10 September 2015 Where Ms Assaf’s Room Year 9-10 Subject Selections Who Year 7 When Wednesday 16 September 2015 Where Temple Room Last Day of Term 3 Year 12 Graduation & Farewell Who Whole School When Thursday 17 September 2015 Where Temple Room A very warm welcome to Ibrahim Alsalami from Year 11!

From Mr Hague, Editor Martin Luther King said, all of us are “caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. What affects one directly affects all indirectly.” This is, of course, a central tenet of Buddhism but it is nice to see that a man whose famous speech “I have a dream” changed so many lives for the better was also at heart a Buddhist.

Choose Beautiful If you had to choose between two doors, and enter via one marked Beautiful and one marked Average or one marked Bonita and the other Comum or perhaps đẹp and thường

… which would you choose??? Every Wednesday Pal Buddhist School holds an assembly to discuss school issues. There is always an agenda that runs through the usual housekeeping items such as excursions, upcoming events and two students are selected each week to give a speech, frequently there is a musical interlude but what we have every week that most schools don’t, is a theme. Last week the theme was self­esteem. First, we suggest you watch the following video by Dove as part of its world­wide campaign to combat girls and women’s negative perceptions of themselves: http://www.littlethings.com/dove­choose­beautiful­ad/

Our students were moved as you have no doubt been by this powerful message and Helen Lam, our Director of Operations who had chosen the theme canvassed a discussion and fielded some questions from the girls. Our Principal then, not wanting to make the boys feel that no one was thinking of them asked what the choices for a boy would be. There was awkwardness, squirming, and silence but Mr. Pal is pretty good at getting a reaction and eventually some courageous young men responded. They suggested for boys you could have Strong and Weak, Cool and Nerd, Tough and … We, the boys were all a bit puzzled. Perhaps for a boy it is complicated also. It is certainly no easier! Whatever it is therefore. Whatever label we put on ourselves we must stop. Either as a boy/girl/man/woman we must make choices that reflect who we want to be or can be. Not according to some exterior norm of beauty that is only skin deep, arbitrary and often a vcry photo­shopped image of a person anyway. By the way this is not a new problem in 1792, over 200 years ago, Mary Wollstonecraft, probably the first feminist wrote, “Taught from infancy that beauty is woman's sceptre, the mind shapes itself to the body, and roaming round its gilt cage, only seeks to adorn its prison.” Gilt means gold, so what she is saying is that beauty, skin deep beauty that is, can be a golden prison. Golden for a while but then … just a prison.

Donations Received The School would like to acknowledge the following generous donors who have made a recent donation to the school. DATE DONOR AMOUNT

18/06/2015 George Organ $500.00

26/06/2015 Roselin Nusantar $500.00

29/06/2015 Sheng & Sonia Ong $100.00

21/07/2015 Collin Yeo $1,000.00

10/08/2015 Edith Chan $50.00

21/08/2015 Ai Brazel $50.00

21/08/2015 Tran Thi Tuyet $300.00

School & Community Events Jeans for Genes Day - Friday 7th August Friday 7th August was Jeans for Genes Day, organised by our hardworking SRC. Thank you to all students and parents who donated to support a worthy cause, raising funds for children's medical research. Pal Buddhist School raised a total of $292!

Rise Up for Girl Rising! On 8th August, our student leaders Annie Yuan, Jordan Le, Emily Ho, and Alison Nguyen, represented our school at the Rise Up for Girl Rising fundraiser in Glebe.

(L­R) Emily Ho, Alison Nguyen, Sister Ay Yeshe, Jordan Le, Annie Yuan

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The charity aims to empower through education young girls from developing countries. Pal Buddhist School donated a 3D Buddha artwork and an original oil painting by Year 11 student Annie Yuan for the charity auction. Together Pal Buddhist School raised $580 toward the education of girls in the slums of India. To support this inspiring charity, visit http://bodhicitta­vihara.com/riseup/

Annie Yuan with her original oil painting called “Sunrise” which was auctioned off for $80

Our student leaders with a 3D Buddha artwork auctioned at $500

International Food Fair On Sunday 26 July, our school participated in the International Food Fair fundraising event held by the Association of Engaged Buddhists, aiming to raise funds for the Sangha Lodge. Thanks to our school helpers, Annie Organ and Jim Teoh, our school had a table in front of the stage to promote our school to the attendees. We also congratulate Sophia Tran from Year 10, for performing two marvellous songs on stage, with the audience yelling out “Encore! Encore! Encore!” after her first song. CLICK HERE TO WATCH SOPHIA’S PERFORMANCE

We also thank and congratulate students Peter Tang, Sophia Tran, Kelly Huynh, Phoebe Tran and Marley Beard for attending the event and giving a big hand to give information to interested people, accepting donations from the public (pictured below), handing out fliers, and putting on their BIG smiles to represent their school! The 5 students also each received a gift of a $20 Coles­Myer Gift Card from one of the attendees, Mr Henry Chan, who has sent the school the following message: “I saw the PAL exhibition at the food-fete today and was very impressed by the teachers and students. Especially the students in their

uniform looked so refreshing and well behaved.” We kindly thank Mr Chan for his support!

TEL: +61 2 9755 7778 Page 3 of 12 www.pal.nsw.edu.au

Tzu Chi Bamboo Money Tins THANK YOU to the 23 students of Pal Buddhist School who have recently submitted their Tzu Chi Bamboo Banks.

THE TEACHING BEHIND THE BAMBOO BANKS: When Tzu Chi was first founded, thirty housewives provided money to help the poor and do good works by putting 50 cents (US$0.02) into bamboo savings banks each morning before they went to market. Following this spirit, the Tzu Chi Foundation encourages anyone all over the world to carry this same act: By filling up their bamboo bank, each student learns the lesson of piety and devotion to giving to others; an important lesson in the development of compassion and generosity.

The funds donated to Tzu Chi from the Bamboo Banks go towards the organisation’s efforts to provide disaster relief as well as providing food and supplies to the poor around the world.

Our Principal, Mr Pal, presented our students’ Bamboo Banks to the CEO of Tzu Chi Sydney, Mr Stephan Kan, on Friday 14 August 2015 (picture below).

TEL: +61 2 9755 7778 Page 4 of 12 www.pal.nsw.edu.au

Nan Tien Institute Visit Last month, our Principal was invited as a Committee member to the Advisory Board for the Humanistic Buddhism Centre at Nan Tien Institute, Wollongong. One of the many functions of the Humanistic Buddhism Centre is to develop resources for high school teachers to meet the curricula requirements of Studies of Religion and Culture and Society. Our Principal visited the Nan Tien Institute last month for their initial Committee Meeting and had met fellow scholars, academics and monastic educators. We hope that Mr Pal’s association with the Nan Tien Institute will bring a plethora of mutual benefits and support for our school and students.

Tzu Ching Youth Camp We are pleased to announce that students have been invited to attend the “Inside Out Youth Camp” held by the Youth group of the Tzu Chi Buddhist Compassion Relief Foundation. This is a fantastic opportunity for students aged 14­18 to participate in a variety of fun teamwork and individual activities that aim to build confidence, communication, and charity qualities. The theme of the Youth Camp is “Inside Out”, where students will be taught to understand and manage their emotions such as fear, joy, anxiety, sadness, anger, happiness, etc, in order to become a wholesome and productive member of society. Discover yourself from inside out this Spring at the Tzu Shao Camp! CLICK HERE TO WATCH AN EVENT TRAILER See the Event Poster on the last page of this newsletter. Registration Forms can be downloaded from Pal Online / General Whole School, or picked up from Ms Assaf. Signed registration forms and payments are due to the School Admin desk by 9 September 2015. For more info, please see Ms Assaf.

Award Winners! We would like to congratulate the following award winners in the ICAS Science competition and Swimming Carnival!

(L­R) Cindy Truong, Steven Nguyen, Robert Tran, Tam Le, Tina Tran, Thanh Xuan Nguyen, Annie Nguyen, Oshiania Gunawan, Alice Tran, Kevin Huynh (front)

Above: Term 2 Swimming Carnival Awards Musical Performance This month, Oshiania Gunawan (Year 10), presented a very deep interpretation of the song, “Concrete Angel” by Martin McBride.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH OSHIANIA’S PERFORMANCE

TEL: +61 2 9755 7778 Page 5 of 12 www.pal.nsw.edu.au

What’s Happening in Class?

Stage 4 technology Wednesday 5th August Throughout this Term, Years 7 and 8 Design and Technology class have studied the prevalent unit of Media Design. Students have dissected the components that make a webpage, they have investigated the language webpages are written in and have learnt the subtle tricks that advertisers and media outlets use in the powers of persuasion to prime their audience to respond in certain ways. Students have even tried their hand at designing logos themselves.

Study the logos below. All 10 are created by students for a new product called GUH­zy. For each one, see if you can identify the product/material being promoted?

TEL: +61 2 9755 7778 Page 6 of 12 www.pal.nsw.edu.au

Year 9/10 Commerce

$20 “Boss” Funds Program Our Year 9­10 Commerce class is currently taking part in the $20 Boss program run by the Foundation for Young Australians and National Australia Bank. Each student in the program receives $20 in start­up capital to create a business. If all goes well it is hoped the business will recoup

the investment allowing the loans to be repaid with $1 of nominal interest. Students are free to either keep the profits or donate them to a worthy cause.

Over the last 3 weeks students have been planning their business and learning important skills along the way such as how to think creatively, survey target customers and find out their need and wants, design products with their target customer in mind as well as create a budget and project future sales and costs. In the coming month the students will get their business up and running. We wish them the best of luck!

(L­R) Michael Tang, Shaolin Alnimer and Michelle Tran discuss their ideas for a business

Our students practice team­work and apply design thinking by creating spaghetti towers.

HSIE This month the focus is on our HSC students as they finish the last of their courses and prepare for the upcoming trial HSC. Year 12 Modern History is studying their final topic ­ Conflict in Indochina, learning about Vietnam’s troubled path to independence. Year 12 Legal Studies are currently finishing their final topic of workplace law where they learn about the way the law regulates the relationship between employers and employees.

As mentioned above 9­10 Commerce are currently participating in the $20 Boss program and are gearing up to start their businesses. Year 7­8 Geography are learning about globalisation and the ways their lives and inextricably linked to other countries through the transnational movement of goods, people, money and ideas.

Year 11 Business Studies are currently focusing their business planning topic and have the task of preparing a business plan for an SME. Finally year 11 Legal Studies are performing a case study of David Hicks, in the process learning how international law relates to the issues of war, terrorism and torture and the inherent tensions between civil rights and national security.

Mr. Giffard

TEL: +61 2 9755 7778 Page 7 of 12 www.pal.nsw.edu.au

Stage 4 Japanese On 4th August, the class took a test on their knowledge of the Japanese writing script, Hiragana. Proficiency in reading and writing Hiragana is essential for learning Japanese, in the same way that knowing the alphabet is important to learning English. Students are required to recognise characters such as か (ka) and よ (yo). Student translated sentences written in Hiragana into English, and vice versa. For example, おなまえは translates to ‘What is your name?’, whereas ‘Japanese is fun!’ translates toにほんごは たのしいですよ。 Dr Chung

Mathematics On 30th July, all Pal students participated in the Australian Mathematics Competition. This competition attracts entrants from over 30 countries. Students had 30 questions of increasing difficulty to attempt within 75 minutes, without the help of a calculator. Each student will receive feedback on how they did compared to the rest of the state. The Year 12 Maths 2 Unit class has begun intense preparation for the Trial exam. The focus is on analysing the more difficult problems to be found in the later half of an exam. The 3 Unit class will soon begin similar preparation. Dr Chung

Year 9/10 Visual Design This month in Visual Design students have been continuing their study of structural design practices in cities, particularly focusing on how the architectural style of buildings can embody the culture of a city. They constructed structures using dry spaghetti to explore stability and strength in building design. Mr. Chong

PDHPE When recess starts, Years 7­10 students take turns to go to Fairfield Leisure Centre. It is a very short bus ride and I was extremely excited when we arrived. As you enter the centre, there is a gym on the right, dance classes on the left and our sport court towards the back. We made use of the courts, playing volleyball, soccer, basketball and games of badminton at the same time. During the first week, some of us even played a game of Cops and Robbers! I got used to the place very quickly and enjoyed our first visits there. I am excited and I look forward to the upcoming weeks!

Kelly Huynh

Science Another exciting time has been been had in Science this month. From the extinction of the Australian megafauna to virtual dissections, things have been happening in Science. The Year 12 courses have finished and the year 12 science students are busily attempting past examination papers in preparation for their final examinations in the HSC. Year 11 as well have examinations looming at the end of this term for the Preliminary examination period. The junior classes are focussing on their Student Research Projects and there are many great and wonderful ideas that they are investigating. Stay tuned for next month’s issue where you will see the results of their labours. Mr. Neubronner

TEL: +61 2 9755 7778 Page 8 of 12 www.pal.nsw.edu.au

Music The Pal Music room has been a stage for excitement and nerves this month with auditions for the school Stage Band and Choir. Students coming from a wide range of musical backgrounds conquered their stage fright for an audition into one/both of the ensembles. Now that the this initial process is behind them, students will begin working on their repertoire. For Stage Band: “Feeling Good”, originally made famous for Nina Simone’s release in 1965. We’ll be putting our own spin on this one! For Choir: “Man in the Mirror” by Michael Jackson, as a 4­part acapella arrangement. In preparation for the joyful season ahead we will also be looking into some Christmas themed material in the months ahead. Year 9/10 Music are currently looking closely at the intricate world of Classical Music, with their upcoming musical analysis discussion assessments at the forefront of their activity. This is alongside developing their instrumental practice and knowledge with some brand new performance material. Year 11 Music are working hard in preparation for their end of year aural exams, as well as another major performance assessment. Within the realm of Pop Music, they will be covering a wide variety of genres and styles over the next month. As mentioned in last month’s Paladin, Yr 11 students got together during the last school holidays to experience the pressure of recording their own performance piece. You can listen to the mixed version of their track here: Students have been provided with this audio track for their listening pleasure and reflection. Mr. Sawtell

Pho Stories The following extracts are from the meta­narratives our Year 10 English class wrote, inspired by their excursion. A beautiful bowl of Pho features as a major motif in the story. I think you will agree, they are funny, sad, nostalgic and all quite brilliant!

June 18, she is still in her dream of my delivery, cuddled in a ball looking innocent in the thin bed cover sheets full of cinders. She speaks to herself, asking questions, worried. When, I wonder, will she wake from the dream? Oshiania Gunawan

***********

Don’t be disheartened yet. I am getting to the point of my story. You’ll see it’s all relative. I’m not really one who jibbers and jabbers out of line. Jeffrey Juchkov

*********** The waiter’s gaze shifted uneasily, he inspected the bowl surreptitiously, muttering softly so other customers wouldn’t hear, “It’s not a fly… it must be some kind of herb…” Tam Le

*********** See you’re thinking readers, what kind of a cruel wife would do this to her own husband.” Adrian Truong

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Mind you, it is important to note that the word ‘joy,’ in this story can be very misleading. According to Merriam Webster, it means to feel, express or cause great pleasure and happiness. However the product ‘Joy,’ tried to trick people into believing they were happy. Like, a hypnotizer if you must. Quite ironic isn’t it that someone who is selling happiness isn’t happy at all. Beatrice had gradually become a close friend and frequent customer of Mr and Mrs Nguyen who always had a bowl of their famous pho ready. Alice Tran

***********

She traces her fingers over the words at the top of the page and reads the scratchy writing, “My Pho recipe for my darling granddaughter.' I crumple the paper and throw it across the kitchen. Mum runs to pick up the paper. Shocked, gasping. 'Mum! You know I hate pho.' 'What are you doing?” She struggles to get the words out. “Do you know how important this is to our family? To me?' Michelle Tran

***********

"Chúng ta sẽ tìm thấy nhau, mẹ hứa" The mother bent down, wrapping her arms around the small child, bringing her in towards a frantic embrace, tears flooding her cheeks. “Run…” she said, “Go..” Sophia Tran

*********** “Youknow,phoismeanttobeenjoyed,notsobbed into.” he whispered through his shiny metal braces, leaning across to me. Weendedupdating.Itwasthefirstoutingthat we made.Iworeapairoffadedbluejeansthat used to be almost black, accompaniedbyablack blouse. I checked myselftomakesureIwasnot wearinganythingtooprovocativeorrevealing.We metupatablissfulparkwithhealthygrassand a romantic pathway of maple trees. I saw him coming from a distance, my pupils dilated, I observed him thoroughly. He was wearing a solid ocean blue top that showed his muscles…

Robert Tran

The chopstick warily clamped the thin strings of noodles placing them on the ceramic spoon. Drowning the noodles with steamy beef broth. Cautiously, the spoon found its way to his mouth creating an explosion of flavour. The tenderness of the shredded beef with the delicate strings of noodle created perfect harmonies of taste in his mouth as he groaned in satisfaction. With each mouthful, the flavour’s intensity reminding him of the homemade pho that his mother used to make. Melissa Trieu

*********** “I have made you a bowl of pho every day after school and you don’t even give me a simple thank you or anything,” my grandma shouts. The soup was boiling in Thorence's mouth. The urge to spit it back out was strong, but he had to resist. The taste was amazingly good, but it was just the temperature of the dish. It was so hot that it could probably cook an egg in an instant. Brandon Tran

***********

But this wasn’t any normal Pho, this was a special type of beef noodle soup that was passed down from generations of pirates, hunger and odour. Peter Tang

*********** I roll my eyes, ignoring what she has said. I have more important things to worry about such as this English assessment that is due tomorrow. Samuel Le

*********** The actual food, service, and restaurant itself was rather nice. He remembered the smooth broth that came with white noodles, and he definitely remembered the first mouthful. Oh God it was heavenly, he even remembered the green porcelain bowl it was served in, and the warm soup that soothed his mind.

Here’s the catch readers. I like giving my characters some hope. But I like even more to crush it.

Kevin Huynh

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The Page of Fun

http://www.sachsentext.de/gif/alquerque1.png Date Accessd:20th July 2015

http://www.smart­kit.com/wp­content/uploads/2007/09/iq­test­math­find­missing­number.jpg Date Accessed 15th July 2015

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