Dalat International School: Senior Scribble

On Tuesday, November 18, Dalat easily defeated TLC 84 -32 thanks to their unwavering defense, frequent steals, and excellent performances from JD Guffy (12), Sam Yeoh (11), and Aaron Morrison (12) that set the tone for their entire game. Dalat put on one of their most dominant performances of the year, defeating TLC 84 - 32 thanks to aggressive defense, quick scoring, and a standout 25 point effort from JD.  Dalat set the tone from the first few minutes. Before TLC could even organize their offense, their pressure defense suffocated their players, forcing turnovers. I saw the same pattern while I was sitting courtside: steal, sprint, score. Dalat finished with eighteen steals, and each takeaway felt like a blow to TLC’s self-esteem.  A TLC player collapsed with a torn ACL after a drive, clutching his knee, and the game took a serious turn later on. The gym fell silent.  “It was a stern reminder that anything can happen when you’re playing,” JD said after the game. Instead...

Last weekend, our Dalat varsity boys’ basketball team fought through one of the toughest tournaments we’ve played, finishing second at the ISKL Twin Towers Tournament in Kuala Lumpur after a hard, physical championship game that tested every part of us. The tournament took place from Friday to Saturday on the ISKL campus, with four teams competing: PUBA placed 4th, Southern Wolves placed 3rd, Dalat placed 2nd, and the host team, ISKL, placed 1st. We played one game on Friday, followed by three more on Saturday, and the intensity increased with each matchup. The championship game against ISKL was the most emotional moment of the weekend. We started rough, falling behind by over 20 points early. Nothing was going our way, shots weren’t falling, and the game was already getting physical because the referees were barely calling anything. But we didn’t quit. As a team, we locked in defensively, pushed the tempo, and slowly started climbing back. When we cut the lead to just five points, the...

 After the hard fought battle against ISKL, the boys were tired and were in desperate need of nutrition. Matthias Seevaratnam (12), who fought valiantly on the bench, cheering us on, sought a source of protein. On our journey to the mall via bus, the boys were split for dinner. Matthias decided to enjoy Nandos, consuming many pieces of chicken. Later on, he made a journey to Jaya to acquire his most prized source of protein, milk. This wasn’t any ordinary milk, this was extra protein milk. As he described his experience, “I bought the HL Super Milk because it has protein.” He has talked to the team about his desires of getting bigger, or as he calls it “the bulk.” He brought back his gallon of milk back to the hotel for later consumption. The next morning, the team assumed that the milk was no more, however, the milk was brought down into the lobby of the hotel. Warm and half full, the milk made its way to the campus of ISKL. The gallon of milk got bench row seats for the games to ...

“What is the goal?” Coach Bang asked the captains on the Song Taew ride to Grace International School. The captains, Lee Yan Tan (12) and I, confidently responded, “We are thinking of 3rd.” In October, the Girls’ Varsity Volleyball team headed to Chiang Mai, Thailand, where Grace International School hosted the 2025 Girls’ ACSC Volleyball Tournament. The Varsity Girls’ Volleyball team has spent hours practicing for the final tournament. ACSC is a conference to which Dalat is affiliated, along with other schools such as SPH, GIS, Faith, YISS, MAC, ICS-HK, and ICS-BKK. With many ups and downs throughout the season, we were unsure what place we would achieve during ACSC. On the first day of the tournament, we started with a 0-2 loss against ICS-HK, followed by a closely contested 1-2 game against YISS. Our day then concluded with a 2-0 win against SPH, after which we walked the nearby “One Nimman Flea Market”. The second day went smoothly, as we secured two easy wins against GIS and Faith...

I was standing right behind the front curtain, about to step onto the stage where many watching eyes would soon be examining me, when the entire side of my dress popped open. Panicked, I looked around for something to help, but there was no time. There were only a couple of lines before my entrance. Then, just as all hope was lost, Ruha Kim (12) stepped forward. She reached into her sleeve and, with a flourish, pulled out a single safety pin. She rushed to my side and pinned my dress back together right as I entered my scene. I don’t know why she had that safety pin; all I knew was that it was beautiful.  This is what I love most about drama: when people make mistakes or accidents happen, everyone works together to fix them. The cast and crew stop being our individual selves and instead come together as a cohesive unit to put on the best performance we can muster. The small mess-ups and mistakes are what make the show memorable, and the teamwork that springs from them is a truly in...

Coming into senior year, I promised myself I would stop procrastinating and work efficiently. Unbeknownst to me, finding a conducive place to work after school would be my greatest challenge. The library is an obvious first choice. Air-conditioned and furnished with sofas, it’s comfy and inviting. However, it turns into more of a social area for elementary and middle school students who shout, run around and generally make it impossible to focus between 3.15 PM to 4:30 PM. As such, seniors with impending college essay deadlines have to explore alternatives. The tables along the first floor have been crossed off most of our lists. Between outdoor sports and general socialising, you can’t avoid getting pulled into a game of basketball or a conversation. Additionally, playground noise impedes any chance of concentration. Sound travels upwards, therefore eliminating the second floor of Harbour. Even though the third floor looks quiet, the epidemic of mosquitos turns the majority off. The t...

Walking into the gym this year feels different. Tryouts are over, but this time it’s not just about the season that lies ahead; it’s knowing this will be the last time I do this as a Dalat player. Everything that used to feel normal and repetitive now feels different. Shoes squeaking whilst running through the gym doing some warmup that feels totally out of place for basketball, the ball echoing through the gym as we run the Laker Drill (for the third time), and those moments before practice, when the gym is quiet and empty, all remind me how much I’m going to miss this. Basketball has been a huge part of my life at Dalat, and it’s difficult to picture myself leaving it behind. Basketball has become much more than a game in my life. It’s been “bonding” during inchworms, encouraging words when I was close to giving up, and becoming friends with people you would have never imagined.  Mary Grace Guffy, a player from last year, even said, “Basketball challenged and expanded my capacity...

“I’m so cooked!” yelled Hugo Yeoh (12), his voice echoing dramatically down the hallway like a warning to anyone brave, or foolish, enough to open another SAT practice test. It was only a few days before 8 November, when Dalat students would sit for the SAT, and stress levels were high above the roof.  Meanwhile, having experienced the horrible effects of the sinister SAT myself last December, I sat nearby watching my fellow senior classmates scramble through the SAT question bank, muttering formulas, and their eyes glued to laptop screens as prediction scores dropped, completely unaware that they looked like stressed-out pigs running straight into a metaphorical academic slaughter farm. The energy this past week? Chaotic. Confusing. And as Martin Scorsese would say—absolute cinema.  The Scholastic Aptitude Test, better known as the SAT, is designed to break the spirits of college-bound high school students with its combination of tricky reading passages, nit-picky grammar que...

This year’s worship team has done a fantastic job filling the immense shoes of the prior worship team, which looked almost impossible to fill. This week was a special week for the students and the teachers. From Wednesday to Friday, due to the chapel, students had shorter class periods, and not only that, but SEW was held each day in the evenings.  Each day, chapel and evening sermons were preached by several different local guest speakers; however, on the last evening, Leadership Development students shared their testimonies. All sermons were equally impactful, but especially when Leadership Development students shared their personal experiences of the true God working in their lives, many students were strongly impacted, as it was more relatable to them.  Often, each year SEW or MEW is led by seniors, and every year, people worry, ‘Who is going to lead the worship or fill that spot for the instrument once he (or she) graduates?’ But miraculously, each year, there is always s...

It was that time of year again, the rain was pouring, the sun was hiding, and everyone was ready for a new week of SEW. I’ve attended two Spiritual Emphasis Weeks (SEWs) before, one in tenth grade and another in eleventh, and had powerful experiences in both. It is with a happy heart that I can report that last week's SEW did not disappoint. The week of October 27th started quietly; the whole school was still buzzing with the triumph of Boys Volleyball in ACSC the Saturday before, but things had quieted down now that all the extra people on campus had left. Since the week started on a Tuesday, it made it much easier to ease into rather than the jarring coldness of a Monday. The first day of SEW started slower than I thought it would, and if I’m being honest, I didn’t really enjoy the chapel service on Wednesday. There were some good themes, but I just felt like they weren’t tied together all that well, and all in all, it really just didn’t speak to me. The second day was better tha...

This past week has been Spiritual Emphasis Week, also known as SEW. Over the three chapels and night sessions, a lot was taught, and I’ve never felt so close to God. Every day was memorable, but the most memorable service was the last day: Student-Led night. We had the opportunity to hear from the Leadership Development class, and there were testimonies from seniors such as Hajin Kim, Rebecca Wood, Candy Kim, and others. Each of their testimonies taught the audience something valuable, and it was amazing to see how God has been working in each of their lives. After the student testimonies, we entered into a time of prayer. As Gyeom Kwak (12) and Joseph Yim (12) came up to lead in worship, the room was filled with the Holy Spirit, and an unwavering feeling of peace and love fell upon us. I saw students gather into circles, praying for each other, or people who weren’t as close putting their hands on one another and praying over their lives. The LD people stood in different corners of th...

For three days and three nights, the school's auditorium turned into a space where many students both young and old were able to encounter God.  What stood out most was not the sermons or worship, but surprisingly the quiet moments of prayer afterwards. It was in these moments that the heart of SEW showed. During the first night of SEW, the 29th of October, a student from the Leadership Development class really stood out. When I looked up from my own prayer, I was encouraged to see Aaron Andrews (12) surrounded by a group of young children.  Later, Aaron shared a word of encouragement at a youth worship night the Saturday following SEW: “I was encouraged to see the amount of young people, especially those who had the courage to come up and ask for prayer. I’ve never seen that many students come forward for prayer at any SEW before.” Moments like these reflected the overall feel of the week. This year's SEW held from October 29th-31st featured chapel services during the school ...

As another Spiritual Emphasis Week passes by, and we are truly feeling God’s goodness and presence wash over the students of Dalat. We are blessed to see a spiritual revival among the youth, with hundreds of students and parents in attendance and dozens of students being called by the Holy Spirit for prayer.  When asked how SEW was compared to previous years, Joseph Yim (12) had this to say: “More people are praying for each other. I personally saw more of my friend group praying during SEW. Seeing also elementary schoolers go up in groups and pray for each other was also another shift I saw that differed from last year.”  Both the noon and evening chapel sessions felt empowering, and each message challenged us to consider the eternal nature of Christ’s kingdom and how we can contribute to and look forward to it. It is typical for the majority of students to attend the third evening of SEW to witness the senior testimonies. However, this year, the seats were jam-packed wi...