Soon after, I finished my primary years at Tempe Primary with Ms Wilcox, Ms Fitzerald and Ms Teplin. I moved across the road to Tempe High School, where I stayed for one year.
That year was the most memorable year of my life. It has given me many happy moments with the friends in my class, 7 Violet. We were a close-knit class. We had a nickname for each class member. Pizza for Peter, Lamb Chop for Lam, Tom Cat for Tom, etc.
Everyone wagged class to join the “unofficial” end of year class picnic on the last day of the year. Poor Ms Ross stayed behind, not knowing that we won’t be turning up to the afternoon roll call. We had a lot of fun at the picnic, though. I can’t remember how we got the food. Who has the time?
The following year I changed to Dulwich High school to finish my junior high. I’ve met a lot of friends but still not as close as those friends that I left behind in Tempe High.
Three good friends have helped me through the struggles that I had during my time at Dulwich High:
- Eric Hoai Nam Nguyen
- Marc Cam Thach Ly
- Cherie Chi Nguyen
My year eight science teacher, Ms Ross, was a petite lady in her early 50s. Ms Ross inspired me to know everything about Astronomy. I wanted to become an Astronomer so I could travel through space and time. I applied for one week of work experience at Parkes Radio Telescope in year 10. I spent another week at Anglo-Australian Telescope at Coonabarabran in year 11.
The best story that I told my kids about my high school years was the year 10 Vietnamese class. Even though I can hardly spell anything correctly in Vietnamese, I still came second in class … in a class of two! Well, actually, there were 20 students in the class but only two were registered as an elective subject to report back to the main schools. Only years later, after I graduated from university, that I borrowed teenage novels in Vietnamese that I started to be serious about learning Vietnamese.
When the personal computers started to become affordable in the 1990s, my parents gave me my first computer, the beasty IBM Compatible 468 DX-2 66 with 4MB of RAM! I joined the Internet with the help of my high school friend, Glenn Stewart. I became addicted to Internet Relay Chat (IRC) and from that I learn to type “fast” and learn to spell “more correctly” in Vietnamese.
Finally, I finished my senior high at Randwick Boys’ high school in 1993. The senior years were very stressful for me. I had to worry about achieving the marks I needed for the Higher School Certificate, the Late nights trying to stay awake to study for exams and do assignments that seemed never-ending.
I remember falling asleep on the hot summer afternoon in 4 units maths class. We covered many mathematics topics, but I have forgotten most of them. I still remember Calculus (integration, differentiation, point of inflexion).
The best part about high school was the two hours of Physical Education (PE) classes. We always looked forward to the weekly two-hour leisure sports under the sun. Also, who can forget Wednesday’s afternoon sport playing squash or swimming?
Remember the day I got my HSC result after lining up at the Waterloo Post office. I was ecstatic to achieve 95.0 TER, which I never expected. I ran home so satisfied with the mark. I knew I’d made it to Sydney University to study for a Bachelor of Science at that moment. I knew that I could follow my dream of becoming an Astronomer.