Night As Day

I pulled an all-nighter!

It has been so long since I did that. Maybe in my early twenties, out with friends at barbecues by the beach... I had never stayed all night without a wink of a sleep since then, until last night.

All for a good cause, I kept telling myself.

I was up all night doing... get this, a mere 4-minute long video.

Yes, a video to introduce our Dedicated & Supportive Parents group or DSP which I finally started in the afternoon after Friday prayers, all night and all the way till the morning when Wifey and I had to get ready to go to Sonny's school.

Dunman Secondary School was holding its Secondary One Orientation day for the new cohort of 2010. The event that started at 9:00AM lasted only up till about 10:45AM, but the work behind it, as far as Wifey and I are concern was enormous.

There is no one to blame... we were too eager and over-zealous to show the school and especially to new parents about DSP. We wanted the group to have the group's profile raised to the next echelon... more pronounced to all who attended the event.

Yet most of all, we wanted to have new parent volunteers to join the group and make it a better and grander group with enough committed parents and with that, comes their varied talents to inject new ideas and resources into the group.


All in all, to help the school achieve its object of an all-rounded or holistic development of its students... our children.

With that objective in mind, I guess Wifey and I over committed ourselves to do much and better than the year before, when we both first attended the Secondary One Orientation.

Then, we personally felt that much could have been done, and better deliverance to introduce DSP to the parents and as importantly, the school's staff about our assistance, level of commitment and the many talents we have that we can offer the school.

This year's event, we both suggested the improvements we wanted to see and actually did it ourselves...

We decided to improve on the recruitment form that could be downloaded from the school's website. The form is now compatible with its format intact when opened with most document processor a parent may use in their home PC.

Then we created the 6 by 2 feet overhead banner to make our group visible and known to the attending parents.

We also created a vertical info banner about what DSP objectives and our activities we do to achieve those objectives in simple descriptions and pictorials of past events we did.

This husband and wife team also made DSP bookmarks that we gave out to parents that hopefully served as reminders to them to at least visit the website to know more and eventually give a chance by joining the group.


All were done weeks before, including proposals and arrangements made with the school's representative, Mrs Fong... except the last item, that was the DSP group intro video.

It was my bad. I blame myself to end up needing to pull an all-nighter.

Wifey and I completed all the other things we envisioned before she left to visit her Mom in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for a week, except the video.

I attempted starting the project several times but was never able to continue because I got stuck as to how I should approach to do the video. I got stuck on the creative was of deliverance for days on end, in between work and visiting Dad at the hospital.

I finally had no time and totally no choice but to start from scratch on Christmas afternoon. With Wifey's inputs and ideas, it triggered me to break that mental block and continued composing it.

I then continued all through the night with a pot of hot coffee as my companion to keep me awake.

At last, when the video was completed, I had my iMac burn the DVD while I bathed to get ready for the school's event that morning. Wifey was surprised to find me still on my iMac when she woke up to get herself ready.

The event went well... the new principle did a power CEO-styled presentation to introduce the school. She was impressive - clear, alive and so professional.


The DSP presentation was a tat monotonous with a very long speech and lots of words but many thought the video was a sweeping success... even with the little confusion with the wrong video player used that created some delays.

It was suppose to be with Apple's Quicktime but the presenter used Microsoft's Media Player instead and made it able to launch and play. Nonetheless, they got it sorted out and the video played to a very good reception.

From the numerous feedback and compliments we received, it was well taken by the teachers, the DSP parents themselves and especially the new parents whom the video was intended for. Wifey's narration throughout the video got he most praises!

Good praises received but the best came from Mrs Fong and the new school's principle. The recruitment forms we received from the new parents affirmed that our efforts and the efforts put in by other DSP parents were worth it!


We received a much higher number of forms as informed by Mrs Fong.

Wifey and I were ecstatic... we are still happy and talking about the event. All is worth every sweat, every panic attackes and the totally one sleepless night.

We are looking forward to help the school again in the year 2010. There so many ideas brewing in both of us wating to working along with new blood with zealous and vigor... all for the betterment of our children.

As the DSP slogan Wifey and I came out with goes... DSP, Your Time For The Children.