That was the similar reply from two people I met on Friday afternoon, when I visited the wake of Mrs Priscilla Krempl, principal of St Andrew's Secondary from 1996 to 2001 and Bedok Town Secondary from 2002 to 2007. She died on Thursday morning at the age of 66, after she was hit by a stroke and admitted to hospital. She was diagnosed with late-stage lung cancer just four weeks ago.

ST PHOTO: AZIZ HUSSIN

Mrs Krempl was perhaps best known as Singapore's first qualified female rugby referee. She also coached St Andrew's national title-winning sides in the 1970s and 1980s.

It was a quiet Friday afternoon when I arrived at St Joseph's Church, where the wake was held. Most people hadn't knocked off from work yet.

Allied educator Shamir Muhammad, 27, was one of the few people who turned up. Allied educators work with teachers to nurture and develop every child in school by raising the quality of interaction with every child. But Shamir talked about his time as a student in St Andrew's from 1997 to 2001, with a mix of sadness and fondness.

Affected by family issues in Secondary 3, he did poorly in school and got into disciplinary trouble, and was at risk of dropping out of school. Mr Shamir described that period as his "darkest days".

Mrs Krempl counselled him and tried to bring him back into the fold over the course of a year. She even involved him in hosting two exchange students from Australia, even though he was not supposed to be part of the exchange programme. For Mr Shamir, being involved in the programme reignited his desire to do well in school. He eventually completed his O-levels and moved on to a polytechnic.

ST PHOTO: ALBERT SIM

Mr Peter Ching, 32, who works in the oil industry, arrived at the wake later in the afternoon.

He told me that he had a rebellious streak in St Andrew's from 1992 to 1995, and was called into Mrs Krempl's office several times. About half a year before his O-levels, Mrs Krempl, who was then the school's acting principal, called him into her office again, and told him sternly that it was time to stop getting into trouble. The message resonated with Mr Ching, who made sure he didn't get into trouble again.

"As a student, I didn't like her. But it was later on that I realised she gave me a lot of sound advice," he said.

He added that he would always remember the image of her walking along the St Andrew's corridors poised and in perfect posture, while wearing her trademark tinted glasses.

Two former colleagues who worked with Mrs Krempl during her time at Bedok Town Secondary said she paid special attention to students from lower-income backgrounds.

Mr Bernard Low, who was a maths teacher in the school, said: "She understood where the kids were coming from. She tried to build their self-belief...she created a culture of care for students."

Mr Ong Kong Hong, former vice-principal at Bedok Green Secondary, worked with Mrs Krempl in 2007 on a cluster-level project to help Normal Technical students who were at risk of dropping out. "I was struck by how much she focused on the individual. She thought deeply about what would engage these students and how to change their lives," said Mr Ong, who is now principal of Teck Whye Secondary.

Even after she retired as principal, Mrs Krempl's interest in education did not wane. She continued teaching part-time at the National Institute of Education (NIE), training allied educators in topics such as communication and classroom management. She last taught in the July-October course.

Mr Fadzli Shah, 26, who took classes under her in the March-June course, visited the wake with five other course-mates. He described Mrs Krempl as a motherly figure who gave them a lot of encouragement. "Some people don't think too highly of allied educators, but she taught us to be confident of ourselves and our work," he said.

Mr Shamir, the former St Andrew's student, said it was a privilege to learn from Mrs Krempl again when he attended the allied educator course at NIE from July to October. He recalled that she would watch clips of the Rugby World Cup during their lesson breaks, which showed that her interest in the sport hadn't declined with age.

Teachers who had worked under her said she created a warm and caring working environment for them. Mrs Yeo See Wan, who has taught maths at St Andrew's since 1976, fondly recalled the personalised cards that Mrs Krempl would make for her staff every Teachers' Day. "It was just a small card, but we really appreciated her effort," she said.

Her kindness extended to her brother's Indonesian maid, who was well-acquainted with Mrs Krempl. She said Mrs Krempl would often talk to her like a friend, and ask her if she was having any problems back home.

ST PHOTO: ALBERT SIM

Judging from the many stories shared by people who knew her, Mrs Krempl seemed to lived by her motto of "Do the right thing, and do it excellently". It was a line she used to tell her St Andrew's students whenever she addressed them, and something she still told her students at NIE.

Mrs Krempl's funeral will be held on Sunday.

Recently, another educator who inspired many, passed on. Mr Gabriel Rao, the operations manager at Regent Secondary, collapsed and died at the age of 48.

Hundreds of students and former students attended his wake and funeral over a few days, and it was testimony to the impact he made on them. Education Minister Heng Swee Keat also posted a letter of tribute from Mr Rao's cousin-in-law on his Facebook page. (https://www.facebook.com/notes/heng-swee-keat/a-tribute-to-mr-gabriel-rao/283359898369209)

Learning about how these educators have changed many lives is truly humbling. But it would be unfortunate if their influence ends with the people they have touched directly.

As Mr Shamir wrote to his course-mates at NIE: "Let us carry on what she has done so that we too may live a good and blessed life with all due care for our fellow man and for the children, that we now have to care for."

The other key, perhaps, is to do your bit for the underprivileged if you can.

Cambodia is now on the path to greater economic development, but poverty is still widespread — 40 per cent of the population still lived under the poverty line in 2005, according to UNICEF.

And there are plenty of opportunities even if you don't look too hard for them:

1. Attend a concert by Beatocello
On the way to Angkor from Siem Reap, you will probably spot signs outside a relatively modern but blocky building promoting a concert with "free entry" every Saturday. Well, it's true that the concert is free, but you're unlikely to leave without taking out your wallet.

Come in for a free concert! PHOTO: Lin Zhaowei

The hospital is the Jayavarman VII Hospital, one of five hospitals run by Swiss doctor Beat Richner that treats sick children 100 per cent free of charge.

Dr Richner worked in Phnom Penh as a young doctor in 1974, but was forced to leave the year after as the Khmer Rouge swept into the city. He returned to Cambodia in 1991 at the request of the Cambodian government to help set up the first of the hospitals for children.

Their operations have slowly expanded to include more advanced facilities and services. Between 1993 and 2008, over 8 million children have been treated, with 550,000 deaths prevented, according to Dr Richner.

To raise funds, however, Dr Richner picked up his cello again — he was a mini-celebrity back in Switzerland — and begun to perform for various audiences. The concert at Jayavarman is targetted at the one million tourists who visit Angkor every year.

Dr Beat Richner, also known as Beatocello, talks to the audience during the concert. PHOTO: Lin Zhaowei

In between classical pieces at the free concert at Jayavarman VII, he tells of the difficulties faced by his foundation in raising funds for the hospitals. He also shares his disbelief with certain international organisations that say his medical facilities are too advanced for a poor country like Cambodia — it seems very warped to me as well.

Dr Richner also peppers his serious speeches with humour, at one point asking that the young tourists donate their blood, the old ones their money, and the ones in between, both.

While it is too late to donate any blood after the concert, you can buy some merchandise to support the cause. There are T-shirts, documentary DVDs, CDs of Beatocello's recordings and books written by the doctor chronicling the trials and tribulations of setting up the hospitals. Prices range from US$5 to US$10.

You can find out more about Dr Richner and the hospitals by visiting his website.

The cello waits for another week. PHOTO: Lin Zhaowei

2. Go for a massage at Krousar Thmey
Tired after spending a day exploring the temples at Angkor? How about unwinding with a soothing massage on your way back to town?

The Krousar Thmey (meaning "New Family") is an NGO that provides support for abandoned and orphaned children, as well as the blind and deaf in Cambodia. It runs an exhibition centre, which offers a wealth of information about Tonle Sap lake's ecology and the people who live there. It is located close to the Jayavarman VII hospital and you will pass by on the way back from Angkor.

Here you will also find a massage parlour run by blind massage therapists. I decided to go for the one-hour full-body massage, which cost me just US$7. I needed that after three days of walking around Angkor! It was totally refreshing and I would have gone back again the next day if I had time.

You can find out more about Krousar Thmey at their website.

3. Enjoy a good meal with Friends
Located in Phnom Penh's bustling riverside district, near the National Museum, the restaurant serves up a nice selection of Cambodian and western dishes. It is run by the Mith Samlanh NGO, which trains and employs former street youth. Working at the restaurant prepares the youths for future employment.

The chicken with mango was delicious. PHOTO: Lin Zhaowei

It is a little more expensive than other places due to the small portions, but it won't cost you more than a meal at a typical restaurant in Singapore. And the food was great.

After a hearty meal, stroll over to Friends n' Stuff, also run by the same NGO. Located just a block away, the shop sells a collection of bags and accessories, most of them hand-made. I picked up a sling bag made from comic book scraps for US$13.

You can find more information on Mith Samlanh at their website.

There you have it.

The best thing is, you don't even have to go out of your way to do some good during your trip. But of course, if you are interested in doing a little more, like donating useful items such as stationery or rice to an orphanage, you can ask your tuk-tuk driver to facilitate.

Just a tip: One social worker at an orphanage near Siem Reap told me that corruption is still rampant, so it is always better to hand your donated items directly to the beneficiaries.

Happy travels.

Street kids outside the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek in Phnom Penh. PHOTO: Lin Zhaowei

I think it was a free gift from quite a few years back, when I'd bought my first digital camera.

Cool, I'd thought to myself. Now I need to find some film to put this baby to some use.

A relic from the closet.
-- ST PHOTOS: BY LIN ZHAOWEI

But it was not to be.

Polaroid Corp, the US company that marketed Polaroid brand products, apparently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in December last year. I didn't even notice. And now all existing stock of Polaroid film is going for exorbitant prices on the internet.

The advent of the digital photography age has eroded whatever popularity Polaroid had enjoyed, having beaten it to its art of instant gratification photography through its low cost and accessibility. Being a relatively niche product to begin with, Polaroid stood no chance. Even professional photographers, who had to use Polaroid for testing lights last time, have predominantly switched to digital as well for its greater convenience.

To use a Polaroid One, press a button and the camera lens and viewfinder pops up. Press the red button to shoot, and then wait a few minutes as the image appears on the Polaroid film.

For analogue photography fans, the bad news didn't stop there. Earlier this year, Eastman Kodak Company announced it was discontinuing production of the last of its iconic Kodachrome Colour films, after 74 years of existence.

Closer to home, I have noticed that the neighbourhood photo labs that develop negative film are harder to find nowadays, now that I'm starting to use film again. And as I found out a month ago, when there is currently only one lab in Singapore that still develops slide film.

But fortunately, Polaroid wasn't going away with a whimper.

As I found out, an Austrian entrepreneur and Polaroid enthusiast named Florian Kaps banded together with André Bosman, engineering manager of the last Polaroid film factory in Enschede, Netherlands, to start the "Impossible Project" last October, with the belief that analogue instant photography still has a place.

They scrapped together US$2.6 million from family, friends and wellwishers and gathered a team of former Polaroid employees to start studying how to create a new Polaroid film that will appeal to the current generation at the Enschede plant, which they have taken over.

As Mr Kaps noted in an interview with the New York Times earlier this year, the success of digital has created opportunities in analogue. “If everyone runs in one direction, it creates a niche market in the other,” he said.

Mr Kaps was also one of the figures behind the cult Lomographic Society.

Adding to their momentum, imaging consortium Summit Global Group signed an exclusive five-year license agreement to produce and distribute Polaroid-branded products ranging from cameras to film in June this year. In October, the group announced that it will be releasing new instant photograph cameras in 2010, and with the Impossible Project commissioned to make the film.

And on Thursday, its Japanese subsidiary Summit Global Japan held a press conference to announce that Polaroid is making a comeback starting in Japan, one of the key photography markets.

"The world of instant photography today is as relevant as it was 30 years ago," announced Giovanni Tomaselli, CEO of Summit Global Japan, according to Kyodo news agency. 

Targetting those in their late teens up to the early 30s, the company will be focusing on making "fun", "feasible" and "fashionable" Polaroid merchandise. One of the products that were announced for Spring 2010 was the pocket-sized PoGo, which allows you to print photos directly from a mobile phone or a digital camera. A new Polaroid 1000 instant film camera is slated for Summer 2010, reported Nikkei.

Japanese sales are targeted at 12 billion yen (S$185 million) in three years.

And Kodak is still going strong on its film business. In fact, they even released a new film, the Ektar 100, last year, a surprising move in the digital age. According to Kodak, it was designed from the ground up for scanning -- a critical process for film users nowadays -- and is said to have the finest grain for negative film. And it has been going big on its latest offering, splashing eye-catching advertisements in various photography magazines worldwide.

A local shop, which brought in a few hundred rolls of Ektar 100 in 120 and 35mm formats a few weeks ago, told me that they were running out of stock fast. I quickly hoarded five rolls.

I am now excited about collecting my first developed roll of Ektar next week.

Looking forward to pushing the red button in 2010.

And come next year, I hope I can finally put that Polaroid One camera to some use. Without breaking the bank, of course.

SCHOOLS in China reopened on Sept 1, and the children of Shi Ban Primary in the You Xian district of Mianyang prefecture, Sichuan, headed back to their campus for lessons.

And just as it has been for the past year, they are having classes in one-storey prefabricated containers, constructed after the May 2008 Sichuan earthquake that killed at least 5,335 students.

Their school building was slightly damaged by the 2008 Sichuan earthquake and deemed unsafe for use by authorities. Fortunately, no one in the school was seriously injured during the disaster, said English teacher Jia Long, 25.

English teacher Jia Long, 25, in one of the the prefab classrooms used by Shi Ban Primary since the 2008 earthquake damaged the main school building. ST PHOTO: Lin Zhaowei

I was in Mianyang last Thursday to report on a joint initiative by NTU's Lien Institute For the Environment (LIFE) and Temasek Foundation to strengthen school buildings in earthquake-prone areas.

Shi Ban Primary was one of 12 schools in six provinces chosen to be retrofitted as model schools under the project.

The school, which has about 700 students, also runs dormitories. More than half of the students stay on campus during the school term as their homes are quite far away.

Mr Jia, who was once a student at Shi Ban Primary himself, told me that some students even thought that they were heading down to the school field for sports activities as they evacuated the school building on May 12 last year, when the earthquake happened.

The prefab containers with the old school building in the background.
ST PHOTO: Lin Zhaowei

But the reality of the earthquake soon struck.

For the first month after the earthquake, the teachers would go down to the different villages where the students live and conduct lessons. Then the prefab classrooms, standing on what used to be the school field, were ready and the students moved in.

Thus begun a difficult time for the students and teachers, as they had to cope with a less-than-ideal teaching and living environment.

The main annoyance with the prefab containers is poor thermal insulation. It gets too hot during the summer and too cold during winter. Not only does this make concentration difficult during classes, students have trouble sleeping at night.

One of the prefab dormitory rooms. Many students had trouble sleeping at night during summer as it gets too hot inside. ST PHOTO: Lin Zhaowei

Which is why the S$1.7 million project brings good news to the students. In partnership with Sichuan University, local masons were trained to retrofit the school building with locally-sourced materials so that it is more earthquake resistant — according to LIFE's director Associate Professor Li Bing, it will be made to withstand quakes as strong as magnitude 8.0 on the Richter scale.

Students sitting next to a retrofitted wall on the ground floor of the main building. They had specially returned to school for the ceremony to receive the delegation from NTU, Temasek and reporters. ST PHOTO: Lin Zhaowei

The retrofitting is due to be completed by the end  of September, which means that Shi Ban's students can finally resume classes in their old school building.

Retrofitting is much cheaper and faster than rebuilding a school from scratch, which is much most local authorities did, said NTU's Prof Li.

At around 600,000 yuan per school of 1,500sqm, it costs less than the millions required to build a new school building.

The current project only started in July, and local masons I spoke to said that the retrofitting technique was quite easy to pick up. Building a school takes many months more.

Sichuan unversity post-graduate student Qiu Ci Chang (left), 23,  teaches a local mason how to prepare a glass-fibre-reinforced polymer strip for application to a wall. He is one of about ten "master trainers" from his university, who are in charge of transferring the knowledge and know-how to local masons. ST PHOTO: Lin Zhaowei

I do not know how many students will still be studying in prefab classrooms by the end of the year.

The Sichuan authorities have estimated that over 3,000 schools had to be rebuilt. CCTV reported on Sept 1 that around 90 per cent of students have moved into permanent school buildings.

No more empty classrooms like this in Shi Ban Primary come October, said NTU's Prof Li. The retrofitting work will be done by end-September.
ST PHOTO: Lin Zhaowei

The statistics look comforting, but I really hope that the remaining 10 per cent of the students, like those in Shi Ban Primary, will have their permanent school buildings ready soon — winter is just a few months away.

I did, and probably still do. So when I first got to Japan on exchange two years ago, I immediately went on the search for Japanese toymaker Bandai's Mugen Puchi Puchi — which means ‘infinite pop pop’ (puchi is the sound made when you burst a bubble wrap bubble) — toy a friend had told me about.

How could you resist a toy with a promotional video like this?

It took me a while to find one (it seemed to be sold out everywhere!) but I eventually found it in a Tokyu Hands store in Ikebukuro.

So what does it do? As the name suggests, it's a toy that emulates popping bubble wrap,  allowing you to "pop" it endlessly. At least until you get tired of it. And as a bonus, a random (strange) sound is emitted every 100 presses, ranging from a doorbell chime to a pig's oink.

No, the buttons don't light up and there is no purpose other than pressing the buttons obsessively. Serious. Some friends still don't believe me.

ST PHOTO: Lin Zhaowei

Although the toy is not a perfect emulation — some of the buttons feel rather stiff and the buttons are only on one side — it comes close enough to me. I liked it enough to buy a couple for some friends as gifts, to their bemusement.

The toy was popular enough — Bandai reportedly sold over 200,000 pieces by end-2007 for them to release a "Moe" (pronounced Mo-eh) version in March 2008, that apparently eggs you on to continue pressing it if you stop for 15 seconds, with phrases like "Do it more!", voiced by a female anime seiyu (voice actor).

And depending on the version you bought ("Maid", "Little Sister", "Childhood Sweetheart" or "Tsundere"), every 50 presses, it will say random things ranging from "Pervert!" and "Don't touch me!" to "Oh Master!" and "Please caress me!".

The Mugen Puchi Puchi meets its ancestor.
ST PHOTO: Lin Zhaowei

It didn't quite stop there.

Flushed with the success of the Puchi Puchi series, it came out with more Mugen-themed toys.

There is an one that lets you squeeze out edamame beans endlessly and one that lets you rip open a box endlessly.

A recent competition by Bandai for the public threw up ideas such as the Mugen Chocolate — where you can break a chocolate bar endlessly — and Mugen Momotaro — where you peel open a peach and folk hero Momotaro pops up.

A visit to the toymaker's website a few weeks back threw up a new surprise: the Mugen Beer Can.

It doesn't have an endless supply of beer (sorry!), but you can open the can tab and enjoy the sound of the fizz endlessly. I think it may actually be my next obsession, but I don't think it is available in Singapore.

I was pleasantly surprised to stumble upon a shop in Bras Basah complex that actually sells the Puchi Puchi. I told the friendly owner, who is into toys and gadgets as well, about the new Infinite Can-Opening toy and she seemed quite thrilled by the concept too.

Hope she got the hint...