A little about me...
Hello there! Since you're here, you probably know at least a little bit about me already. My name is Ms. Chiam. I love spending time with children, both teaching and learning from them. My work is very important to me and I consider myself incredibly lucky to be a teacher. There's no job I can imagine loving more. I am proud and happy to be a Half Hollow Hills teacher. I have taught both middle and elementary school students, including those in grades two, five, and six, and have loved them all. In the fall of 2019, I had the honor of being invited to join the NYSMTP. The program has presented me with amazing learning experiences, resources, and a network of wonderful educators all over the state. When I'm not in school I love spending time with family and friends. I enjoy both local and foreign travel. Photography is one of my favorite hobbies, and it's especially fun to explore anywhere with my camera in hand. Another fun thing for me, whether traveling or at home, is to eat good food! Finding something that absolutely tickles my taste buds makes me very happy. There are a lot of outdoor activities I enjoy, too. I love being on the water! Surfing is one of my favorite ways to relax. I also enjoy kayaking, hiking, bike-riding, and walking Blue & Elizabeth (my two babies, both shown above). Besides participating in activities and sports, I like watching sometimes as well. My favorite team has been passed down through a few generations of my family and is, of course, the best team: the Yankees!! :) I love music too and, whenever possible, attend live performances. It's a wonderful feeling to experience live music; it's as if the energy of the musicians is transferred to their listeners. People everywhere in the world create and respond to music; it has the power to touch us deeply. As great as it is to be out and about, there is no place like home. Curling up with a good book, a cup of tea, and my pups is very relaxing for me. Some of my favorite books are Unbroken, The Art of Racing in the Rain, The Power of One, The Kite Runner, The Help, Memoirs of Geisha, Born to Run, In a Sunburned Country...the list goes on and on! Numerous wonderful books were read to me as a child and I have loved reading ever since. While I'm always happy to get lost in a book, I like to watch good TV and movies, too! There are so many interesting and fun things and so little time in the day.
Now that you know a little more about me, it's only fair to tell you that one of the things I'm most excited about is learning more about YOU! :)
Now that you know a little more about me, it's only fair to tell you that one of the things I'm most excited about is learning more about YOU! :)
I wouldn't necessarily call myself a collector of many things, but I do enjoy a good, thought-provoking quote, and I try to keep those around to simmer in my thoughts. Here are some that I've loved:
"Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind."
- Henry James
"Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new."
- Albert Einstein
"Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid."
- Albert Einstein
"It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are."
- e e cummings
"Be careful to leave your sons well instructed rather than rich, for the hopes of the instructed are better than the wealth of the ignorant."
-Epictetus
"Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning a lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn't matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle–-when the sun comes up, you'd better be running."
- proverb attributed to Roger Bannister
"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
"The true meaning of life is to plant trees under whose shade you do not expect to sit."
- Nelson Henderson
"To achieve great things, two things are needed; a plan, and not quite enough time."
- Leonard Bernstein
If we don't change the direction we are headed, we will end up where we are going.
- Chinese proverb
"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."
- Gandhi
"The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it."
- Albert Einstein
"The question is not what you look at, but what you see."
- Henry David Thoreau
"Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air..."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
"The cure for anything is salt water - sweat, tears, or the sea."
- Isak Dinesen
"Giving is a necessity sometimes...more urgent, indeed, than having."
- Margaret Lee Runbeck
“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
- Maya Angelou
"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes."
- Marcel Proust
"One's destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things."
- Henry Miller
"Whatever you are, be a good one."
- Abraham Lincoln
"Personality can open doors, but only character can keep them open."
- Elmer G. Letterman
"Make yourself the kind of person you want people to think you are."
- Socrates
"And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair."
- Kahlil Gibran
"This is your world. Shape it or someone else will."
- Gary Lew
"A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words."
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"Nobody can be in good health if he does not have fresh air, sunshine, and good water."
- Flying Hawk, Oglala Sioux Chief
"Music in the soul can be heard by the universe."
- Lao Tzu
"Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.”
- Buddha
"We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and to know the place for the first time."
-T. S. Eliot
"Find life experiences and swallow them whole. Travel. Meet many people. Go down some dead ends and explore dark alleys. Try everything. Exhaust yourself in the glorious pursuit of life."
- Lawrence K. Fish
“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
- Howard Thurman
"Hope has two daughters, anger and courage. Anger at the way things are and courage to make them better."
- St. Augustine
"If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light. Take off all your envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness and fears."
- Glenn Clark
"Go into the world and do well. But more importantly, go into the world and do good."
- Minor Myers, Jr.
"Travel too fast and you miss all that you are traveling for."
- Louis L'Amour
"For beautiful eyes, look for the good in others; for beautiful lips, speak only words of kindness; and for poise, walk with the knowledge that you are never alone."
– Audrey Hepburn
"The credit belongs to those who are actually in the arena, who strive valiantly, who know the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spend themselves in a worthy cause; who, at the best, know the triumph of high achievement and who, at the worst, if they fail, fail while daring greatly, so that their place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."
- Theodore Roosevelt
"If there is no wind, row."
- Japanese Proverb
"However far the stream flows, it never forgets its source."
- Nigerian Proverb
"Scatter joy."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
"She feels in italics and thinks in CAPITALS."
- Henry James
"There is no use in trying," said Alice; "One can't believe impossible things."
"I dare say you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was your age, I always it did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."
- Lewis Carroll
"Be the change you wish to see in the world."
- Gandhi
"Dwell in possibility." - Emily Dickinson
"Always maintain a kind of summer even in the middle of winter." -Thoreau
"Happiness is a journey, not a destination."
-Souza
"Not all who wander are lost." -J. R. R. Tolkien
"May you live everyday of your life." -Swift