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People slip in and out of my life, many of whom were my role models and mentors in their own ways. Have I ever had the opportunity to say a thank you to them for touching my life in a special way? I wish I had, for many of them. The lyrics Starry Starry Nights of the ballet Vincent bring to mind a much talked about former Principal in my former school. 2008 marks two decades of knowing him, even though I have not met him since 2004.

My first encounter with him was in my new class, my first graduating class. As a new Principal, he stepped into my class of twelve and thirteen year olds, and said, "Give Mrs XXX your fullest support and cooperation and we will see you through graduation...."

I was standing in the doorway. As he came towards me, I had to correct him. "Sir, I am 'MISS XXX' and not 'MRS XXX'." My new students watched, bemused, as their new Principal walked back and forth, apologising to the class and to me for the next few seconds.

Mr Vincent was in his late forties, tall yet with stooped sad shoulders, a bespectacled head which looked too small for his hefty frame, the Sixties curry puff hair neatly creamed and gelled regardless of the weather. His face wears either a smile with the mouth in a grin from ear to ear, or weather so black that you knew rain would fall any second. One always knew the coming season by reading his face.

His voice is another mismatch to his athletic build, other than his small head. If you remember Kermit the Frog and his melodious voice, and do a body and voice box transplant, you will know how Mr Vincent sounded. Despite it all, he promoted Karaoke singing with such gusto that language learning was never the same for students who were not linguistically but were musically inclined.

Once, I was using the new computer in the General Office when Information Technology first started its wave in my country. He saw me typing with the wrong fingering and promptly whisked out a portable storage diskette with a typing programme. That was my first lesson in touch typing, a programme to teach typing with the correct fingering. Now, twenty years later, I have that fateful day to thank for ten cramped fingers, and not just two. That single lesson also started many more Information Technology lessons in the year to come, as I progressed from being an ordinary teacher to initiating the Information Technology Department in the same school.

Glimpses of moments working under Mr Vincent for seven odd years flash through my mind as I practise my

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