Zac Cole Alumni 1993

I attended Kristin from 1980 - 1993. Cripes that was a long time ago!

At the tender age of 14 the world seemed full of promise. I was hooked on Frankie Goes to Hollywood who offered precious words of wisdom: ‘The World is Your Oyster…’ I had grand ambitions to become a concert pianist. When the piano teacher told me that playing lead guitar in my band (one of the members and a former Kristinite today tours the world with Bjork) was negatively impacting on my future career prospects, this vision evaporated. Jimi Hendrix was my hero – plan B was to resurrect his legacy. I decided to change tack and write music for a living instead. Secretly and somewhat immodestly, I hoped I was a great composer reincarnated. Alas, it was not meant to be. More likely in a previous life I had been a gardener (I love flowers).

However, I’m having a great deal of fun living in Hamburg, Germany. I work for the New Zealand Government, helping unleash New Zealand’s economic potential in the health and biotechnology sectors across Europe. It’s a wonderful job and I’m very lucky to be where I am.

How did I get here? I put it down to 97% fluke, 1% timing and 2% administrative error. Oh, and because I went to Kristin of course!

I remember when I was five, I used to hide in the Kindergarten toilet at lunchtime to avoid the school bullies. Not very brave or hygienic but, in terms of self-preservation, quite an effective strategy.

Aged six to nine, during playtime I would run around the school grounds as fast as I could. It was an ingenious ploy to disguise the fact I didn’t have anyone to play with.

Then 10 to 12 were the golden years. We had wonderful school camps in the Waitakere Ranges and on various islands in the Hauraki Gulf. I discovered the fairer gender of the species. Life took on new meaning.

In my teenage years I became terribly self-conscious. At 15, I spent at least three months of the year at home because I couldn’t face my class-mates looking like a well-known (though unappetising) Italian dish. I took a moderate interest in school work – until I enrolled in IB.

Suddenly the world appeared more mysterious and enchanting than I previously imagined. IB sparked my passion for learning, which has not diminished since. I wish I could say the same about my memory. It’s going in the opposite direction!

Thursday lunchtimes were the principle highlight. That’s when I was allowed to have a hotdog from the school canteen. They were worldbeating.

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday lunchtimes held great potential too. There was always the slim chance that my classmate Dave Plastow would agree to swap his chips-and-marmite sandwich for my cream cheese and raisin one. Not very healthy but oh so yummy. An embarrassing moment was performing a piano piece in assembly that I composed for the departure of the deputy head, Mike Gifford. I had devised the ending the day before. During the performance, the final bars suddenly and alarmingly eluded me. I noticed the Music teacher, Mrs Shepherd, giving me a pained, sideways glance when I improvised a substitute finale that resembled 20th-century serial music – that is, characterised by an absence of tonal hierarchy (for the uninitiated: ‘complete rubbish’). Mr Gifford was too kind to say anything. The smartest thing I ever did, and for which I can take no credit since my mother (Lesley Searle, who still works at Kristin) engineered it, was to do a language exchange in Tahiti aged 15. I learned French.

Eight years later when I was in Paris and penniless, my fragile grip of the French vernacular landed me a job at a youth hostel in the Latin Quarter. Life, luck and a chain of unbroken and somewhat improbable events led me to take up residence in the City of Light for 11 wonderful, inspiring years.

A highlight was doing a master’s degree in Politics at the Sorbonne. My professors were great fans of the All Blacks – their leniency and sense of compassion in light of this fact is the only explanation I have for not bombing out in the exams.

I consider it a minor accomplishment to have done cycling trips around all the major French wine-making regions. That said, my liver is not what it used to be. A votre santé!

A GAP year in Oxfordshire, UK, immediately after graduating from Kristin, was another magical, lifealtering experience. I tasted freedom for the first time and experienced the marvels of Europe. Travel and adventure many thousands of miles from home … what could be more exciting?

The five months I spent pouring coffee in a San Francisco café left an indelible mark on my accent. The options were one or two shots, caf or decaf, with low-fat, 2%, half-and-half or soy milk – a veritable tyranny of choice, but incomprehensible to the locals unless I mimicked the urban, west coast twang of Danny Glover (one of our customers). Last time I flew to NZ, the keen Kiwi to my right spent 45 minutes giving me the rundown on sites not to miss during my stay. I was a tad puzzled by this. Then he asked me where in Canada I was from.

And how could I forget dear Dunedin, where I spent three formative years zipping around on a rusty, rust-orange Vespa (which I later travelled the length of NZ on) and working on my one-wood and chip shots at St Clair Golf Course (the sea views are breathtaking). I also managed to fit in a degree. My hopes of graduating in Music were horribly dashed when, in my first year, composition classes were scheduled at 8:00am on Mondays (apparently – I was seldom there to check). I hurriedly switched to Politics and History. Lectures tended to be in the afternoon.

My main aspiration is to never lose sight of what’s truly important and valuable. My other life goal is to own a German (Steinway or Steinbeck) or Italian-made (Fazioli) grand piano. Note to potential donors: I’m flexible on the make!

To those students currently at Kristin: Life is a gift. What are you waiting for? Go out and have fun!

Keri Crompton nee Watts Alumni 1993

Tilly Harvey Alumni 1993

Wendy Hamilton Alumni 1993

I was a Kristin student right from the early days - afternoon Kindy in 1979 through to Form 7 (Year 13) in 1993.

In 6th Form I decided on a career in optometry when, in the space of a few weeks, I had to dissect a cow’s eye in Mr Belsham’s Biology class, and I got my first pair of contact lenses. Both fascinated me, and I’ve never looked back since! IB Diploma in hand, I headed off to University. It was the early days of IB in New Zealand, before it was properly recognised by the local universities – they regarded it as a ‘foreign’ qualification – and it’s thanks to the efforts of the Kristin staff back then (particularly Dr Green) that it has become so widely
accepted.

I completed my Bachelor of Optometry at the University of Auckland, graduating in 1998. After a couple of years working in city and small town/rural practices in the South Island I returned to Auckland, and after working in various locations around the North Shore and Greater Auckland, in 2009 I was appointed Senior Optometrist at OPSM Albany. In addition to this, I’m now furthering my studies (I was always the quiet, studious type!), working towards a postgraduate diploma in Science and a qualification in Ocular Therapeutics, which will allow me to prescribe medications for various eye conditions.

Looking back, the things that stand out most about my years at Kristin are: firstly, the outstanding support and commitment of the teachers in encouraging every student to achieve to their full potential, and secondly, the warm, caring, family atmosphere. These things have brought me full circle to return to Kristin once again as a parent to Paige (Year 1) and Thomas (who will start Kindy next year). That both the community spirit and the commitment to excellence remain, despite the vast growth and change that has taken place since my early school days when Kristin was a tiny country school in the middle
of nowhere, is an absolute credit to the entire school community.

Being a part of the school community again has brought back so manymemories of my own schooldays, and it’s great to have the opportunity to share this with my children. I’m delighted to see teachers who taught me still there – I particularly remember Mrs Jones, who taught me German for five years, and Mr Lane, who was my class teacher in Standard 4 (Year 6) in 1986, and again in Form 2 (Year 8) in 1988, and then my home-room teacher in Form 6 (Year 12) in 1992! Seeing the outstanding school productions, I remember the pre-Auditorium days of performing on a makeshift stage in the Gym (from Kristin Kats to Oklahoma), and the excitement of that first show in the brand new Auditorium (The Sound of Music, 1991). As we sang the school song, I remember when Mrs Bradstreet wrote it for the Mariner House choir in about 1984 (I wonder how many people now remember that there was actually another school song before that?). From the challenges of school camps, which pushed me way beyond my comfort zone, to the excitement of a French trip to New Caledonia, to cold Saturday mornings on the Hockey pitch, to friendships forged at Kristin and lasting a lifetime, my schooldays will stay with me forever.