CAS Reflection – Volunteering Over Circuit-Breaker

Over circuit breaker, I was lucky enough to be provided with the opportunity to help volunteer at HDBs in Singapore. I was introduced to this program by my friends who were also part of the program, I later also got other people in my circle to join the volunteer program. The program was organised by a local restaurant in Singapore – wherein they were making batches of takeout food to send to the elderly in nearby HDBS. I helped out with not only making but also delivering the food. I found this experience very eye-opening as it showed me the effects of the virus on people from a different walk of life from me, it also gave me a chance to work in the local community – something I am not usually able to do due to me being a foreigner in Singapore. Being able to help people in need at a time like this was also a very interesting and unique experience which lessons I will carry with me for a very long time.

CAS Reflection – Yoga Therapy with Tampines MINDS

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the future of how the service would continue was blurry. We were no longer able to meet with our clients due to safety concerns so our journey to reaching one of our main targets of being able to teach them yoga was obviously hindered. The timing was even worse due to the fact that soon my group’s participation in the service could soon be coming to an end. However, we did not let that completely halt the service. As a group, we brainstormed other things we could do that could still help our clients directly and indirectly. I volunteered to help write an article about the service that would be posted on the school’s e-magazine website. We also filmed our usual yoga routine and sent it to the organization our clients were from to ensure that we were still thinking of them and to continue the yoga therapy virtually. We also started planning for UWCSEA’s own Purple Parade – One of Singapore’s largest movements that celebrate the inclusion of individuals with special needs. What was most interesting about this activity was that it was a discussion that ranged between all the services that worked with people with special needs and not just our own service. Though it is difficult to find a time where all representatives of the services could meet, I feel that being able to come together and hopefully create a fulfilling and educating event for the school will be worth it in the end.

Purple Parade

Literary Text Summaries

Never Let Me Go

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro entails the story of Kathy H and her peers at Hailsham as she grows up to realise that the world her and her classmates once had many dreams for is not what they hoped it would be and that their short paths have already been paved for them. The novel explores many ideas like free will and how uncertain is what you decide and what has already been decided for you truly are. Not just that, the book also raises the idea among audiences about where should we draw the line when it comes to science.

Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan is an American Singer-songwriter whose works have been widely recognised for many years. He started off as a folk singer but soon evolved into performing all kinds of genres as time went on. He has had many songs which people speculate as having a deeper meaning like addressing civil rights, or promoting anti-war ideals. He, however, has never really commented on his political stance and has claimed that his songs do not really have meaning. Despite saying this, it has not stopped people from analysing his music so much so that many consider it literature. So much so that in 2016, Bob Dylan even won a Nobel Prize for Literature

Duffy Poetry

The World’s Wife by Carol Ann Duffy – a series of poems, provides commentary on issues pertaining to gender norms and roles in modern society and in some cases, her own experiences. She addresses these issues by twisting familiar childhood tales and known legends to make them timeless and related to the themes she is trying to talk about and tackle through poetry.

CAS Reflection 2 – Memory Project

I feel that I have gotten more comfortable with voicing my struggles to my peers and teachers when I am painting and I realised that this has increased my motivation to finish my work. However, with deadlines and homework piling up, it has been harder to keep up with painting as after school I have too much work left to do and it gets quite difficult to be able to manage everything. I combated this by going into the art room during my free blocks or lunches to catch up. In hindsight, it should have been obvious but I realised that just because an activity is after school, doesn’t mean its completely detached from your school life during academic hours and you can dedicate time to it outside of the activity itself at school.

CAS Reflection 2 – Cuban Salsa

I feel I have become more confident in myself through this activity, not only in dancing but in other aspects too. I have definitely moved past my previous issue of being afraid to embarrass myself in front of the other people participating in the activity. However, that is not to say I have not made any mistakes. I have now understood that they are natural and that everyone makes them. At the end of the day, everyone is thinking about their dance steps and not nit-picking yours. While I have improved in this aspect, I have struggled in getting to know people in the activity outside of the people I already know who are part of it too, I am not a super outgoing person at times and tend to stick with people I am already close with. This can clearly be seen with the way I am constantly having to push myself out of my comfort zone this year. I think it is important that I work through this issue because a factor that feeds into activities like dance is the concept of teamwork. Perhaps my dancing will even improve if I trust the other dancers more.

Cuban Salsa Video Drive

 

Representing People Reflection

Throughout this unit, I feel that I have learned to be more meticulous in the sense that I have gained understanding in looking deeper into different bodies of work and comprehending them at more than a surface level. That being said a key concept that I have developed my thinking on was the role of women in media. Growing up, I never really noticed how blatantly sexualised or objectified women in advertisements were and through this unit, I have definitely learned to be more aware of what the media tries to promote to the general population. Not only that, analysing so many advertisements with underlying derogatory ideas conditioned me to even be more aware of what and how I see products being promoted in my very own day to day life. It was also interesting to learn about how complex the idea of representation itself was. With questions like whether a representation of a certain group in literature is problematic if the author has good intentions, it really proved how the idea of representation really is not just black and white.I find that a link between the two texts is the general theme of identity and how changes in your own identity or the identity of a group of people leads to an unsteady sense of self which can affect everyone around you positively or negatively which segues into our next unit, “Troubled Worlds: Change and Conflict”

If the job of a journalist is meant to report news in the most objective and unbiased way possible, what pressures are on journalists which might make this difficult to achieve?

As the world progresses to become more modern, the harder it gets for journalists to report news in a completely objective and unbiased manner. We live in a day and age where essentially everything you have said or done – good or bad is recorded somewhere out there. That puts everyone in a vulnerable position – including powerful political figures that hide their scandalous acts behind closed doors. Journalists have the power to expose these things to the general public. This puts journalists at a position of power because they have the ability to make or break anybody’s career – this threatens powerful figures in our society. However, individuals like politicians do have greater power in the sense that they have the money and resources to have control over journalists – this puts journalists in a position where they can never really be completely objective and unbiased due to risk of being harmed by the more “powerful” figures.

What did you learn? – Duffy Poems

what did you learn?

I learnt about the different elements within poetry and how they can contribute to the underlying messages and values of the poem. It’s not just what Duffy writes that can help readers see the meaning but the structure and the reason why she chooses certain vocabulary that could be meaningful as well.

what did you realise? (about the poem and in general)

I realised that while at first glance Duffy’s poem (and her poems in general) may seem like they are speaking lowly of men but if you look closer into her poems you could see that they also touch on the issues that men face too.

how does the poem connect to Duffy’s collection so far, and any global issue you’ve identified

The poem connects to Duffy’s collection in the sense that it speaks about the female counterparts of male figures in history and their story while also subtly making a commentary on men and their societal expectations.