CAS Reflection (Art) – LO1 & LO4

Recently, I have started to become much busier due to multiple assignments, tests, and other deadlines, as a result, sometimes I could not find time to practice Saxophone outside of my ITP sessions. In the past, I use to practice saxophone from Monday to Wednesday, after study time (7 – 8:30 as I am a boarder) until 9pm; however, due to the increasing workload, I have recently found myself either being negligent, or working past 8:30, causing me to have insufficient time to practice (music department closes at 9pm). In order to solve this problem, I have changed my schedule and begun practicing during the weekends, and in the case which I do not/forgot to practice, I would listen to the song recordings whilst practicing fingering and rhythm (LO4). This has allowed me to continue to practice and improve my skill without being disrupted by my academic deadlines. The tone of my notes have improved significantly since the beginning of my ITP, however, as I began playing proper songs, I realised that I struggle to grasp the rhythm of new songs. This is an area which I am hoping to improve on in the future (LO1).

CAS Reflection (Service) – LO2 & LO5

In Zero-West, my application for a leadership as the secretary was accepted, however, I will only be able to assume this role after the end of season 2. This will a great challenge, but it will also be a great learning opportunity for me to develop my social and public speaking skills (LO2). I also faced this challenge due to my responsibility as a senior member, I was tasked with helping the new members of the service learn about the service itself, our local partner, and helping them develop skills which they will need to know in the future (LO5). Currently, we have not participated in any major events as both the Pasir Ris fair and Family Festival are later in the academic year,  however, we have contributed to school events such as the Blue Dragon event and the grade 10 enterprise event, that of which I participated in. During the enterprise event, we experience a few problems which we then addressed in a reflective session afterwards.

HOLLAND CODE

IRA

Careers:

Aerospace Engineer

  • Interested in contributing to the exploration space and development of human habitation

Physicist

  • I am interested in this field, follows

Biochemist/Biophysicist

  • I am interested in how we can blend biology with other fields of sciences  e.g cybernetics

Cas Reflection (Creativity) – LO3 & LO4

In ‘Sumo Robotics’, as a whole group, our progress has been rather shaky, despite having veteran coders in our circle in addition to the collaborative efforts of all the members, we have come across many problems that have hindered our activity, ranging from hardware faults in components to software issues in the code. Due to the reoccurring problem, most of us had lost the motivation to stay on task during the activity sessions. However, we did not want to quit the activity due to our personal interest, thus some of us came together and collectively brainstormed projects/new methods (LO3) of which we could use to substitute our current project whilst keeping the main goal in mind, suggesting ideas and building upon other peoples proposals. We settled upon restarting the project, however, this time we will use manufactured ‘Sumo Robotics’ kits in order to avoid the main hardware issues. We had initially lost hope in the project as no one was able to produce a working product, but we continued the activity (LO4), even though we found it very difficult to make the original product, we wanted to preserve the original idea so we all gathered to discuss how we could retain this while still keeping it as a challenge. Hopefully we are able to continue this club without the plague of issues which we experienced previously.

Political Cartoon

This political cartoon depicts a version of society whereby feminism is antagonised, and where the advocacy of such social movements is seen as offensive and thus is not uncommon for it to be addressed in a derogatory manner. 

The cartoon displays two young adolescent boys, where one is insulting the other by addressing his father as a feminist, as shown in the monologue at the bottom. The casual setting of the advert, an ordinary neighbourhood, in addition to the fact that the boys are of a young age, show that the usage of the term ‘feminism’ as a means of insult is normalized and understood by the bulk of society. Conveying the message that feminism has become a subject viewed in a negative light regardless of its original intentions, as the boys, whom likely are not mature enough to fully grasp the concept, are blindly using the phrase. In addition to this, the monologue shows that the boy stutters before addressing the other boy’s father as a feminist, this shows that some degree of thought was involved before deciding upon using the word as an insult, connotating that the subject is very sensitive and is a heavy insult which is possible viewed as taboo by society.

Political cartoons such as these, show us how gender roles or identities may be interpreted in different eras, cultures or demographics, and thus allowing us to see how these roles came to be. Someone who is not well-versed in the field may just adopt and follow the mindset of the norm, these cartoons allow for such individuals to view the situation through different perspectives, and thus inform them of what may be the truth. Such as in the cartoon above, the subject of feminism has gained a negative reputation due to blind usage and misinformed individuals, the cartoon addresses this by presenting the raw foundation behind the belief and thus showing the irrational justification behind the perspective society has on feminism.

Although this particular advert is not very comedic, humour can greatly affect the reach and effectiveness of political cartoons/propaganda, and thus the ability of it to convey its message or the truth. Humour in political cartoons is often used to ridicule beliefs or to make light of otherwise sensitive topics, the comedic value in the cartoons can lead people to prioritise the humourous content, thus causing truths, or lies, to spread further due to word of mouth, whilst unconsciously adopted the ideals of the political cartoon. This is extremely effective at spreading beliefs and truths, however, is only temporary as it can be easily dismantled due to the lack of justification, the social changes stemmed from humour is often short-lived as society will move on to the next trend, as such ‘political’ statement is often rather viewed as pop culture, as opposed to social issues.

Without pre-existing knowledge or context, it is difficult to understand many political cartoons, including the one above. If an uninformed individual were to come across this political cartoon, they would not be able to understand the situation within the cartoon, much less the message it is attempting to convey. They would not even be able to tell whether what the boy is saying, is a compliment, or an insult. Political cartoons which address the current affairs or social/political situation, which most are, cannot be understood without political or historical context. Only those that paint a black and white picture and does not elaborate on the current belief, can be understood with the lack of context. 

 

CAS Reflection (Activity) – LO1

For my activity, I have selected Karate as I have already done it for the past 2 years, I enjoy karate as some of my friends are also members, in addition to the fact that It is good for my physical wellbeing. My experience in karate so far has not been very eventful due to the repetitive nature; however, I have realised one of my key weaknesses: flexibility, because karate is a martial art, flexibility is directly tied to the one’s performance, due to the fact I do not often train outside of the activity, and was inactive over the summer break, my flexibility is currently subpar and hindering my progress (LO1). I believe if I improve my flexibility via. stretching I will be able to perform much better, I hope to continue my commitment and develop my skill throughout the activity.

CAS Refection (Art) – LO2

I have also started learning Saxophone through music ITP this season, after a 3-year hiatus, I decided to relearn and continue to develop this skill (LO2) out of self-interest and the fact that I have been given an opportunity to do so. Because my expertise in this area has degraded quite a large degree due to the period of inactivity, and in addition to the fact that my ITP sessions are only 30 minutes long, my first few sessions of ITP were quite slow and in a way monotonous. Thus in order to accelerate my learning and make the most of my opportunity, I am consistently practicing the instrument outside of ITP classes to improve my skill. Although I do not particularly enjoy watching/participating in musical performances, I am quite fond of instruments; having also learnt piano and drums in the past. Therefore I am very enthusiastic regarding this activity and am eager to see how far I will be able to progress.

Levels of Optimism

I believe that although I am not an optimist, I am neither a pessimist but instead a realist. My perspective on events in my life do not follow a positive outlook nor a negative outlook, my belief is to view events as to how it is, in a realistic light. I previously believed that optimism is a futile effort which yielded no results and will only make future failure even more discouraging, however, I now realise the importance of this trait in one’s character. Thus I hope to increase my level of optimism, especially in the field of academics, to view each failure as a learning mistake to a successful future.

CAS Reflection (Service) – LO1 & LO6 & LO7

The first few session of my service, Zero-West, have mostly been about introductions to the service and its new members, and the new vision which it has adopted. Zero-west focuses on improving our school through encouraging sustainable living in various ways, because of this, I decided to join the services as it addresses the preset global issue of climate change, something which I, and the majority of people in our school, believe the future is heavily dependent on (LO6). In addition, because I am now a grade 11 student, I am now free to apply for leadership positions; therefore, I have decided to sign up as secretary for my service, although I may not be able to be an ideal leader due to my poor communication skills and lack of the previous experience, I hope to gain new skills and develop my leadership traits through this opportunity (LO1).  Through this service I have gained a better understanding of what we can do to live more sustainably, as a result of this, I found myself questioning the ethics of  my actions more often (LO7). When shopping, I would take in consideration products made from recycled materials instead of just buying whatever was cheapest, and when I was busy, I still would try to avoid ordering delivery in order to reduce plastic waste.

 

CAS Reflection (Creativity) – LO5

So far, I am enjoying my selected activities and service. In my activity, ‘Sumo Robotics’ I have been able to learn basic coding and gain an understanding of mechatronics, a new skill which I had no knowledge of beforehand. My participation in this activity has also allowed me to display LO5, as because of the nature of the club (being heavily student-run), students with prior knowledge would all share their experiences and assist the new members, whenever I or anyone else encountered an issue, we would work collaboratively to resolve it. This reminded me of the importance of collaboration, especially in a learning environment. My interest in this activity stems from my aspiration for a career in the field of engineering or technology, thus if in any case in the future that I begin to lose motivation in this activity, or find it too difficult, I will persevere and continue to commit as the skills I learn may become an important asset for my future. By the end of the activity, I hope to have developed my coding skills to the extent where I will be able to apply it to my own projects.