The National Youth Achievement Award My Perceptions and Goals
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Timestamp: 28th September 2018
Why did I join? I first heard about the National Youth Achievement Award (NYAA) at an assembly. The first thing I thought of was, ‘Would this look good on university applications?’. Unfortunately, this perspective is common when thinking about participating in awards like this one, but despite the fact that completing the NYAA has benefits such as looking good on your CV, there are a lot of other reasons why I decided to take part.
Firstly, I know that High School is a time for exploring your ideas and passions, and finding new strengths and causes that you want to support. When I ask my relatives what their top tip is for having a great high school experience, they tell me to try lots of new things and participate in a lot of different activities to get in touch with a lot of different social groups. NYAA helps you to achieve that. The requirements that you must fill for the NYAA are not harsh guidelines like the ones for exams. These requirements shape experiences, and experiences are valuable. Therefore, I am doing NYAA to focus myself on doing lots of different activities to broaden my perspective.
NYAA also helps me think about myself and what more I can do to improve not only my wellbeing, but also my schoolwork and attitude. It motivates me and it helps me become more reflective than I already am. The healthy living guideline especially helps me have a more productive and less stressful lifestyle. These things will improve my standard of living, and hopefully make my year a stable and productive one.
I wanted to join the NYAA for another reason – I’m not from Singapore, and I barely know anything about it, however I’ve lived here for three years. It’s rather pitiful that I barely know Singapore’s history and culture, and this country has housed me and kept me safe for three years now, three, stable and amazing years, and so I want to build more of a connection to the country I’m living in. Participating in something Singaporean, like the NYAA, which is unique to Singapore, makes me feel like at least I’ve done something Singaporean while I’ve lived here. It may also be a worthwhile endeavor to do some research on Singapore’s history, but I feel more tied to the youth here in Singapore through doing this award, and boosting that feeling of connectivity to your society I know is beneficial for your mental health.
So, it is for all of these reasons that I think I would benefit from doing this award, and the actual prize isn’t all that hard to achieve too. It’s a win-win, in my opinion.
What are some of my goals? I want to go more in depth into this in further posts, but for the moment I am looking to start working towards the healthy living required quota of hours, through music to help me reduce my stress throughout the year. Music is one of my passions, and playing and practicing music helps me to express myself. However, Music can also provide good strategies on how to deal with stress, because as I am sure you know, musicians have a dual nature: they practice, and they perform. Performances are nerve wracking, and musicians have lots of different strategies to overcome this pressure, which are what I’m looking to develop and learn.
I will also be attending the Bhutan Outdoor Education trip in April, so during that time I am looking towards researching more on Bhutan’s culture, and exploring that through experience on this 11-day trip. I know that during the excursion, we will be visiting a lot of temples, and I wish to know more about the religion and worshipping practices that proceed within those holy places. I feel that this will be very relaxing and a good opportunity for me to learn about mindfulness as well as the culture within these remote parts of Asia.
For service, I already am participating in a Focus Group (Voices for Refugees) and a GC (Ladakh), as well as being a Portfolio Head in the High School Service Executive Committee. However, I would like to explore the Local service option more this year and next, because I feel that I should expand my horizons to encompass more areas of service. I participated in a Local service in Grade 6, but I was very new to service learning at that time, and so I don’t think I got as much out of it as I should have. For this reason, I would like to attend a new Local service and gain more understanding about Singapore and it’s residents, as well as learn more about Local service and what really makes an impact there.
I do not have a definite goal for Service yet, since Local services start in January, but I promise an update of a goal onto this portfolio when they do start.
What will be my plan for logging my development? I have been considering different alternatives for logging my work to all these areas, and so far I have been thinking about monthly updates and summaries, perhaps with important dates and learning opportunities specified in the end-of-month reflection posted here on the portfolio and logged in my spreadsheet, which is linked here.
I look forward to tracking my progress and seeing my spreadsheet at the end of the award, and seeing all that I will have accomplished.
23rd September 2018 GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES CLASS What shapes my identity?
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Transcript: It is known that what shapes our identity are the things around us, our upbringing, what we are exposed to as a child, and nature. Each of these things have a large impact on who we are as a person.
Our parents have values and identities too, and these things affect their parenting methods. For instance, if a parent has a perspective that free-will is possible, then they may encourage their children to acknowledge their desires and make decisions. My parents are very motivated people. They like to push themselves to greater heights, perspectively individualistic, and this has passed onto me. I have high standards for my work and I always want to present my best efforts. My parents are also very accepting people, and they treat me and my brother as individuals, capable of making our own decisions and having our own responsibilities. This has encouraged me and my brother to explore our own identities, regardless of what society thinks. My brother can explore his more feminine traits, and I would say that today he is a very gentle and affectionate person, as well as fun-loving and playful. This personality is only supported in my household, as my parents have a very collectivist perception of the idea of family. We all support each other.
My family has been to many different countries, all of which have different cultures that have influenced my brother and I. Living in Britain, an individualist society, has also contributed to making me more individualistic as a person. I always set personal goals and look for ways in which I can benefit from situations. But I haven’t lived in Britain my entire life, currently I’m in Singapore, and when I was younger I also spent two years in Hong Kong. I feel that Britain is my home(?), despite the fact that I feel integrated into Asian culture here, which makes me and my brother third-culture-kids. Living in so many places has taught me about different cultures and has shaped my perspective of the world, and has made me more adaptable to change. It has given me an uncertainty about my identity, since lots of different cultures have influenced my beliefs – Singapore has taught me about respect for the elderly, and helping those who are less fortunate through service, whereas London has taught me to always stay true to myself and persevere.
However, these countries have very different perspectives when it comes to gender. In London, private schools are segregated by sex, and the two sexes are rarely mixed. This means that I had very little perspective on the male gender until I came to Singapore and an international school. These two schools also have very different ideas on what it meant to be a girl. In the London private school, in the subject called ‘Design and Technology’, we learned to sew, to become the feminine stereotype, but in ‘DT’ here at UWC, I’m allowed to work with machines and saws and sandpaper, a whole new experience for me at the time. This changed my perception of gender, I no longer felt like I had to fit the stereotype. My gender naturally influences my identity, as it was determined biologically by genetics and also because I’ve felt like a girl my whole life – this was only enhanced by my school in London, with the ideas that girls shouldn’t play rugby, or be very good at maths.
But my school in London was harshly catholic, and very homophobic. My bisexuality confused me, even when I came to Singapore, though UWC is more accepting than British society. However, I feel like my bisexuality is an innate part of me, just a fact about me and my hormones. I feel like I can’t change this aspect of my identity, I’m deterministic about it. It’s just a part of me, like my gender, however this could be determined solely by nature and not as much by nurture. (There are still a lot of studies about this, though.)
So, all these things and more have shaped me into who I am, and I know that I will continue to discover more about myself in the future. Thank you.
This is my current list of classic literature favourites and recommendations. However, I know that I’ll read a lot more literature over the course of the next few years, and new books will definitely be added to the list. But for now, please enjoy the prematurity of my classics list, and I hope that you choose to read a few in the future!
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Little Women – Louisa May Alcott
DESCRIPTION: Generations of readers young and old, male and female, have fallen in love with the March sisters of Louisa May Alcott’s most popular and enduring novel, Little Women. Here are talented tomboy and author-to-be Jo, tragically frail Beth, beautiful Meg, and romantic, spoiled Amy, united in their devotion to each other and their struggles to survive in New England during the Civil War.
Why I love this book: I read this book at a very young age – and I loved the long-winding story, it wasn’t boring at all to me. It was an easy read, and I fell in love with all of the characters and all their escapades. This book kept me hooked right until the very end.
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Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
DESCRIPTION: ‘It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.’
Why I love this book: I’m not usually a fan of romance, but when I read this book I didn’t mind it at all. I found the book funny and enthralling, and the ending was extremely satisfying. It remains one of my favourite classics to this day.
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Fahrenheit 451 – Ray Bradbury
DESCRIPTION: In a future dystopian society, all printed materials have been banned. Enforced by the fire department – whose role it is to burn books – the attempt to create an emotionless, egalitarian society has been taken to an extreme. Guy Montag is a senior fireman who is much respected by his superiors and is in line for a promotion. He doesn’t question what he does or why he does it until he meets Clarisse. As his doubts grow, he begins to steal some of the books he is meant to burn.
Why I love this book: It’s a delightfully speculative and philosophical piece of fiction, albeit short, it encapsulates bigger topics than would be expected from such a short book. It’s fast-paced and provides thought-material all the way through. You’re constantly thinking and adding meaning and it’s just one of those books that speaks out about humanity in an introspective and interesting way. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I push it onto anyone who hasn’t read it already.
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Kindred – Octavia Butler
DESCRIPTION:
Having just celebrated her 26th birthday in 1976 California, Dana, an African-American woman, is suddenly and inexplicably wrenched through time into antebellum Maryland. After saving a drowning white boy there, she finds herself staring into the barrel of a shotgun and is transported back to the present just in time to save her life. During numerous such time-defying episodes with the same young man, she realizes the challenge she’s been given: to protect this young slaveholder until he can father her own great-grandmother.
Why I love this book: The description above has a little bit of a spoiler, but it doesn’t reveal much about the escapades Dana has while she’s transported back in time. This book is a classic piece of black literature, and it combines the element of science with the heavy topics of oppression and the segregation of black people in America, making it an interesting book that keeps you in it’s hold all the way to the end. I love it because it compares today’s world where black people have more rights with the time in which they were slaves, and it does so extremely well – you can really see the difference properly. It’s an amazing book, by an amazing writer. Read it!
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Recommendations
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Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
DESCRIPTION:
Brave New World is a dystopian novel written in 1931 by English author Aldous Huxley, and published in 1932. Largely set in a futuristic World State of genetically modified citizens and an intelligence-based social hierarchy, the novel anticipates huge scientific developments in reproductive technology, sleep-learning, psychological manipulation, and classical conditioning that are combined to make a utopian society that goes challenged only by a single outsider.
Why I love this book: I love this book because of the dystopian/utopian theme. It’s all about control of the population and conformity, which I think was very well explored, especially with the addition of the character of the savage, a character that we could compare others to. I think I definitely enjoyed the characters more than any other aspect of the book, probably because of how interesting they were and how well Huxley had shaped their minds. It’s definitely a must-read for science-fiction or dystopia fans.
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The Colour Purple – Alice Walker
DESCRIPTION:
Set in the deep American South between the wars, it is the tale of Celie, a young black girl born into poverty and segregation. Raped repeatedly by the man she calls ‘father’, she has two children taken away from her, is separated from her beloved sister Nettie and is trapped into an ugly marriage. But then she meets the glamorous Shug Avery, singer and magic-maker – a woman who has taken charge of her own destiny. Gradually, Celie discovers the power and joy of her own spirit, freeing her from her past and reuniting her with those she loves.
Why I love this book: This book is heavy. I’m not going to lie, it deals with mature topics and can be overwhelming at first – but it’s a beautiful story and if you’re comfortable with topics such as explicit language, sexuality and society, race relations, religion and African history then I recommend it. I loved it for it’s explicitness, though. There was a lot of truth hidden within those pages, and I thoroughly enjoyed combing through it all. It’s one of those books that has built my perspective on race relations and segregation. It’s also definitely a good book to talk about with other people (all of these are, to be honest) – and provides a lot of interesting topics up for discussion. Make sure to read it!
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I‘m going to end this on a slightly different note than usual. I haven’t read a lot of literature, so this list is looking more empty than I would like it to be. I’d like to open up this little section to talk about my to-read list, especially for literature, and to open up the comments section for more books that I should look at.
I also might want to do reviews and little writes on classic literature in the future – I can see my ‘classics’ section developing already!
Anyway, here are the plans for the next set of books I’m looking to read – and feel free to recommend more in the comments!
TO-READ:
↬ Catch 22 – Joseph Heller ↬ Native Son – Richard Wright
↬ We – Yevgeny Zamayatin
↬ The Grapes of Wrath: John Steinbeck
JUST FINISHED: ↬ The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood (I absolutely LOVED this, comment if you want a little book review) ↬ The Lord of the Rings (the whole trilogy) – J. R. R. Tolkien
