Astronomy Club G12 S1,2 – Activity/Creativity

This has been my 6/7th season running the Astronomy Club and I think that I have become much more comfortable in leading sessions and helping out other students during sessions as well. I think that the increase in my physics knowledge has also helped a lot as I learn more by covering more units in class.

This year, our club has decided to participate in the upcoming science fair organized by the Science Society. In preparation for the science fair, our team of around 10-15 has split up into small groups of 2-3 to create a project that they can display and explain in the science fair.  I felt that during this preparation stage, I was not very involved in any of the projects as the students themselves were leading their own small groups. Harit and I were only in charge of making sure that they are filling in the proposals, handing them in on time, and maybe helping them out with physics related stuff here and there. I think that regardless of what we are doing in the sessions, I can be a bit more proactive during the sessions, maybe ask the students if they need help with anything.

LO1 – Identifying your own strengths and develop areas for personal growth

Culturama Korea S1 G12 – Creativity

I actually didn’t have any intentions of auditioning for Culturama but my friends urged me to audition on the day of the auditions. Surprisingly, amongst the many other dancers that were auditioning, I was selected for the dance. I think that the Culturama experience was very rewarding and I am thankful that I ended up doing this activity. Unfortunately, my friend that also auditioned did not get selected so I was put in a group of students that I was not very close to, I only knew about 2 people properly compared to previously, in Kahaani where I was with most of my closest friends. It was a chance for me to get to know other people from my grade and also grades below.

Because I had done Kahaani before, I was a bit more comfortable with the process of preparing for a dance performance. As I was also doing football at the same time, I was very busy during season 1, along with all the school work, so I had to effectively manage my time to make sure that I don’t fall behind in any of the activities that I do. It took a while for me to actually set a time where I fully concentrate on learning the dance outside of practice sessions, but I finally managed to fully learn the dance in a rather short amount of time. I felt that after getting a good idea of the dance and memorizing the moves at a basic level, it got much easier from there to fine tune my moves and add more power as I got more confident with the moves. Something that I learned about myself during this experience was that despite the previous fears I had on stage, I really enjoyed being on stage and performing in front of a lot of people.

LO1 – Identifying your own strengths and develop areas for personal growth
LO4 – Show commitment to and perseverance in you CAS experiences

Football Team G12 S1 – Activity

Initial

I tried out for football once again this year and played with the goal of being more confident on the ball. I think that I had lost a lot of confidence last season, having poor performances in the B team. I think my tryouts were not the best but enough to make the A team. I felt that my performance was still lacking, however. My next goal for this season is making the SEASAC team and also playing with some more confidence.

The main objective that I hope to achieve is a high level of stamina to last a whole game of top-level performance. I plan to go to the gym regularly to train my stamina and also build my physicality as I know the U19 teams I will be competing with will be difficult.

Reflection

To address the objectives that I planned to achieve in my initial reflection, I think that I tried to achieve them to my best ability. I think I started to regain my confidence after the first fixture where I came on as the sub after 10-20 minutes and played for the rest of the game. I could notice that my stamina had improved as I did not feel as tired as I would’ve been last year. With this improved stamina, I was able to keep my mind straight and play with much more thought compared to last year where my fatigue would blur my mind and I would be running around without thought. Unfortunately, I got a foot injury during training and I missed a lot of fixtures due to this. Also due to this injury, I was not able to go to the gym as regularly as I did and my stamina dropped significantly. After 2-3 weeks I returned to training and I felt my performance was very weak and in the first fixture after recovery I was benched for most of the game, coming on in the last few minutes. I felt that my performance started to get worse after my recovery and I, unfortunately, could not make the SEASAC team.

One thing that I can take away from this football season is that I have a rather weak mentality. If I start to gain a bit of confidence, I think that I can gain a lot of momentum from it, but if I face a difficulty (like an injury or a bad performance) I drop instantly and struggle to develop my confidence again. I think that I need to learn to forget about the negatives and always keep a positive mentality so that those small difficulties do not hinder my performance.

LO1 – Identifying your own strengths and develop areas for personal growth
LO2 – Demonstrate that you have undertaken, developing new skills in the process
LO4 – Show commitment to and perseverance in you CAS experiences