Project Week – Post Action Reflection

After the action phase of project week, I think there were a lot more experiences from project week that I learned during the action phase too in addition to the ones I learned from planning and preplanning.

Question of whether or not the service we are doing is responsible and what is actually needed to the local community is something that I have discussed and thought about throughout this entire process. I think that  that we were doing was in the best interests of the community due in part to Singapore’s civic responsibility but also because the plants that we were seeding and planting was explained to be native and friendly to endemic pollinators. It is important to consider that whether or not our service was actually what was needed or what wasn’t could’ve changed if we had gone to Nepal or the other places we’d planned as the scope of our action isn’t too impactful on the local community but is definitely tangible.

While the entire project is something Im not entirely happy with given how many setbacks we had received and how many times we fell just short of success, I think that this has taught me how failure can often be the best teacher. I’ve learned so much about how to rebound from failures and reconstruct plans that have fallen through. This is not to mention a much more practical set of skills that I have learned from the action phase in and of itself which I can apply when I live on my own in the future alongside how much my group bonded over our collective disappointment with the project itself. Overall, while project week wasn’t what I expected or what I wanted, but I definitely think it’s legacy will remain for a long time, both in the fond memories and lessons learned.

By reflecting upon the process of planning a CAS experience – both as a group and as an individual, as well as considering the ethical nature of our service, I achieved LO3, LO5, LO6 and LO7

Project Week – Reflecting upon the steps I took to prepare

Whilst in my previous reflection I looked upon the process I took with my group to develop a project week plan to completion, I never focused entirely on the little steps that we had to take to get there and what skills that I had learned in that process.

Much of what I really learned from the process is knowing how to integrate our research and planning together. Every group project before this had been done in a ‘modular’ process wherein my designated research is fit together with everyone else’s through a centrepiece such as a presentation or a guiding question with little integration with other people’s research as their’s was in the process of being done. From this, project week was a massive deviation from what I expected as often I had done research that was completed by someone else or what I had done had conflicted with what someone else had found. However, from my experiences with the EE and this, I’ve become more accustomed to throwing away research since it simply didn’t work anymore as well as learning how to better coordinate research by not stepping on toes.

It was particularly effective that we had divided all the work into things that we were personally responsible for such as medical checks or personal budgets and the things that were group-based such as accommodation or logistics was something that we rotated in or on a volunteer basis. This allowed us to very rapidly pass the medical checks and budgeting and allowed everyone in our group to have a degree of control over what we did during project week. This is something that I would like to carry onto future work in university as it proved to be a highly effective hybrid workflow but sometimes the structure did fall apart as some people fell behind on their personal jobs so we began to bottleneck.

These skills alongside more practical skills such as learning how to organise budgets better or first aid are absolutely skills that made the project week experience quite valuable – even if the journey itself ended in failure.

By reflecting upon the process of planning a CAS experience – both as a group and as an individual, I achieved LO3 and LO5

 

Activity – Postmortem reflection

Due to the worsening of the NCoV outbreak, I think continuing to record and track my activity for CAS is going to be much more counterproductive. As a result, I will perform my postmortem reflection on the whole process in February as opposed to March. From 6 months of activity I think the overall trend that I saw was an overall improvement despite some fluctuations in between months.

However, the improvement was not my main goal but it was rather to revitalise my spirit of adventure which did certainly dip during IB because of stress and stacking commitments. I think I achieved this sector quite well as the habit of going out to explore has become near second nature. Alongside that, I also did kickstart a desire to pick up running as a regular hobby from making short bursts of sprinting speed – resulting in the 9km/h top speed (for some reason 9km is the fastest the pedometer can record) represented in most if not all of the pictures of my data – which is certainly a transferrable skill in the future.

However, no postmortem is complete without a critique too. I think the biggest flaw in this is the fact that I was not as vigilant with recording data as I was before. Compare the evidence made here and the information made here to the ones I had made in 2018/2019 and the difference is quite apparent. I did get disheartened as the effort I had to put in had to be multiplied 30-fold in order to correctly prove my continued attendance and effort so I think the month-by-month basis I ended up adopting is a good balance for this sector. If I had to redo this I think I would be more thorough with recording data as well as more substantial evidence as to why some months didn’t have as much data as others – A thinly veiled excuse doesn’t fly by a coach for instance.

I did quite enjoy this in the end as it hit upon many different things that I really appreciated like a break in the stress and work and would absolutely do more of this in the future as things continue to ramp up.

 

By looking at my existing skills and reflecting on how they improved, I achieved LO1 and LO2.

Activity (January 2020)

I am quite disappointed with this month, partially because of the NCoV outbreak, Chinese new year and my lack of progress towards meeting the goals I outlined last month. For these reasons, there were only 2 instances this month and a 5.9km/hr and 7.08km values to compare against:

With a 10.5km distance on the second instance, this sets my longest distance thus far which skews the average this month heavily. That second instance in particular was quite a standout one as I normally go from point A to B, making sure I avoid making loops. I broke this rule because I noticed that the direction I was going would incidentally put me on a route I did before where I went there and went home from there. Along the way, I did manage to meet a friendly cat (which for some reason occurred throughout the month) which I suppose means good luck?

The first instance was something of a tradition at this point. I remember doing the same route a couple years ago multiple times and each time I always learned something new about the area. This time was no different as I also got to witness the development of Singapore General Hospital near Outram Park station as well as learning a new route. This underpins why I have been doing this for so long as I find a lot of joy in finding a new route to someplace I’ve been before and using that to develop further routes and continue discovering newer and newer places and routes. It also allows me to really slow down and “smell the roses” so to say as I get to witness a lot of slower events which one would never notice in a society so centred around scheduling and speed.

I also got to meet another cat which I initially mistook for a small bear since it slinked into the drain while in my peripheral vision and it’s black fur made it really hard to distinguish from a big blob of fur. Strange.

 

This month, with an average of 5.79km/hr over 8.39km, the total distance eclipses the previous highest value of 7.08km whereas the speed does come quite close (by 0.11km/hr). As I reach the end, I think the next month should be able to reach a conclusive answer as to whether or not my goal has been reached, although the evidence thus far does point towards so.

By considering my progress in regards to my goals, working towards them and looking back upon my previous progress, I achieved LO1, LO2 and LO4

Activity (December 2019)

Because of the Christmas break, I wanted to sort of relax on the vigilance of my activity, so I this month only had a singular instance that had tangible data and was worth writing about:

While there were smaller instances which I also did, the time taken for it was quite inconsequential or were cut short because of weather.

There wasn’t any very prominent sights to see this time as I ended up treading old ground but in a way which I hadn’t done before. As a result of this lack of things to talk about. I would like to take this time to discuss both the area around me and my current progress.

Singapore does possess a variety of species endemic or available, in part due to the NEA’s efforts to revitalise Singapore and cement its reputation as a garden city. There have been many instances when I’ve spotted White-Breasted Eagles which are quite common here as well as Australia and Southeast Asia. Often I’ve seen them in pairs or as alone. That alone is quite unique, but the animal I want to talk more about is the Asian Water Monitor. They often have very varied habitats and can be seen in quite a lot of places. Places where I have seen them are in Chinese Gardens in west Singapore, along the Kallang river and near where I live: Stadium, with the common binding thread between these areas is the fact that they have marshy conditions. These marshy conditions are of particular relevance to where I live as it was one a low-lying shipyard for minor ship repairs before being converted into a residential district and sports hub.

As a whole, I think my activities have made me glacial progress towards my goals but definitely tangible. I’ve noticed that after I’ve began recording these and thus creating a tangible goal to work towards, I’ve began to walk faster and further with a notable difference being my willingness to walk from school to the MRT station. It’s also imperative to address the fact that throughout the process of recording these, I’ve become less vigilant with making thorough evidence with this month as a particular sore thumb. This is something I would absolutely want to try and resolve but with growing deadlines and looming exams it is maybe something that I cant control for.

With a 5.9km/hr speed and a 7.08km distance, the two value beat out last month and speed currently sits at its highest thus far. As per my goal, there has been definitely progress but I would like to try and maintain it next month.

By considering my progress in regards to my goals, working towards them and looking back upon my previous progress, I achieved LO1, LO2 and LO4

Activity (November 2019)

Continuing on, the values I have to work with from last month are 5.675km/h and a distance of 7.245km and congruent with every other month save October, this month had 3 instances:

The last instance was quite strange as i did go a short distance before taking the MRT the rest of the way, resulting in a huge anomalous chunk of data. I went to the one-north area which was quite interesting in and of itself. However, I wanted to explore the area around it and Kent Ridge which took me on an interesting path involving a lot of highways and parks. Incidentally, I had all intention to do 4 instances this month but dropped my phone on that route. The phone landed on the corner of a staircase and resulted in a bullet-sized hole being created. Fortunately, my phone’s data was completely salvageable and I ended up losing nothing of real value as I replaced it.

There was a sign that said do not hold the birds but it was quite strangely illustrated.

This month had an average speed of 5.7/hr with an average distance of 6.85km. Average speed was up from last month but average distance was down. I think I would need to consider perhaps normalising distances and speeds more. However, as the focus of this activity is not pure physical improvement, this is not a high priority. That said I would like to try and improve both values for next month.

By considering my progress in regards to my goals, working towards them and looking back upon my previous progress, I achieved LO1, LO2 and LO4

Activity (October 2019)

Because of the October break, I decided to attempt to maximise the amount of instances I had done in between work on my EE. From last month, the values I would like to compare against are : 5.37km/h over 8.37km

This month had 4 instances:

This month I explicitly wanted to explore the area surrounding the botanic gardens as it was an area I hadn’t quite fully roamed around in alongside my experiences in project week giving me a strange sense of longing for the area. However those two places I did not find as interesting as the other two.

The first being the area around Paya Lebar. Since the opening of the downtown line to Tampines, it became the fastest route to get home and as a result I never went to Paya Lebar on the way home and I couldn’t observe the rapid transformation it took from a lot of development that was made in the area. Alongside this, I reminisced about project week here too as our group had done a pottery class for the creativity aspect of project week but never stopped to pick up the fired earthenware we made. I received it in a small package which was incredibly unwieldy to carry which made it quite useful that I picked it up on the way home.

The other place I had wanted to explore was West Coast Park. The park itself was quite underwhelming in comparison to East Coast Park, yet I found it quite serene. It’s small size meant that the amount of people there was of a low number, letting me reflect surrounded by the sounds of cicadas and the faint sound of trees. However, what I found most memorable about the journey was the monkeys in the park. After I left the park I ended my jaunt at Dover station. The area itself carries some interesting wartime history as the location surrounding NUS was previously the location of several extrajudicial executions carried out by the occupying Japanese. Perhaps next time I return I would like to fully explore the area surrounding UWC Dover and the NUS grounds.

This month had an average speed of 5.675km/hr with an average distance of 7.245km. Whilst the average speed was up from last month (and from the month before, making it my current record), the average distance was much lower which I attribute to the relatively low duration of the instances. Next month I would like to work towards a longer average distance in addition to increasing my average speed.

By considering my progress in regards to my goals, working towards them and looking back upon my previous progress, I achieved LO1, LO2 and LO4

Project Week – Reflecting on the planning process

I think project week provided the most unique method of executing a CAS experience. From the beginning – even before the formal initiation of the process – my GC was dead-set on having a project week take place in Cambodia for service work with the Tabitha GC and thus most of our fundraising in Grade 11 for Wavelengths amongst others was primarily directed at this.

We ended up raising approximately SGD$2830 from bake sales and donations but comprised 24% of our projected goal.

However, it didn’t pan out entirely as some time after the formal initiation of the project week the service department had veto’d our plan despite being thought out and at the time it felt like a crushing blow. However, looking back, it did provide our entire group an important experience about how, for lack of a better term, “shit happens” and the only thing you can do is move on and use what you have learned.

From that we decided to all split up and go our separate ways and I took the initiative to lead the plan for another project week idea with another person who was also left behind in the split. As we did this relatively late in the process it was difficult to find an available supervisor or a location that would get readily approved. In the end the two of us managed to compose a relatively effectively plan to Vietnam but needed group members as a two-person project week group would not get approved.

The day after we had finalized our plan we had found four other members who already had a plan in place to go to Nepal and as their plan was more complete than ours – including pre-approved activities and services. While it would seem like a conclusive end to the turbulence of project week, the initial difficulties that I faced seemed largely minute in comparison to what we would eventually encounter.

Reviewing the Nepal plan, I could never really shake the feeling of doubt that what the service we were helping with was well and truly good service. I thought back to the idea of sending used clothes to African nations creating immense blowback as the donated clothes would undercut the local textile industries. I thought back to the idea that not all charity was good and the misguided and underplanned ones would create more harm than not undergoing that service at all. I thought of our hastily cobbled-together plan for Vietnam and doubted that the service we planned to do in Nepal was good. I had brought this up with my group who all confirmed that it was representative of what is missing in Nepal and what we’d be doing would alleviate that.

Perhaps the biggest issue came with when it was time to book flights and lodging. One member of our group had wished to come back a day earlier so as to prepare for their SATs however many of the flights to Kathmandu on the day our group member wanted to come on were either outside our budget or unavailable. This conflict of interest ended up creating a rift between us as looking back, this was a result of a failure to truly communicate. In hindsight, these communication issues would continue to pile up as the problems began to escalate. As we continued our process of booking and planning, we failed to adequately convey our plans to our parents and some of our group members’ parents decided to intervene and disagree with our choice of domestic flights raising concerns about its reliability.

This situation involving our parents eventually culminated in the project week department vetoing our plan similar to how we ended up initially and we were left to pick up the scraps of what remained. It was also here that the issues developed in the process of booking arrangements for Nepal caused a schism in the group with also devolved into one person leaving.

Continuing the theme of a failure of communication, some emails I had written in a stressed state from the events of this process perhaps contributed to a failure to drum up any reasonable plan despite the efforts of all five of us until the last week before project week well and truly was underway.

In my opinion it was here where our cooperation and individual contributions culminated as within 3 days we had managed to create a plan in Singapore involving service with the National Parks department in the Botanical Gardens as well as cooking classes and pottery within smaller, lesser-known places. I was personally in charge of liaison between our representative for National Parks whereas my other group members were in charge of booking and transportation.

Looking back, the doubt I had when I joined up with the Nepal plan wasn’t there when we decided to work with National Parks as their guidance is that of the government’s which is quite benevolent and working for society. I think that is another lesson as doubting everything is quite advantageous but only up to a point as beyond that point involves circular reasoning and a lot of time wasted considering things that shouldn’t to begin with.

I think perhaps our greatest failure as a result of this project week journey was communication. It was the reason behind our schism, it was the reason behind our failure as a GC to assemble a project, it was the reason our back up plans after Nepal fell through. As I look back after completing the project, it had became abundantly clear that a failure of this magnitude presented probably the biggest learning experience of all the groups – the entire journey of project week – as it presented several life lessons of failure, getting back up and how plans that don’t work in the end can still have work that you can look back on and be proud of.

My advice for future students undergoing this process is to be diligent with communication with ALL parties involved and mend rifts before they split even further. I was perhaps the most neutral when the schism occurred and perhaps I could’ve mended the rift that formed however my inaction was a contributing factor to it. Thus, the biggest lesson i’ve taken away from this process is not to hesitate with mending rifts not of your own creation.

By reflecting upon the process of planning a CAS experience – both as a group and as an individual, as well as considering the ethical nature of our service, I achieved LO3, LO5, LO6 and LO7

Activity (September 2019)

As the second month of activity, I now have baseline values I can use to work on and try to improve from last month. These values are : 5.65km/hr average speed and 7.45km average distance which I want to try and top.

This month I had 3 instances:

 

Perhaps the two most interesting journeys were the one two the Lower Pierce Reservoir and the jaunt around Fort Canning. Lower Pierce Reservoir is situated just near the Upper Pierce Reservoir and MacRitchie Reservoir, within the Bukit Timah area – Where the zoo and night safari are. The reservoir, in addition to the AMK Park have an abundance of marsh flora and fauna although it is less pronounced in the reservoir with the only hint being sparse reeds and a handful of dragonflies buzzing around. Also apparently wild boars can be found in the area with signs denoting what to do in the event of an encounter – Which i find quite strange. I did take a nice panoramic shot of the reservoir.

As for Fort Canning, besides its’ strategic relevance during world war 2 has been the site of a lot of interesting history. Archaeological digs such as the modicum open to the public along the paths reveal that it was the site of a palace during the 14th century which in 2018 – When archaeological excavations resumed – was believed to have had interactions with Thailand. It was here where I also learned that Singapore’s name before Singapura was Temasek. Interesting to note is that it was also the site of Sir Stamford Raffles’ original botanical collection before expanding into the original botanic gardens contained in the location where SMU stands today.

Overall this month had an average speed of 5.37km/h and an average distance of 8.37km which beats out last month’s 7.45km due in part to a 9.95km distance during my visit to the reservoir. However my average speed is lower than last month’s so perhaps I would want to try to improve that next month.

By considering my progress in regards to my goals, working towards them and looking back upon my previous progress, I achieved LO1, LO2 and LO4

Activity (August 2019)

When grade 12 began I set off to seriously codify my activity so as to make it easier to catalogue for CAS and set some tangible goals to work towards. As a result, I have settled on making reflections on a month-by-month basis with my overarching goal of this activity to just be able to move at a faster pace for longer distances. Whilst progress might appear to be glacial, I have all intentions to continue working at this even after university with the end goal eventually reaching being able to run long distances.

As the year started during mid august, there are only 2 instances:

As an aside, due to my impetus behind these is the fact that it is quite calming and stress-relieving to go on these, I’m placing less emphasis on the recording of interesting locales. This month was more angled towards going to places where I hadn’t really considered going previously.

 

I did end up passing by a park in Serangoon which had a plaque describing the birdwatching opportunities and found some history surrounding the NUS campus (And near where the graduation ceremony is) which held significance during WW2 both to the defending forces and Japanese occupiers due to its elevation.

Perhaps I might pick up birdwatching in the future, starting at that park I came across.

Overall this month, as the baseline month, I clocked an average speed of 5.65km/h and an average of 7.45km with no prior months to compare it to. By setting an overarching goal, I achieved LO 1.