Category: CAS

This season I think I really got a chance to come out of my shell and show my development in singing. Apart from From All Corners, the other performance that stands out is when we performed at the Grade 12 Assembly. This stood out for me because we sang One Day More, from the film Les Miserables. The song is quite vocal, and so I had to really challenge myself to hit some of the notes. What was also notable about this performance was the fact that I had rapped the day before in front of the entire high school and so throughout this performance, people (they told me after) were expecting me to break out a rap verse. This didn’t happen but it gave me added pressure because I felt like people were surprised to see me sing and not rap or dance.

 

 

As mentioned in my last reflection regarding our gymnastics service, I’m not very good at gymnastics. Thus, it makes it even harder to coach it, because it’ll be quite awkward, not to mention embarrassing, if one of the 4/5 year olds ask me to demonstrate what I’m trying to teach. However, I realised that I can learnt, at the very least, how to protect them from hurting themselves since they’re our responsibility. One day, Mr Dunn, our service supervisor was absent, and representing him were two gymnastic coaches: Coach Amy and Coach Tiffany. They were really friendly and offered us really good advice in terms of how to coach and control the kids. After the service session, they told us about their training sessions that they have everyday after school in which we could come and help out and learn from them.

 

I thought it was a good idea, and decided to go before I had basketball training, on Mondays and Wednesdays for about 1 hour and 15 minutes. It was a bit awkward at first because I was the only one from my service that went, and I was the only secondary school boy in the gymnasium. However, I’m really glad I did go for these “help” sessions as it gave me a chance to focus on keeping children safe, helped me get to know some of the younger kids that I still say hi to today. Also and most importantly, my learning paid off and our service benefited from it, even if they won’t admit it.

This is much harder than I thought. I’m someone who learns by repetition. Like when I have to learn a musical piece, I don’t remember every note, instead I remember the flow; I remember what came before and what comes after. However, that doesn’t seem to be working in this situation. Perhaps, I haven’t done it enough but it feels like my confusion stems from my lack of understanding of the actual play. In all honesty, I think – keyword being “think” – the play revolves around a love triangle set in Egypt and Nubia, and a lot of people end up dying.

 

I am enjoying it though. I know some of the cast members from other activities and performances that I’ve been a part of, although, the whole cast has been really welcoming, leading me to make many new friends. Everything hasn’t been all rosy though. The student that I had to replace due to his leaving, ended up coming back to school and back into the musical. I wasn’t against his coming back, however, it did cause me to feel as though I would then be deemed as surplus to requirement, though I was later comforted by Mrs Stirrat that I wouldn’t be asked to leave and that they would figure out equal parts for both of us. Regardless, I still decided to just focus on what I was being asked to do and not worry about the politics of everything else.

 

All in all, participating in Aida really helped me grow as a person. I underwent challenges that I had never faced before, and through it all, I just tried to keep being myself, and keep giving my best. William Golding’s Lord of The Flies sends the message that given the right situation, even the purest of us can become savages. However, in this situation, I focused on the following: Don’t let your situation define you. The situation lasts only for a time but the impact it has on you lasts forever.

I was initially asked to audition for AIDA, however, I had already signed up for football at the time. Because of my football commitments – 3 days a week: Monday, Wednesday & Friday after school – I had to decline the opportunity to audition. It was quite a back and forth process because I knew that this was a big opportunity; the school musical only happens once every two years, so me being in Grade 11 means I won’t have another opportunity to do this.

 

It’s quite interesting how we get second opportunities in life, most of the time, when we explicitly and deliberately rejected the first opportunity. I was approached by Mrs Stirrat in late November and was asked whether I could step in to feel in for a student who had left school unexpectedly. At the time, I was participating in the Basketball team, so I was still quite busy, however, I’m particularly close with Mrs Stirrat and I couldn’t say no to her, especially when I could see that she was very stressed about the situation. So I said yes. Being thrust into a completely new environment, my main goal was not to steal the spotlight, but to work hard to understand the story of the play, understand who my character (Egyptian soldier) was, and to be a good team player.