5 Rivers GC

Since my last post about 5 Rivers GC, we’ve made a huge progress.

We’ve had organised charitable basketball game between students and

teacher to collect money for helping anti-drug campaign in Punjab,

India. Everyone in our GC community had their own task and contributed

to the project in its own way. Some were in charge of organising the

event, like asking the high school office to allow using the sports

hall. Others were in charge of posters, sending invitations and making

posts on our grade 11 page. There were those who were collecting

money. Me and two other girls were in charge of making donation boxes

and collecting the money from all who wanted to donate the money in

front of the entrance to the sports hall during the event. We were

preparing boxes the night before the event. We’ve printed our GC label

and sticked it on them and cut a hole on top for cash and coins.

During the charity basketball game many people have donated their

money, what was very important for all of us is participants of 5

Rivers GC. We were preparing this event for a long time and we were

reading and watching movies about Punjab’s drug addiction to be more

knowledgeable about the issue and to be able to raise the awareness of

other people about it. As the result of the event we’ve collected

around S$200 and send it to our main organisation in Punjab.

This few month in the GC have completely changed my understanding of

drug-addiction and its reason. It made me become more aware of how

people are struggling by having this addiction. All our GC staff are

involved in this issue and we all sincerely want to help fight the

drug addiction and bring awareness to other students and teachers. I

am glad that 5 Rivers GC gave me an opportunity to be a part of this

movement. Soon, we are going to get our GC t-shirts and I will be so

proud to wear it. Can’t wait to learn more about it in our future

sessions and help change something in the world.

 

Basketball B-Team

Basketball has been a big part of my life since grade 7, and I it is my passion. I consider basketball to be an intelligent team sport. It can help to develop strategic thinking, collaboration skills and physical fitness. It always has been a very interesting and entertaining extracurricular, so I’ve decided to participate in Basketball Pre-Season trainings. I’ve attended three tryouts and became a part of the girls B-Team U19.
Since the moment I’ve joined, I learned a lot of new techniques and skills. It has been challenging for me to understand the terminology at first, as English is my second language. However, I’ve managed to overcome the language barriers and started to engage in trainings more. So far we’ve had six games with other international schools in Singapore and won two of them. Although the results weren’t matching our aim, I believe, that the important part is that our skills had significantly improved and we’ve connected and learned how to communicate during the games.
Something that I’ve noticed, which is something completely new and different for me, is the diversity of cultures in our team. It is a new and unbelievably pleasurable experience for me, that we all play for one team. Everyone came with their own understanding of basketball and their own strategies, which is very helping us to learn more about each other and maybe use some of new techniques during the game. We are a team, so every loss is our mutual experience, and every win is our mutual achievement.
I really enjoy basketball at UWCSEA and every game is very emotional and interesting. I am looking forward for more games, trainings and challenges.

High School Orchestra

Since the last post, we had one very big concert, where I’ve been

participating in two performances. First was with my music HL class

and the other one was the orchestra. We were preparing 3 pieces, two

with the whole orchestra (strings, woodwinds, percussions etc.) and

one only for strings. During the preparation for the concert, my

violin skills and sense of assembling have been developed tremendously.

It is a wonderful chance for me because I get to learn a lot of new

things about myself. Some things I’ve never learned about made me more

knowledgeable in the area of music. I’ve had a hard time first few

month because of the language barrier. I have never learned any type

of musical structure or any other concepts in English. So this is a

very big change for me. As we are all different and many of orchestra

participants have different backgrounds in musical education, it was

hard first to understand each other.

For example, all my life I was using the do re mi structure of musical

notes, but since I joined the orchestra, I met a lot of people who are

using the ABC notation. And so I had a great chance to learn

a new way of writing down the notes. It was a bit hard to get on with,

but no one said it will be easy. I just now realise that I have played

3 pieces on our last orchestra concert. Three pieces for such a short

period of time is a big change and learning pace and pressure for me

as well.

But aside from an extremely intensive and hard work, it was a lot of

fun and it is so much easier to learn pieces with everyone all

together. It is one of the most remarkable moments for me because I

was lucky to feel the music which we are creating together. It

is a miracle by itself! And being a part of this miracle means a lot

to me. Now we are continually learning new pieces for our next

concert. I am very happy that I am able to join this powerful

orchestra, with talented, knowledgeable and well-trained musicians. I

am looking forward to our next concert in February.

Music Therapy with Apex Harmony Lodge

Since my last post a lot has changed. I’ve started practicing

music therapy on a resident of Apex centre. I am working with Cheng

Tee, who speaks Chinese and English. This wonderful lady changed my

life for better. All our sessions should be based on listening to the

music. And as a part of dementia she doesn’t remember the name of the

songs, but she can speak fluently and understand everything that I am

asking about. She is very involved in the process and she always

smiles to everyone, she is a very helpful and active person, I am very

lucky to have her as my working-partner.

She loves Elvis Presley’s songs a lot and even remembers some of them.

While listening she is always clapping or stomping into rhythm, even

when she doesn’t feel well, she tries to be involved in it. It was a

breathtaking experiences, when I met her. As we learned from our

supervisor, many of people with dementia are not able to talk or show

their emotions, because they are mainly just don’t remember how to use

their muscles, so not all of them can be interactive. But Ms. Cheng

Tee is a very nice lady, who likes to talk and smile. Even when I’m

feeling a bit down, or I’m tired she starts clapping into rhythm and

smiling, which is so nice of her.

Once she didn’t want to listen a music, so we were talking the whole

process of music therapy. It is wonderful, but she remembers how she

got to the Apex centre and she told me story about her best friend and

her roommate in the apex centre, whom she was feeding and taking care

along with all of the workers of apex centre. It will stay

confidential as it is her experiences and her life, but just the fact

that she lets me know her life better builds a good connection and

trust between us.

I think our sessions are very helpful for both of us and helps fight

her disease, because she remembers me and sometimes remembers the

songs that we are listening too (the playlist is almost the same and

doesn’t change from session to session) and so it so fascinating when

she asks me to switch the song, because we already have listened to it

last week. I have wonderful, positive experiences about my time in

Apex centre. I am very glad I can have an impact on someone’s life

just by playing Elvis Presley’s songs. Can’t wait to continue our

sessions and really hope to help ease the disease of Ms.Cheng Tee.

Reflections:
https://drive.google.com/drive/search?q=music%20theraoy

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