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.

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.

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

I joined 5 Rivers because I wanted to contribute to solving drug-addiction issues. 5 Rivers supports Pahal GC in Punjab, India, where we are trying to fight drug-addiction through the activities that can improve Punjab people’s health, education, environment and style of life. This NGO run several community building programmes such as fitness activities, sport competitions, financial education for underprivileged communities, blood donation drives and schooling for the young in the hopes of preventing drug use. I really like the idea of the GC of replacing drug-addiction with other activities. I believe that our GC can have its imply in fighting with drug-addiction and aware people worldwide about the risks of this disease.

I think, it is very important to provide people with alternatives, to convene to them that drug-addiction is a psychological issue and in order to heal from it, we need to replace this addiction with an exciting self-developing activities instead of self-destructing drug use. 5 Rivers creates awareness and educates the UWCSEA East Community about the true nature and severity of the drug epidemic there. I really enjoy participating in each meeting and initiate my ideas and plans. I am very proud to be a part of this great movement. Other participants helped me to understand this problem better by explaining their main goals. This is already a big experience for me and I look forward to continue my active participation in this movement. I believe that 5 rivers should expand at some point to other areas in the world to have more power in fighting drug-addiction and aware people all over the world.

Basketball is my favourite sport, I enjoy working hard during training sessions. It is an inspiring and powerful process that makes me think strategically and become more goal-oriented. I was playing basketball in my previous school for 5 years and when I first came to UWC I knew exactly what sport I wanted to do.

Basketball is a team sport, which by itself means that there should be strong collaboration. Being a new player in the team, in an absolutely new environment, surrounded by people I have never met before is tough. And for me its going to take a time to blend in. It is a big challenge for me to create a connection with each of my team players and to find my place in the team. However, I am very passionate to learn more, to learn new tactics and new skills.

Basketball is not just a sport skills, it is an intelligent game that asks you to use communication and strategic thinking. The most important thing that I have learned from first few trainings is that in this sport you have to be very disciplined and well-prepared. I really enjoy playing this sport and I look forward to do my tryouts.

I was playing music since I was five years old. Music is my biggest passion. I have chosen orchestra because I really enjoy collaboration with other musicians through which beautiful music is born. Orchestra is a large instrumental ensemble, which mixes all the instruments and creates a beautiful unique sound. I enjoy all kinds of music. In our orchestra we play classic music, as well as contemporary, fast and slow, loud and quiet. I like the fact that we work in one big well-organized group of people and with this tandem we are creating a magic sound. It is very important that we learn things like working together, cause if someone is not playing right and clean, or stops, the whole composition is ruined. Our group is very organized and friendly. The fact that you are not the only one who plays the same notes sometimes can be hard, because you need to play it in an unison. For me this is an absolutely new and exciting experience, because I never had played in orchestra. It is a very big difference from ensembles with five people and group of twenty. It is a little bit challenging for me, but I try hard. We are now preparing a few pieces and the rehearsals are going fine. I really enjoy it and I look forward for our first performance.