Category: CAS

CAS Reflection

sengu15038@gapps.uwcsea.edu.sgCAS

Due to the coronavirus case numbers increasing, we have been asked to stay under quarantine for a longer period of time. This has effectively put on hold our CAS activities. However, we were able to find some kinds of solutions to keep ourselves actively involved. 

 

The activities I was participating in, origami and pottery and my service, RDA have been immensely affected. However, at home, I have access to origami paper and am able to create more sea creatures which I am putting together for an origami aquarium. Although I am unable to do pottery or volunteer at the Riding for Disabled centre, I have been able to request our school art department for certain supplies once the circuit breaker period had ended. I was able to ask for supplies such as gouache paint, ink, cardboard and watercolour. These supplies will help me experiment with new styles and genres of art. Apart from watercolour and cardboard, I have never dabbled in creating art pieces with gouache paint or ink. I intend to teach myself these skills in the coming weeks. Although without a mentor to teach me it will be difficult, my goal is to complete at least three art pieces that I will be satisfied with.  

 

Similarly, due to the lockdown, I have been unable to participate in RDA and our current system of creating blogs has not really taken off as we are finding difficulty in writing blogs without learning new skills in the centre. Beyond being a sidewalker, we have been unable to move up to another level. However, once the lockdown ends, I will not only be able to return to RDA but I also intend to take my skill of working with less-abled children forward. While at the RDA I had greatly enjoyed working with the children as it taught me to be patient, understanding and sensitive, especially how these children are not as different from us as they seem. All they want is to just have fun! What I intend to do after, though it might be difficult to join a new group I am not accustomed to, I plan to join the Sarada Kindergarten, Singapore since they have a special program for differently-abled children. 

 

Two other activities that I am really passionate about and would want to lend my voice to are working with animals and migrant workers in Singapore. For the first, I have recently registered as a volunteer at Jurong Bird Park for Singapore’s Wildlife Reserve and received an email saying,  that they will get back to me once they can confirm that they can resume volunteer training. This will be a serious challenge for me as it will be fairly technical in learning the behavioural patterns and habitats of these animals. It also requires serious time commitment of 6 months of work, but if I am able to do it, it will be very satisfying and beneficial for me. 

There is also an organisation in Singapore called HOME, which works with migrant workers and their rights. While I was always aware of migrant workers, the Coronavirus has really made up sit up and notice them as the deadly pandemic has swept through their dormitories. To aid them, my family and I have donated to Giving.sg. 

My family and I have also been closely associated with the Ramakrishna Mission of Singapore which works in providing food and rations to the migrant workers. I have also written to HOME as a volunteer and will be participating in the oncoming awareness talk.

Additionally for physical activities, I am taking initiative to cycle 3km every day after online school ends so that I can remain physically fit. My goal is to increase the number of kilometres every week. 

CAS reflection: ORIGAMI

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Although the recent coronavirus outbreak has slightly hindered the number of outdoor activities I have been able to do, I have access to origami paper which has allowed me to continue my experimenting with the art of origami. I have really been enjoying making these different pieces of paper art. I think that they are really helpful for wellness and well being. It is very therapeutic in times of stress, especially during what we are facing now. What I really enjoy the most about origami is that even though is it such a tedious process, the outcome is always beautiful and satisfying.

Origami is very special as for Japan it is the cultural symbol of simplicity, beauty, and peace. It is a way of creating something beautiful from something as simple as coloured paper.

My goal for this activity is to make almost like an aquarium of animals with different species such as dolphins, turtles and fishes. I think that the most challenging thing about this process is remembering the directions from the video and being able to replicate the actions again. It is also difficult to make sure that all the angles of the paper are equal so that the piece is able to balance on its own.

 

CAS Reflection

sengu15038@gapps.uwcsea.edu.sgCAS

Due to the lovely novel coronavirus, our services have been temporarily suspended. However, we still have weekly meetings discussing our service blog. We currently have barely anything on our blog, but we do have some ideas which we will eventually write down and post. I personally, really miss attending the Riding with the Disabled Association sessions. I especially miss interacting with the children and getting to know them better.

 

Although due to current events, we will not have extra out of school trips, we have been allowed new activities and global concerns. I have currently signed up to a student-led pottery club and am in the process of making a deep-sea clay fish. I also started another creative activity on Mondays which is origami.

 

Origami and Pottery:

To be honest, at first, I didn’t really want to do origami. I thought that it was one of the strangest arts I have ever done. For me, it seemed boring as I felt like the only things you could make were boats and birds. However, after joining this activity, my opinion on the form of art has definitely changed. There is an insane variety of things one can make by simply folding paper together. So far I have made a heart, a fox, a rose and a turtle. My goal by the end of this term is to make origami which is meaningful to me, as in recreating objects that I have in real life so that they have their own significance.

 

Currently, I’m really enjoying pottery, even though there is no definite teacher as it is a student-led activity. Despite the lack of help with exactly how to mould clay together, I began to make my little deep-sea fish. Right now, its a little too small, but my goal is to make an extensive family of deep-sea fish (like squids, octopuses, sharks, crabs) so that it can be a collection of aquatic animals.

 

—

 

A song lyrics which makes me think of CAS:

 

BTS’ ON – “bring the pain on”

 

In no way to disrespect the IB board, as well as not to say that CAS and IB are both painful but I feel like I’m ready to take IB and CAS head-on even though I have already made a couple of mistakes. I’ve learnt my lesson from these mistakes and I know that I will not do them again. If anything they have driven me to do my best this (and next) year.

Ping Pong CAS

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Season 1 Ping Pong!

This was my first time playing ping pong outside of PE class. I used to play badminton and tennis for a while. But, ping pong is definitely something new. I remember not enjoying the sport in class. However, because I knew some of the people I was playing with it was more fun.

It was slightly challenging because I used to lack a lot of patience. However, this sport helped me build patience, learn how to keep my brain sharp and importance of response.

Kahaani Dance Practice

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This is my first ever Kahaani Performance! This isn’t my first participation as I was a backstage manager during my GCSEs and I was a part of the Kolkata Global Concern.

Kolkata Global Concern supports an organisation called Voice of World that helps visually impaired and orphaned children in the city of Kolkata. The GC has been supporting this cause since 2001 and helps to raise awareness and support Voice of the World’s educational projects.

Voice of World is also a multi-unit non-profit Social Welfare Organization providing philanthropic services, since 1992, for the underprivileged especially the differently-abled.

The dance practices were really fun, they were definitely a new experience for me as I have never learned classical Indian dance. I usually like working backstage in productions and performances, but it was a wonderful experience to see how the dances are choreographed. At first, I was uncomfortable with the dance because it was a genre I wasn’t accustomed to.  However, over time I got more confident with learning the steps and practising them.

My goal during this process was to learn a new type of dance which helped me relate and connect to my extended family back in India. It gave me something to talk about with them, and while talking to them about the experience they were able to give me a deeper insight on what my culture meant and why it is significant in our family. I think that this showcase gave me an opportunity to explore something different. I really enjoyed working with my dance team.

Linked below is my Kahaani Dance Practice

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CAS Reflection RDA

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Today was the first session at the RDA where we were not working with the kids and we were actually going through our training session and we had received a certificate for completing our first grade of being a “sidewalker”. We learned a lot more about the service and how it was beneficial to the disabled in the country. 

Actual facts about RDA:

RDA was inspired by Madam Liz Hartel who was a Danish polio sufferer in the 1940s who won a silver medal in the Olympics for dressage in 1952. RDA is now all around the world and provides free therapeutic riding to children and adults with disabilities (which could benefit them in the Paralympics). Riding the horses are known as “therapeutic riding”. The movement of the horse is therapeutic as it helps the riders balance, coordination, muscle tone, increased self-confidence, improved circulation, respiration, mobility and communication. ‘

Something new that I realized today is that RDA and UWC have very similar values. RDA’s values are having a sense of passion, professionalism, people and partnership and in other words, passion, self-awareness, collaboration and critical thinking. 

Personally, I think that this service is one of the best services we’ve had yet because we are able to link so many of our subjects as well as personal experiences with this activity. An example would be some of my family friends who have children with similar disabilities like the children from the service. I’ve never actually properly interacted with them, mainly because they live so far away and I genuinely have very little time to spend with them. This service actually allows me to understand their disability through a different lens. Even though I am not necessarily with them, I am still able to understand them better through an experience which opens my eyes and makes me understand the disability. By learning about the disability in this service, when I meet my family friends I will actually be able to spend that time more effectively in comparison to when I didn’t know anything about the disability or how to deal with it. Another example would be that as a child, I grew up in an environment very similar to UWC’s while I was in India. I was raised around horses and other animals in a very vast green open space. However, I remember very little of that experience since I was only 4 years old. So I have taken this opportunity to use this service as a link between my childhood and my personal relationships.

Some other things we went through again today were the rules and regulations of being a sidewalker. Being a sidewalker is a leadership position as the sidewalker is taking full responsibility of the rider and must help and support the rider from doing anything rash around the arena:

  • The sidewalker is responsible for the rider
  • Sidewalker’s are required to stay with the rider until the session is over and the riders are with their carer 
  • Make sure to place the helmets onto the riders (don’t hurt them)
  • It is important to wait for the instructor before telling the riders to do anything
  • Practice stretching with the riders on the mats 
  • No walking behind the horse because it can be dangerous and it is a bad example for the rider

Ballet  Reflection II

sengu15038@gapps.uwcsea.edu.sgCAS

Over the summer as I had time to spare I decided to help my ballet teacher teach her younger students. I wanted to experience her work myself, and see how she had to manage her daily schedule since in the future I have a dream of teaching ballet.

It was definitely harder than I thought. The younger the students were, the harder they were to control and to top it all, they were shy. They were also very obstinate and stubborn, which I suppose comes with their young age. However, while I was learning how to teach, I realized that children at such young ages are unable to grasp certain concepts. Especially when it comes to physically controlling your body, like the way your feet are supposed to be pointed or how your torso and waist should be placed, it is difficult for them to keep their muscles in place.

So in order to do this, Teacher Jaena came up with stories or at least used common children’s stories to almost deceive the kids into doing what they’re supposed to do. She incorporates the stories, for example, an exercise meant to teach them how to sit straight and be elegant in their movements can be shown in the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, when Goldilocks reaches down to drink the porridge. There are also instances when Disney music is played rather than classical ballet music in order to gain the attention of the young students. Giving them books to fill up with the stickers they receive every lesson is yet another trick to manipulate them into participating in class and listening to the teacher.

Personally, this made me realize that for a large amount of time that I had been defending ballet against its stereotype of being girly or princess-like as I felt that it was a form of theatrical art which demanded physical and mental focus. However, it turns out that in order to make the girls understand what is happening in class or at least to keep them interested, the idea of being cute, girly and being a princess is always brought up, almost in every class. Of course, such ploys are used to show the importance of grace, poise, nice manners but it also hints and implies that women are only supposed to be graceful and pretty at all times. When extended, this thought could lead to the understanding that men in contrast, are entitled to demand their own way and are entitled to do exactly what they want.  But surprisingly, this isn’t what society is trying to promote at the moment, instead, it is trying to promote the opposite.

I do feel that rather than introducing the power of a female dancer in the higher grades, the children should be socialized into it right from the very beginning.

 

Ballet Reflection I

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I’ve finally done it!!

Passed Inter-Fountadion with high merit and with only one more year to go until my ballet training is complete and I can become full-fledged ballet teacher.

Quite recently, I had a ballet exam during my IGCSE exams. It was definitely a very stressful period of time for me as I had to juggle between spending time studying for school and practising for dance.  My dance teacher, Jaena had asked me to skip a year after grade 7 and head straight to Intermediate Foundation as I was already strong enough to be able to move up a grade (I have been dancing since I was 5).

Despite having to spend time on studying and dancing, I was able to pass my exams with a high merit, a couple of marks off a distinction. This comes as a surprise to me and I understand that it is possible, if only I am willing to work hard.