I always dreamed about the summer after graduation. This intense feeling of freedom is rare, and incomparable to any vacations that came before and will come after. Here and now, at last, I stand without any true responsibilities. I can meet my friends, I can go out, I can sleep in. This is my redemption after practically having no social life, not just because of studying, but because of COVID as well. My time is mine, and I can do with it as I please. However, I also am quite quickly realising that there is a caveat to this soaring freedom that doesn’t seem to bother anyone else (yet) apart from me in moments of anxiety, the caveat being: a) I do not know myself at all, and b) my entire future is uncertain. These both sound quite dramatic, and maybe I am too dramatic, overthinking and milling over these introspective thoughts too much, but hey ho! 

Regarding the first point, I don’t mean to say I have no idea who I am, that I’m living in a stranger’s body or any of that crap. I mean, on a simple, plain level. What do I truly enjoy doing? What are my preferences on how to spend my day? Do I like to wile my time away, or is this some subconscious revenge for the lack of lazing around during the IB days? Do I like to anything other than draw, play the piano for 20 minutes and then give up because it is quite frustrating and tiring, running and sleeping? How do I “level up”? It feels like there’s this magic checklist that I need to complete before I feel truly satisfied to go off to college and begin a new chapter. Yes, half of it is related to the activities and things I’d like to do with my friends, but what about myself? What brings me joy? It feels like I hit a wall when I try to find out new things about me. And maybe that is the sad reality. That I’m a bit of a boring girl who has nothing much to do and nothing much to say about anything. 

Regarding my second point, I am not sure how everyone seems so excited about college when it is in fact excruciatingly terrifying. Not only are you going to be thrown into an unfamiliar social, academic, and mental space, but you will be forced to enculturate into an alien culture, feeling extraterrestrial, out of body, and feeling. I go about my day as a harmless pleasantly bored individual, until at night, where I lay staring at my ceiling, and I am forced to confront my impending reality that violently clashes with the lazy manner of time I am comfortably suspended in. In a month, I could be starting at a new university right here in Singapore – this depends on whether or not I managed to scrape an extremely high IB score (my hopes are low) – or I could be in Singapore for a few months longer, waiting to hear back from Australia, unsure of my future for a little while longer. It is this uncertainty that may be the added extra layer of “daunting” that perhaps my friends are spared of. Most of them know where they are going, which is also intimidating, but the human brain has a beautiful way of coming to terms with a reality quite well if it is given ample time to do so. My friends who know the college they’re in, the classes they’re enrolled for, are given the space to build a connection with the place, their potential friends; to build up a fantasy that keeps the fear of the unknown at bay (mostly). I, however, truly do not know where I am going, or what the next few years of my life are going to look like. I find it impossible to relax with this sword of uncertainty, and pressure of doing well in the IB, hanging over my head. But, perhaps then, I must seize this time as a learning opportunity. There is no other time like this. Not knowing where I start university may be a blessing in disguise, allowing me to continue my life as normal without the aching anxiety of leaving home, the days counting down slowly, and then a little faster and faster. So yes, I am terrified. But I can’t really control this situation, can I? I can control my attitude, my mindset. I’ve got to consciously flip this anxiety off, shove it down, and instead focus on what it is I can control. Knowing all of this can end in a month should make me cherish it that much more. But I guess I have the added benefit that it in fact may not be the end of anything just yet. So, to flip the perspective then, maybe I’m the lucky one, because, it’s really the best of both worlds, isn’t it?

Went for an hour run today!

Initially, I was extremely excited for the opportunity to be able to explore a topic I was genuinely passionate in. I knew I wanted to do something with Neuroscience and psychology, but I wasn’t quite sure what. Using my passion for music, I narrowed down on examining the effects that music has on the brain, but I hadn’t decided on a specific group to research yet. I conducted general research to look at the groups of people that music was seen to have an effect, and I decided to focus on individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder. This was because I didn’t know much about the disorder and was curious to learn more about what causes it and why music can help. Through researching on sites like autismsociety, and national health society, I saw that music therapy was a certified method of treatment for those with ASD, and therefore, I decided to pursue this as a communications project, to raise awareness about it. 

My final research question that I decided on was “What are the benefits of music therapy on those with ASD?”. For context, Those diagnosed with ASD may find communicating effectively, picking up tonality or changes in emotions, or empathy, challenging. There isn’t any “treatment” for ASD, as it’s a lifelong disorder, and affects individuals differently. However, playing Music and listening to music, interestingly, according to studies done under cochrane reviews, has multiple neurological benefits which help with these social difficulties that people with ASD have. 

I wanted to present my project as an accessible and engaging animated video to help parents who are worried and confused when their children are diagnosed with ASD. it would simply outline one of the proven methods of therapy that is most effective when started from a young age, and would provide support and comfort for the parents. I also intend to send this out to local organisations like autism associations or hospitals, to see if they would like to share it with parents who have children who have been newly diagnosed with ASD. This would make both the parents and the child’s life easier, and would be a way to make an impact in the real world. 

After I had decided that my target audience would be parents and children who have little to no scientific background or knowledge, I started research. Although I knew my final product could not have too in-depth information, I still needed to delve into the science of both ASD, and music therapy, to ensure I had a full grasp of the topic and could then later simplify it. I broke up my research into 4 different parts: 

1. What is autism and what causes it? 
2. How does it affect the daily lives of these individuals? 
3. How does music affect the brain? 
4. What is music therapy and why is it effective with those who have autism? 

Dividing the research into 4 parts made it manageable and gave me tangible goals to focus on in the limited time that we had. It allowed me to set goals for every weekend and every lesson, ensuring that I was progressing forward in my research. I mainly looked for and used scientific studies either from PubMed, PMC or Cochrane Reviews, which ensured that my research was coming from a reliable source. However, finding studies that actually provided relevant information that were conducted under fair trials was a lot harder than anticipated, and therefore I barely managed to actually stick to my time goals. 

Once I had completed my research, I started creating my video. My goal was to make it engaging and easy to follow, which meant I had to not only simplify the information I had obtained from scientific studies, but I also needed to add animation, effects, music, and a voiceover. 

This proved to be a challenge in the time-frame that I had since it was a new video making software and therefore required 3-4 days before I fully understood how it functioned. This therefore limited the amount of information I could put in, such as the different degrees of ASD, how music therapy is conducted, and whether music therapy is more effective in those with stronger symptoms of ASD or weaker symptoms, which would’ve proved useful for the parents since each child with ASD is different, would’ve been information I would’ve added if I had more time. 

If I were to do this again, I would’ve narrowed down my research to just children rather than individuals. This would have made my research more targeted towards parents and the studies I would use to back up my conclusions would be conducted on children, providing more accurate and reliable conclusions that just researching on individuals with ASD. 

Although I believe that the video was the right outcome for my purpose, I also plan to create a brochure with more detailed scientific information for those who are curious about the real neuroscience behind both, ASD and music therapy. 

Overall, the CREST project taught me many essential skills, such as time management, in which I learned to break up my work and not be too detail oriented, rather getting the bigger picture done first. Moreover, I learned the importance of evaluating scientific studies, ensuring they’ve been reviewed and were conducted fairly without bias. This skill will assist me in all subjects in IB to ensure that all my sources are reliable. 

Over the past month, we have been updating this padlet with physical, mental and social aspects. It was really striking to me to realise how little I prioritise social wellness in comparison to physical wellness and even mental wellness. I think its because as a society we’ve been taught to think that healthy = physcially fit, but it means so many more things, and I’m starting to realise that. In addition, I think I’ve been lucky to be born into a family where we have a lot of family time that I don’t even consider it as social “wellness”, rather just normal daily life. This padlet taught me to stop taking the privileges in my life for granted!

https://uwcsea.padlet.org/thapl176841/jppvsfr3qmmvne7h

• 
• What have I learned about creating meaning through the interaction of visual and lexical elements? 

I have learned that thought goes into every detail in a photograph/political cartoon/framing of a scene etc. The amount of symbolism that can be found in each object, color, and background urges me to look past the surface of the photo and dig deeper. I also learned that researching the context and why the cartoonist/director may have chosen to depict an issue a certain way would provide another dimension for the analysis, just like analyzing a piece of literature.

How are ideas communicated through the interaction of visual and lexical elements?

Ideas are communicated through the placement of objects, (for example, if a man is higher than the woman in the cartoon, it may represent the power that males exert over females in today’s society), colors and their uses (the use of red may symbolise warnings, blood, thus depicting danger and fear), and facial expressions/lack of (if there’s no face it may mean the anonymity and perhaps power they control). Every single detail is used to represent an idea or an opinion, but more than that, it strives to present a NEW idea to a current issue or an already known topic. The ability of these symbolic items to interact with texts and captions creates a new depth to the cartoon. Often satirical lexicon is used to grab the attention of those who are viewing the cartoon to incentivise them to continue looking further. In our cartoon, we used “money or honey”, a play on words to make it rhyme, and for it to relate to the visual of Winnie the pooh reaching for the honey. We labeled honey the “security law”, making the context easier to follow and analyse. The words gave insight into the context, but the visuals gave insight into China’s fundamental greed for power by associating him with pooh, who will do anything for his honey!

What are the similarities and differences between an opinion article and a political cartoon?

Opinion articles follow a particular structure, whereas political cartoons rely much on the artist’s creativity and originality. Political cartoons use tactics such as exaggeration of a certain feature (the mouth), to suggest the character’s loudness, ability to reach people/annoy or their public platform. Opinion articles are not able to exaggerate features or draw too much symbolism since it is meant to be presenting more factual information, whereas a political cartoon can take a clear stand.

My stomach twists as I read the news. Exclamations, emojis, celebrations, complaints bombard my phone.

Earlier that morning, I woke up at 7 am with a schedule for the day laid out: Math Paper 4, Science paper 6, Enterprise, and Chinese paper 1. I was no longer jarred by the sleepiness in my eyes as I sat down in front of a two-hour-long practice paper. Revising for my final IGCSE’s that were approaching more rapidly than I hoped was my main focus and aim. Just as I had started the timer and flipped the page, my mother came out of her room and showed me her phone.

My eyes read over the highlighted words and I have to reread them five times to make sense of them. After teasing me for a good thirty seconds by failing to form comprehensible sentences, the words finally rearrange themselves in their true state.

“Today, therefore, we have taken the difficult decision not to run our international examinations in the May/June 2020 series in any country.” 

Rapid texts from my friends celebrating their freedom from studying day and night, and other classmates furious about their inability to use these exams as a boost for their (otherwise poor) grades, flood my phone. I’m happy too, I can’t lie. I no longer need to sit down on a chair for 10 hours a day, studying multiple subjects, feeling as if I have no life. I can relax, read, bake, sleep and.. do nothing. I swoon over my luck – I worked hard the whole year, and now those grades can carry me forward, instead of needing to slog some more. I look at my past paper victoriously, smirk at it and get out of my chair.

We relax on the balcony with Singapore’s early morning sun streaming in. Our plants look even greener, and I can finally take time to see the intricate shapes of clouds that fill the baby blue sky. Next to me, my mother scrolls down the ‘Grade 10 Moms’ chat. We both can’t help but laugh incredulously as we read the messages. The demands for exams to continue onwards, for the school to hold internal exams, and accusations towards the school and the exam board fills me with bubbling rage. I want to scream at the screen, so all of the moms can hear me from their couches, or bedrooms, or wherever in their protected, comfortable house they’re nestled in.

Do you not see the news? Do you not see the crumbling, destructed, horrible and apocalyptic situation our world is in right now? Are you blind to the way this virus has held our regular lives hostage, murdered innocent people, and blasted our economy? Do you not see? As parents, your priority is to protect your children. Now, more than ever, this instinct should kick in. Do you not understand the way that making your child sit in a room, for 2 hours each day with 200 other students, could very quickly go wrong? Are you not concerned? Since when did exams become the most important thing to you? Yes, the IGCSE’s is a gauge of your child’s learning for two years; but the way we respond to this situation… it’s a gauge of our learning from life. Our generation is battling with this global pandemic, seeing something that no one has ever seen before, and you are concerned that we won’t have any experience with board exams before IB? What makes you believe your child is not strong enough to sit exams when they wake up to see the worsening situation of the world everyday? Please, parents. I beg of you. We need perspective. Now, more than ever, please understand that if something happens to your child because you demanded the school for internals, you will regret it for the rest of your life. In the end, it is health that makes or breaks this whole world.

And me. I am equally at fault. Yes, not taking exams for my grade 10 is a weight of my fragile little shoulders. But it is a weight that anyone would gladly in comparison to the drowning, sinking weights carried by many at this moment. I live in Singapore, protected by the government who holds my full and complete trust due to their transparency. But there are people, too many, who do not have that same luxury. Please, do not sit here taking this ‘no exams’ as a little ‘good luck charm’. It is an indicator of how serious the world situation has gotten. Something as constant as IGCSE exams, as constant as my sister studying at Cornell university, Grade 12 graduation, and countless other things are now squashed under this virus’s immense strength. Please, please, look around the freaking world and count your blessings before you sleep.

Fast forward 5 days and I am sitting in the living room with my sister, both of us in denial over the death of Yoon-Seri from ‘Crash Landing on You’, (my sister and I’s current favourite binge). She got back from Cornell University on the 15th of March, just before the western world was rattled by COVID-19’s strength. She was staying at home for 14 days as a self-quarantine, and this was day 12. None of us had any symptoms, but we take Vitamin C’s every day just in case. I am about to play the episode, crossing my fingers that Se-Ri wakes up, when my sister gets a call. It’s the same unknown number she’s gotten a call from three times in the last hour, so she picks up.

“Yes. That’s me….” Her face darkens and I know something is wrong. She puts her phone on speaker. “I’m sorry, can you repeat that?” She gestures at my mother to come listen and my mother hops on the sofa behind her, leaning towards the phone.

A Singaporean man’s voice comes through her phone. “Yes sure. I was just confirming that you are on day 12 of your voluntary quarantine?”

“Yes, ” My sister calmly answers, but I know her well enough to hear the panic underneath.

“We wanted to inform you that someone on your flight has tested positive with COVID-19. Therefore, we wanted to strongly encourage you to continue your self-quarantine till day 14.”

I thought I understood the fear of this virus by watching the news thrice a day and feeling queasy for a split second. But for the first time, the queasy feeling now stays in my stomach, refusing to budge. The thought of my sister being exposed to the virus that was attacking our whole world, makes me want to throw up. She didn’t show any symptoms, but what if she was asymptomatic? Could she be a carrier? All these uneasy questions flood through my head and everything just seems so much more… real, now. My mother takes over the phone call, providing the Ministry of Health with our address and phone number in the case that contact tracing is needed, and just like that, I feel it. A violent shaking of my shoulders, knocking my rose-tinted glasses and its ability to ignore the world’s situation off my face. We’ve been lucky. So, so freaking lucky to live in Singapore, to have these chances, to be in a place where everything is controlled despite these uncontrollable circumstances.

So yes parents, your children will not get the feeling of sitting a board exam before IB, but encourage them to use this time to reflect. Be grateful, be thankful and pray for those who need it. And students. You, me. We need to stop being so self-absorbed and just think. Please. I hope this is enough of a reality check, or I fear the universe may find more solemn ways of doing so.

When I entered Grade 10, participating in Kahaani was high on my bucket list. Not only did it seem to bring everyone closer together in ways I believe only (Bollywood) music can, but it supports a phenomenal cause that should be (supported) regardless of how the show turns out.

Kahaani is a show entirely student-run by the Global Concern ‘Kolkata GC’. The GC supports an NGO called ‘Voice of World’ which shelters underprivileged children in Kolkata. They take in socially outcast children, but especially support visually challenged children.  The NGO does outstanding work with supporting these children all the way into adulthood, providing them with unforgettable experiences such as hiking in the mountains, dance lessons with teachers, and getting an incredible education that gives them a great foundation. This noble NGO has changed thousands of lives, fighting against the stigma of disabilities, especially in India. The funds from Kahaani go towards helping this NGO continue to prosper and support children.

Joining a Global Concern is not mandatory for High-Schoolers anymore, but I realised I really wanted to help a place, a cause I was passionate about. Not only did this GC help India, (where my parents are from), but it also strongly believes in giving children who do not have equal rights the opportunity to build themselves up into someone.

However, as with any Global Concern, its hard to imagine the impact that you’re making from so far away. Though you want to help, you feel you sit for 40 minutes in a classroom drafting emails for Kahaani, and it’s easy to forget why you’re there. So I was incredibly overwhelmed when Bilwa Da, an extremely talented visually impaired musician, whom Voice of World has supported since he was tiny, visited our GC the day before Kahaani. The feeling was quite indescribable. This man, who fought against society’s stigma, did not have parents and probably had a somewhat traumatic childhood. He was only able to realise the exceptional gift God has given him because of Voice of World. I felt…priveleged. So eternally privileged for the situation I was born into, the parents I was gifted with, the healthy body I came in, and the world I was exposed to. My first thought was astonishment at how Bilwa Da had managed to make so much of his situation despite his imparity, but I realised it was that ‘disability’ that shaped his talents. His ears had become twice as strong, doubly sensitive and his voice became that much more beautiful. It was a moment of true inspiration. One may view their abnormalities as a mistake of God, and others use it to become their strongest suit. I realise this is a revelation most people go through at some point in their lives. I’ve read about the emotion overdrive that takes over when people realise the struggle that many face to fight their way to places we were lucky enough to just be born into. That day, I was yet again, humbled and inspired, revved to make something real of myself.