Marimba Pamberi

Marimba Pamberi is an activity where we create music and it is where I learnt how to play the marimbas. During each session we would learn and practice sections of the final ensemble piece. I was playing the bass sections of the song, some may say that the bass isn’t important because you can’t hear it. However, the bass is the backbone of the piece as the melody is shaped according to the chords of the bass, it is just like the structure. Towards the end of the activity season, we performed the work in front of the school, that we had been working on throughout the season. I feel happy with the results of this activity as at the start, I had no idea how to play the marimbas.

HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training)

HIIT is an exercise that focuses on short bursts of high-intensity workouts. These workouts are very tough, and I have to persevere through. Over time, the more reps you do, the more the strain on your body and at times, you just want to quit. However, I know that the exercise benefits me greatly, and with everyone there doing all the exercises, I also feel like I should continue, doing the exercises with other people makes you mentally stronger. Not only that, but the idea of getting fitter made me continue showing up to HIIT week after week.

ACE GC Service Expos

During the service expo, we at ACE GC are trying to look for new students in younger years to join the service. In the GC, we spend weeks planning on how we can get those in the younger grades to join so that they can replace the grade 12s who will be leaving. We come up with a series of games that teach people about what we do, we also create a 1 min pitch so that the new students don’t get bored listening to every single thing that we do. This short and concise pitch also makes the service sound even better as we are condensing everything that we do.

Brochure that I created with two other members to let others know who we are working with (Jaago):

HS Basketball 19&U C Boys

I have been playing basketball for less than a year, and since it is my last year, I decided that I wanted to try out for the team. I made the C team, however, I knew that I wasn’t that great of a player. My dribbling with my left hand wasn’t very strong as well as my layups. I decided to work on these areas of the sport by building up arm strength and practising, basic drills over and over again. Now, after some time, I can say that I feel a lot more comfortable dribbling with my left and right hand, as well as laying up from both the left and right sides. However, I still feel like I can work on my execution speed as well as the speed that I run at when dribbling.

Me in a home game

HS Cross Country Team 19&U A Boys

I joined the HS Cross Country team during the middle of the season. I was convinced by a friend to join in order to train for the NS IPPT 2.4 km run. Before I started Cross Country, my stamina during the 2.4 km run was really bad. I could run fast at the start, but couldn’t maintain it. This made me realise that I needed to work on managing my stamina. In Cross Country, we did a lot of endurance training and 5 km training. Over the course of the activity, I can say that my stamina has improved. I can now run 5km with only 1-2 breaks in between, this shows that I can run for longer periods of time.

I didn’t make the SEASAC team, however, hopefully I will be able to make the Track and Field SEASAC team in any of the runs, as that is what I was aiming to achieve. I am confident that my 2.4km time has improved after all the training at Cross Country.

ACE GC

In my GC, Asian Children’s Education(ACE), we work with an organisation called Jaago located in Bangladesh, to support the kids there and provide them with an education. The reason why this is an issue of global significance is because I believe that education should be accessible to everyone. In our GC, we raise money through events such as the summer festival, and with the money, we sponsor a child for US$27/month or we can donate to the organisation. Currently, we are successfully sponsoring 5 children. With this, we can educate more people and hopefully make peoples lives better.

The reason why I joined this GC would be because I believe that everyone has a right to receive a basic education despite their circumstances. At ACE, I can make a difference and allow a kid to receive an education with the organisation with JAAGO, whether it is by raising awareness amongst students and parents in the school community.

Tech Tinkers

For this aspect of CAS, I signed up for a college service called tech tinkers. I have been a part of this service since grade 11 and this year, I am one of the leaders running the activity. The reason why this tackles issues of a global significance is because of E-waste. In a day and age where technology is becoming more integrated into our everyday lives, technology that is obsolete will be disregarded and disposed of. At tech tinkers, we reduce E-waste in our school community. We accept donations of old technological devices such as phones, tablets and laptops. Once we receive the donations, we refurbish them into working condition and donate them to those that need it. E.g in Grade 11, we fixed a bunch of laptops, phones, DS and tablets for a project week group to donate to the kids at Blue Dragon.

 

In the world, we are using more and more technology, and this generates more waste that is harmful to the world. By joining tech tinkers, I have managed to take in old technology, refurbish them, and redistribute them to communities that would greatly appreciate the technology.

Project week

Project week was a great experience, it was my first time planning a week long trip with no supervision. My group and I travelled to Tioman Island located off the coast of eastern Malaysia. On Tioman Island, my group and I took our advanced open water diving course. This course spanned the duration of two days, on the other days where we weren’t doing anything, our group participated in the ‘Project Aware’ speciality courses. During these courses, we learned more about the aquatic life underwater and how we can protect it. On one of the ‘Project Aware’ courses, we cleaned up the Crown Of Thorns which look like starfish and eat the coral. They leave a white trail of coral which basically means that section of the coral was dead.

On the trip, I didn’t really learn more about myself, but about those around me. During the planning stages, our group encountered an issue with one of the group members not paying his side of the project week. This annoyed one of our group members, but eventually, he tried to let it go. After that, the same group member forgot his passport when we had already boarded the bus. Also, he almost left his passport on the ferry, luckily, one of our group members saw and reminded him. I learned that there are people out there who don’t have much experience with independence and travelling on their own, because if that person did, then he wouldn’t have forgotten something as crucial as their passports.

The two aspects of CAS that we chose to focus on was Activity and Service. For service, as mentioned before, we completed a specialist course where we learnt about the crown of thorns which eat coral and how to get rid of them. For service, we also completed a beach clean up. For Activity, we completed our Advanced Open Water diving course.

Overall, the main challenge that we faced as a group would be planning the trip. To overcome this and to make sure that everything went smoothly. As a group, the four of us had to maintain constant communication with each other as well as the organisation that we were planning to do the diving with. With our strong communication as a group, we managed to plan for all situations and were constantly helping each other as well as giving out reminders about important things.

In the end, Project week was a wonderful experience even though there were ups and downs along the way.

My Experience at the Carnival (MWC) and HOME.

Today, I went to the Carnival, I didn’t manage to find a way in, however, the experience of going to the location was really impactful. The dormitory is located at 34 Mandai Estate, when I was traveling there, I was trying to imagine what the dormitory looked like. I thought that the complex would be open, have some shops nearby and relatively close to places where other Singaporeans live e.g HDBs. However, my idea was so wrong. When I got there, the everything was enclosed in metal fencing, the courtyard where the migrant brothers worked was also enclosed in a metal fence. The quality of the football goals and basketball hoops weren’t very good either. As I circled the complex, I could see that security was of importance there, people needed passes to get in, women could only enter on specific days and times. I also could also get a glimpse of the rooms that the workers stayed in by looking through the windows. It seems that the accommodation is very small and many workers have to squeeze in there. A lot of the workers were participating in the carnival, others were in their rooms and others were sitting around conversing with one another. To me, I felt like the dorms were just a large jail cell.

 

This brings me to my main take away from home. At HOME, something that stuck and resonated with me would be “What is considered adequate living conditions?”. Would providing a shelter be considered adequate living conditions?. Since the SG Government hasn’t explicitly stated what each contractor has to provide to the workers, they can just use their best guess and decide how much they want to give to their workers.

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