by curri58987@gapps.uwcsea.edu.sg | Oct 23, 2020 | Activities (CAS), CAS
I’ve chosen to take part in Culturama (specifically, the Iran dance) this year, first and foremost, due to the fact that I would like to learn more about different cultures! I feel like we do not cover as many cultures as we should in class. So many cultures are underrepresented and I would like to show my appreciation and respect for their arts. And the fact that I love to dance (it’s so empowering for me) means I feel like Culturama would be a perfect experience for me, as I can learn about other cultures as well as develop confidence in myself, and refine my dance technique.
Doing cultural dance is also a new challenge for me, as I previously have only ever participated in contemporary, hip-hop, street jazz or other urban forms of dance. However, participating in these previous dance activities has allowed me to develop better technique, coordination and groove to allow me to execute harder dances. Learning choreography, I feel, is therefore one of my strengths. However, the challenge here is to capture the essence and style of a culture and to appreciate and learn about their arts, which I have never done before. Even as a third-culture kid, there are some cultures I have never been exposed to, and so I think that Culturama will adequately challenge me and allow me to grow.
Culturama is also a big commitment, rehearsals stretching on late in the day after school, and so I think I will need to persevere in order to keep my motivation and energy going throughout the day. I also know that I participate in many activities at once, and so I will have to manage my time effectively. I also feel like not performing in front of a live audience may impact energy levels on stage, however, I may feel a lot less anxious about performing if there isn’t anyone watching live.
Despite all this, I am filled with anticipation and excitement to dance in this amazing production!
Please refer to THIS drive link to watch videos of Culturama practices!
by curri58987@gapps.uwcsea.edu.sg | Sep 21, 2020 | Activities (CAS), CAS, CAS Highlights, Creativity (CAS), Service (CAS)
Hello!
I’m Teia, I’m 16 and currently in Grade 11, and I’m going to outline my CAS plans this year.
In terms of Creativity, I’m planning to take my Grade 8 ABRSM Piano Exam in July, and therefore will be taking private piano lessons (ITP) at school throughout the year. Through this, I would like to increase my already existing skills in Piano as well as challenging myself and broadening my repertoire of pieces (playing pieces from womxn/ethnic composers, for example). Grade 8 is a challenge, and with all my other activities this year, I feel that the stress could pile on, but I have developed a practice schedule outlining total 3 hours of practice each week at specific times (Monday, Wednesday, and Sunday) to establish a routine in which I can maintain my practice. I would like to prioritise my piano playing over my classical guitar classes (which I am also taking weekly on Sundays) due to the pressure of my Grade 8 Exam. To challenge myself further, I would also like to try to overcome performance stress through performing in school music exhibitions such as ‘Unplugged’.
When it comes to Activities, over the past few years Dance has become an outlet for me to build confidence in my body and sweat out the stress of academics. I attend dance classes almost twice a week at Studio De S in Singapore, sometimes learning entire choreographies with formations which requires careful coordination and collaboration with lots of new people (from lots of different age groups and ethnicities). Now, I would like to bring my love for Dance into my activities at school through Culturama and Kahaani. If I have time, I would also perhaps consider auditioning for the Dance Showcase! I would like to attempt harder and harder choreographies, as well as improve my own coordination and technique to build confidence in myself!
Lastly, when it comes to Service, I would very much like to continue being the Chair of Ladakh GC (a student group that focuses on giving underprivileged children in the Northern Indian community of Ladakh a quality education), and I am very much looking forward to being the Head of Communications for the Service and Sustainable Development Executive Committee. I have had many leadership roles in the past, but I believe that my nervousness still gets the best of me sometimes, and I would like to learn more about different leadership styles and how I can best encourage effective collaboration within the teams that I lead. I would like to be seen as a compassionate, empathetic and adaptable leader! I would also like to go to Ladakh for Project Week (if it happens this year) and engage with the community that I have been fundraising for for the past 2 years in an even more personal manner. And within my CAS projects, I would like to put emphasis on the idea that the decisions I make are based on the needs of the community, rather than for my own skill gain or advantage. I want to raise awareness about tokenism and how it can be so incredibly destructive for CAS experiences.
Over the course of the next year, I’m really looking forward to meeting my future self, and truly introspecting on how my extracurriculars are going to change me as an individual.
Thank you for reading!
by curri58987@gapps.uwcsea.edu.sg | Jun 8, 2020 | Grade 10, IGCSE Archive, Me
The first thought I had when writing this, was how on earth am I ever going to top last year’s personal statement?
For a few years now, I’ve been trying to come up with new and original concepts for doing my personal statement. In Grade 8, for example, I wrote a dystopian fictional short story looking back on all the events of the year (with the nostalgia that a 13-year-old should definitely not have any clue about). In Grade 9, I likened the many books I’d read over the years to events in my life, making awful attempts at dry humour (which was almost definitely me trying to cover up all of my gaping insecurities). It was probably one of the most ‘me’ things I’ve ever written.
And this year, the pressure was on to find something new and different to do. But to be honest, if last year’s personal statement was the truest to me my writing’s ever been, then why would I have to change that?
Why on earth do I feel this overwhelming pressure to try and top myself?
To be honest, I don’t think that any of the other ideas that I came up with would be as fitting as last year’s concept. And there’s something sweet about concept consistency, it allows the idea to mature and evolve over time, organically, just like the storyline and rising tension of Kokoro, by Natsume Soseki. It feels like you’re waiting, constantly, for something to happen, not realising that there’s something growing, and growing, and growing – and I feel that’s perfectly fitting when describing my year.
I’ve actually had one aspiration for over a year now! (I know, I can’t really believe it myself.) My aspirations have been growing (I really hope they continue to do so, while I sit there blissfully unaware). I still want to teach, preferably in university, and I want to be in the humanities field. As Grade-9 me so eloquently put it, ‘After all, with the amount of time I spend on ‘intellectual’ pursuits, being in a learning institution is a place I think I’ll be quite happy for a long period of time.”
And speaking of intellectual pursuits…
This year, I am very proud to announce that I was shortlisted for the 2020 Immerse Essay Competition (in Philosophy), therefore winning a partial scholarship to Cambridge University Summer School. Although the pandemic threw a spanner in the works (meaning I’m going to be attending the course next year), winning a scholarship gave me the self-esteem boost that I’ve needed for years. (Here’s the essay if you’d like to read it.)
Even though I know that I’ll be wrestling with my self-esteem for a very long time, hopefully I’ll emerge victorious from the seas like the Old Man from Hemingway’s famous novel (that I finally read). Future me, please look upon past me with kindness, and empathy, because past me looks at you with all the love and hope she possesses.
This year, I’ve also managed to win my National Youth Achievement Award (in Silver) as well as become Co-Chair of Ladakh GC, the current oldest GC at the school. However, I feel that these achievements are only meaningful because of the experiences they brought. Doing the Achievement Awards exposed me to the convalescents at Hougang Care Centre in Singapore, and in particular, the most sincere ‘Thank you’ I’ve ever experienced.
This ‘thank you’ was spoken to me only in my first few weeks of doing the service, and it was said while looking directly into my eyes. They took my hand, and spoke quietly, hushed, with such deep gratitude that I could even see it in the blackness of their pupils. I was speechless for a few moments. I had been so wrapped up in making sure that the activity was done well, and that they were engaged, barely acknowledging my own work and constantly doubting myself – but all that crumbled in a single moment at the sound of two words – ‘thank you’. I don’t even know if I can describe how much that moved me. They went out of their way to shake my hand and thank me, because I created a change. A change in the monotony, a change in what is ‘normal’. I tampered with Arundhati Roy’s Love Laws, just for a moment, and they thanked me for it.
And it is experiences like these that truly made my year. I was in Write for Rights again this year, and managed to fulfill my goal of 80 letters in 24 hours (I in fact wrote 85). This week of tiredness and a sore wrist gave someone, somewhere, a chance at a home, and it was so worth it. We even received a reply this year (even though it was slightly condescending), and that truly filled me with a sense of achievement.
This year, I’ve also gained a new interest, and a new area of expertise: Web Design! I’ve designed many websites now, and created countless resources for service groups at school to develop their portfolio websites. My own website (on which you’re probably reading this) is one of my crowning achievements, and is hand-made from scratch. I’ve also designed the HS Service Exec Site (the information database and all it’s pages specifically), as well as the Ladakh GC portfolio and the Fitness with Hougang Care Centre site.
And now, I finally move on to the most awaited part of my personal statement – and the ‘Most Impactful Book of the 2019-2020 School Year’ goes to…
(It’s absolutely no fun if you don’t drumroll)
‘Beloved’, by Toni Morrison.
Surprisingly, this wasn’t that difficult of a choice, despite all the other books I’ve read this year (runners up: Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro and All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque). It’s extremely hard to summarise how ‘Beloved’ made me feel, but almost throughout the entire thing I felt like my heart was being ripped from it’s veins, shredding into strips of bloodied flesh, and then stitched back together and shoved right back into my hands below the gaping, black hole in my chest. Once you started reading, the words seemed to suck you in and rearrange themselves into what Morrison was truly trying to say, grammar rules be damned. The strange rhythm of the words is lilting, lyrically and empathetically capturing the most grotesque and cruel part of our nature yet still maintaining to present the beauty of the resilience of the human spirit, and the hope and endurance we hold despite the pain and abuse inflicted by years of history.
And someday, in the future, maybe when I’m a professor in a university somewhere, I hope to read Beloved again, and have my heart taken away from me again.
That’s all from me this year. Thank you for reading.
by curri58987@gapps.uwcsea.edu.sg | May 8, 2020 | Grade 10, IGCSE Archive
In science, we’re starting the ‘CREST’ project in a STEM field. Here is my analysis on how my personal skills and traits might impact the project that I do and my success.
SWOT: How might factors impact how well your project goes?
Strengths:
- Individual research skills
- Time management skills
- Graphic design
- Very easily interested and curious – if I can do the project in something I’m deeply interested in it’ll be really worthwhile and I won’t have any problems putting in effort
Weaknesses:
- Sometimes in communications especially within group work
- Experiments (I’m much better at theory, I’m clumsy in experiments)
- I get bored as easily as I get interested
- I tend to stick to traditional reports and posters
Opportunities:
- Improving on my ‘physical’ investigation skills – perhaps an experiment or exploration?
- Developing a project that combines my passion for history/philosophy with science → is this possible?
- Gaining knowledge in a new subject/field I haven’t explored before
- Presenting information in a unique way?
Threats:
- If I get too idealistic with my ideas and bite off much more than I can chew
- Not picking a topic that will hold my interest for a sustained amount of time
- Other projects that take up lots of time (we’re very swamped at the moment)
