Identity

I am Pranav Harish. I am a student at UWCSEA East, in Grade 11. I am from India, and am a boy. These are things that can be seen over the waterline of visibility, and the things that people can infer about me. But when it comes to my identity, I think that there is a lot more about me that people would not necessarily be able to figure out by just looking at me.

For example, I am someone who loves to play the guitar and drums, and loves rock music. Not many people would be able to see me and know about that… that is unless I was holding a guitar or drum sticks. Things like my political views as well as my beliefs and values have been shaped by the experiences I have gone through in life. For example, if you were to place me on a political spectrum; I would be somewhere near the center but leaning more towards the left. This is because the beliefs that have led me to place myself here have been shaped by experiences or things that I have seen; a big case would be the divide between social classes in the world. I believe in a classless and democratic society, because of the things that I have seen transpire in my country of heritage, India. Observing and experiencing different phenomena have led me to, along with this, formulate a lot more beliefs of mine.

Ideal Personality Types

I would say that I am best aligned with the personality type of speculating. I like to always look at the big picture before taking an action or a step into something big, because I am a determinist in the sense that every action I take will influence the next one. Weighing out the pros and cons helps me feel more justified and confident in the decision/s that I have taken, and I think that it is by doing so I am ironing out the risk of any consequences or negative impacts whatsoever.

So far, I think that this thinking has really impacted my group work this term because I have been matched with certain people who like to get right into doing things without thinking them out and I think that in groups like those I provided a good balance. Of course, it is best to have a little of everything, but I think that I could really connect with the “paying attention to detail” type kind of people as well because we like to always take a step back and really know what we are getting into before making any hasty decisions.

Self talk

Since the lesson that we talked about optimism, I have in fact “caught” myself using negative language. I think this was rather common during this week because it was assessment week and I had a lot of tests. Anytime that I was feeling frustrated, I would find myself turning to some negative language and losing hope when I had worked so hard but still failed to understand certain ideas. This shone through a lot with maths, because I consider it one of my weakest subjects. After doing my maths test and feeling confident about it, I came to talk to the rest of my peers about how they think it went and they all seemed to have different answers than me for a few questions. This made me feel very disappointed in myself and I felt like I would “never” be able to be good at maths, always getting questions wrong. Then after talking to my parents and realizing that I can’t be good at everything, it was in my head now that sometimes in some classes I may not be the strongest, but it is just important that I realize I tried my best.

When it comes to the IB program, I think that positive self talk will really help motivate me to work as well as keep going when it feels like I am being weighed down by challenges. It will inspire me to keep at it and remind me that I can always change any bad habits that I have, or any confusions and doubts and that I will not ‘always’ be bad at something.

First thoughts about the experience of the IB

My partner Ryan and I talked about how the IB has been positive and exciting so far; while it has been a wake up call to us about the responsibilities that come with being an IB student, it has also been something to really look forward to especially with the system of being able to choose the higher level classes that really interest you and the concept of free periods. Ryan also brought up a good point about the taboo of going into IB, and how previous IB students tend to stigmatise the IB as a place where we will be buried under work, and how it will be nothing compared to what we did before, but so far it has been good.

During the break, I am going to relax by travelling to Dubai and eating a lot while not feeling guilty about it.