alexnorriscas-blog

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Final Refection 13/12/19

What did I learn from the activity & how might I apply this more widely.

From all my activities I learnt how to really work with people and how communication is key when getting anything across. I learnt its okay to struggle and that there is a support system in place to help me with that. I also learnt to use extra curricular activities to be an incentive to get my work done. I also learned that over working is a thing and sometimes I should just do nothing for my own wellbeing if everything gets a little bit hectic. 

What was my biggest challenge? Have I an increased awareness of own strengths and areas for grow? And how do I see myself developing as a result of this activity? 

At first my biggest challenge was actually building up the courage to join things without feeling shy or awkward, however because I was forced to join stuff for CAS I started to develop an interest in things outside the classroom. I no longer was shy about joining thing as I learnt not to care what people think but I also was so passionate about issues both inside and outside of the school which felt like I was making a difference when I joined these activities. I started to do all these activities for myself and realised that I didn’t have to be the best at everything when I join a new activity. 

In saying that, after overcoming my shyness I found it so hard to manage my time. I was so enthusiastic about doing things that I would sometimes neglect work getting demotivated when I was tired from doing so many things. It was hard for me to say no to a lot of people but I find that because I am aware of it I find it easier to suggest other people so I don't get pulled in. 

How did I interact with others? What did I learn about myself and others?  

I learnt that there are different ways to approach people, especially after working with so many different ages I was forced to be flexible and cater towards different ages.

I learnt that I can overwork myself but I also found out what I was passionate in and why I was. And when I founds activities that I was interested in it was easy to map on my enthusiasm onto the other people involved in the project.  

How did this activity benefit others?  

The activities I did helped empower people find their voice - especially in my service activities. But I think I helped other people overcame what I felt in the beginning of IB, too shy to join anything, and just by doing something I was so into everything I did it just conveyed well to others and hopefully they felt the same. I also tried not to show how stressed I was at times by just being present in everything I did, which helps other be present but also helps them to enjoy too. 

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Term 1 ( yr 13 )

Creative: Guitar (1 hour weekly)

As I was performing more I decided to go back to the guitar as I just didn’t find I had enough time to practice piano on top of all the IB demands.

I first set an aim of playing more complex songs, but that became too unrealistic and stressful - so I just decided to focus on memorising songs and widening my repertoire. 

I managed to achieve my aim and progress really quickly through constant practice and it really started to show when I was asked to perform at the last minute. 

Moving forward, I would like to include more people in playing instruments so we can bounce off musical ideas to each other and just have some fun as with all the IB work I haven't seen a lot of people outside of school

Activity: Gym, fracture rehab (1 - 2 hours weekly)

Due to my injury I couldn't continue hiking for a while so I was quite demotivated in a cast. However, when my cast was off I was determined to get the strength back into my leg. 

After seeing a physiotherapist, I just aimed to be walking properly again by the end of the term - but managed to achieve this goal by September.  In doing so, I set myself a new goal which was to just gain back the balance in my leg and regain some muscle back. I achieved this aim by November and therefore I set out to get my stamina back through playing tennis after school. 

I am in the process of retaining my stamina but hope to get back into hiking as I would like to do something similar to my China trip after my mocks to de stress. 

I will achieve this aim through just incorporating more sports into my schedule. 

Service: Building the school council (1 hour fortnightly)

As I was too busy with coursework I couldn't keep up with doing the CCA so I attempted to pass it down for someone else’s CAS activity but no one in year 12 wanted it. I found that the school council structure and the theme of togetherness and community was being more prominent and more meetings were being called so this developed into my service work (see other CAS logs for aims)

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End of term 1 assembly 12/12/19

I didn’t have much part in the assembly I just read out a speech as the head girl. My aim was to reflect and really hone in the idea of togetherness and community and hopefully let the people applying for my role next year what is actually happening. As I know a lot of people tend to zone out on the speech I tried to make it as impacting as possible and funny at times, I think I was a little bit cringe but I’m so exhausted from the term and from completing my biology IA from the night before, it didn’t bother me as much. 

I really felt at ease when I managed my time properly and got the speech done as quickly as possible so when I came on that Friday sick and not feeling it, I wasn't that nervous. 

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Whole school council meeting with D’arcy Lunn 9/12/19 - 12/12/19 

In this council meeting we focused on problematic areas and how we could all fix them in our roles and we learnt how this common theme helps us bring everything together and the powers of having a more holistic approach in doing things in the school, so like saying oh this links with eco or this links into well being! 

I really liked talking to the younger students as a lot of them had a helpless mentality which prohibited them all from making a difference. I think my whole approach in attempting to empower and really thinking holistically came from the IB as there is just so much push especially in geography, and I can say it really works out in the end. 

Moving forward, I would really like to get more of the younger kids involved as they don't know or don't attempt to know what is going in the school so I think it will be hard to pass on and develop onto the things that I’ve already done with the head boy. 

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Whole school Council meeting 29/10/19

This was the first time that we have brought the whole council together, from middle years and upper years and the aim was just to get everyone thinking about the theme of togetherness and community and how that fits in their role. So we focused on individual aims and collective aims as a year group representative and how that fits into all the things we do. 

My personal aim was to try and make communication from the youngest student in the council to the head boy and I seamless so things can get done. 

I think it really got everyone thinking about togetherness and community but I think a follow up session is needed just to reinforce and developed what was thought in that meeting. 

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KB Eco Festival 1/12/19

As part of my internship with the collective arts I helped out as an intern for the eco festival and I performed. I was really happy with the outcome but I was there mainly to help set up and supervise the kids for the arts and craft table. 

I think because I agreed to this event months before it was hard for me to gage what was coming up so I was super stressed the whole event knowing my chemistry IA was due the next day, as I only had about a week to write it. So again I would just improve on time management and learning to say no.

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Speak Out 26/11/19 - 3/12/19

Speak out is a public speaking competition - I didnt organise this event because I had so much coursework but I helped organise it in my house as I am the academic and culture director in my house. 

As head girl I made sure the house captains were actively looking for a speak out speaker for both upper years and middle years to make sure everyone knew what was going on. As for my house I had such a hard time getting speakers for speak out I eventually got a reluctant middle years speaker and forced a girl to be our upper years speaker. 

For the middle years speaker she found it hard to find a topic to talk about so I helped her find something, after giving her a list of ideas she came back to me saying she was really interested in culture. As we were both third cultured kids I thought it was interesting to talk about the power of language in the passing of culture, very TOK, and she thought the same. I helped her with the structure of the speech and gave her questions to answer to avoid writers block since we had only a few days to write the speech. Her content was really good, it was only the delivery that was lacking but I was so proud of her because she found her voice and she is now more vocal and closer to her house captain. I really like her and happy that I know her in the house. 

For my upper years speaker I didn't need to do much work, I just had to remind her to keep on writing her speech and look at her delivery, as she is outspoken and does drama I knew she didn’t need my help despite me offering. She ended up placing 5th place. I tried to improve the content of her speech by giving suggestions but she wasn't listening to me so I took that as a sign to back off.  

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Tree Planting 24/11/19 (2 hours) 

I first thought we were tree planting for the environment but it turned out to be a celebration of some kpop star. It was so random but it was just nice that I could plant trees. I just wished I planted more trees because I only ended up planting 2 trees because all the trees were already planted. 

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Starting a communal instagram account 15/11/19

I've always wanted to start an instagram to promote places that allow you to bring your own containers to reduce your waste, so I started an account called bring your own. 

initially it was hard to get people to follow as I wanted to keep it anonymous, but after asking my friends to repost the stuff I follow it was really nice to see the community and people interested in this too. But I did feel so awkward starting this up despite being unknown to people other than my friends. 

Its hard to start up an account but I aim to be posting weekly so people don't forget that my account still exists. 

Another way I try to get people interested, is reposting when other people use their own reusables. So far I’ve only got one person that I don't know to send in something, but the support of my friends helps me keep pushing out content. 

I hope to keep this going even when I leave Brunei for good and to branch out into promoting a zero waste lifestyle beyond eating out, because I really want to promote how easy it is to reduce waste. 

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The Amazing Race 14/11/19 (1 hour)

As I just got off my cast and finished my physio sessions, I thought it would be a good idea to get my friends together and do the amazing race obstacle course. It was postponed from peace week due to the lack of participation, so I wanted to support the council as well.

Initially I thought it was going to be boring and felt quite guilty not working on my IA’s during lunch but because of my group it turned out to be fun as we were all acting dumb. It was a great way to relieve coursework stress. 

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Internship with The Collective Arts 21/09/19 

I was interning with the collective arts through the school of thought event that happened last month. 

I got an insight into how events were being planned and how to tackle legal obstacles being in Brunei as art events or anything really creative is hard to do as a public event.

I learnt that planning is vital and I could see how what I’ve learnt through organising as head girl can be applied in the real world.

I was supposed to help out for two events and I helped with the preparation bit, but I couldn't help out on the Brunei in Bloom event as my biology IA first draft was due the next day and I didn’t have it completed, which was due to my inability to stop procrastinating - but then again I was so burnt out from that first half term it was refreshing not to do school work. 

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War of Words 08/09/19 - 15/10/19

War of words, an inter house debating comp used to be done by a teacher but this year was organised by the head boy and I. 

We organised the motions and the chair and judges. 

What worked really well was communicating with both the house masters and house captains, so they were all aware and took initiative to gather speakers and a team. We even shared a google doc so that everyone knew the motions and judges before hand. 

However because this was a new system and the speakers weren't directly contacted there was some mixed messages. To improve I would email them just to make sure they knew they were speaking. I would also send out a clearer set of instructions as people kept asking questions about the rules. 

I would also send out the motions out to more people to double check that they are okay as we had to change them. I would also try get more people to chair as it was hard when me and the other chair couldn't chair debates due to our houses.

As no one really participates it was hard finding experienced judges and chairs, but I was thankful for participating as a speaker last year (see cas log)

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Music gig with school of thought 15/09/19

I was invited by Brunei school of thought to perform my own songs and songs which has inspired me to write music. 

I think it went really well as I have been practicing guitar for the whole of year 12 term 2 so I was quite familiar with the songs I was playing. I was just a little bit nervous talking about the process of writing music and actually performing my own songs - as this was the first time I did. As my genre of music is not popular amongst people in Brunei I was scared in playing as I like my audience being engaged. However, I was surprised with the response as so many people liked my song and were familiar with the songs I covered. 

I would focus on finishing my work on that day as it was a Sunday and I ended up being so tired finishing the event I didn’t feel in the mood to do my homework. 

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Peace week and planning 26/08/19 - 18/09/19

Peace day is celebrated in our school in conjunction with peace one day. As head girl, along with the head boy, we coordinate with various people to ensure the message of peace is being conveyed throughout the week and that peace day runs smoothly.

The process of planning peace day has been done in a previous CAS log, however this log is more about the logistics and how the day came out.

As peace day is early on into the new school year, I wanted to embody the message of peace on a local scale and welcome the new kids connecting it to the theme of togetherness and community - this was established last year.

We managed to finalise the peace day schedule which included a range of different people both inside and outside of school, mainly focusing on showcasing what is actually our community and the opportunities the school has to offer.

Schedule for peace week

The process of finding out what we were going to do this week, I found was so hard because there were so many ideas and we had to think logistically before executing. During this week of planning we were able to focus on what is happening for the Wednesday like who is coming in on Wednesday and where everything is going to be. As peace week is in week 4 of term, I think we should’ve started planning in term 3 of the previous academic year as although the week ran smoothly I was rushing everything with some things being last minute and therefore not being well advertised. For example the yoga on the Monday had a small turn out as not many people knew it was on.

Nevertheless, new concepts and events such as the peace pole ceremony were really successful despite it being new.

Me and the head boy talking to the school about the message of peace day, with a poem reading.

Another really successful event that happened was the charity chat show, this worked due to the contacts we had within the council. We were able to bring in local charities and talk about opportunities for CAS and for DOE.

the people involved in the charity chat show

I was really happy with the outcome as people came to the lunchtime lecture, and the students involved really worked well in welcoming the guest speakers. However, the turn out was initially hard to get as no one really likes going to lunchtime lectures so I forced people to come and bribed them with cookies.

Additionally, the peace poles made by the houses were successful as everyone was on board with the idea and understood the vision and why that was happening. Initially the idea was to have 2 poles per house pair, brother and sister house, but we decided that we could reuse the bamboo in the school storage lining up with the climate action theme by reusing and they were easier to decorate as a teepee shape.

The house captains and their deputies making the peace poles

These peace poles really brought the message of togetherness and community as although they were made by a few people, they were decorated with the messages of kids in their house about positive peace.

We also made some cookies for random acts of kindness and to bribe the students to come to our lunchtime lecture.

Cookies being made by council members

This was fun to have as the cookies were being made simultaneously to the peace poles allowing people to move in between cookie making and peace pole making - it worked because we had such a massive turn out on this day.

If I were to redo this I would change the approach as we tried an assembly line which we ended up making too much batter, too much mixed ingredients and undercooked cookies. I would put students into groups, ensuring all the year groups were in mixed, and assign them a target amount of cookies so that we produced less food waste. I would also make sure there is the right ingredients in the right form as one batch had big salt crystals in them and it wasn't a nice surprise when you ate the cookie...

The head boy and I sent out a letter to the parents to inform them about the $2 donation with casual clothes and where the money was going to and the message of the whole week.

This was really nice and new as we informed parents about the activities and what they could get involved in, bringing in the wider community. However, I think we should’ve included the boarding house parents as they now make up a massive part of our community with the influx of boarding students. This was only thought of a week before peace week, and with the chaos of all the other things possible it wouldn’t have worked out .

The planning process overall was really hectic as I was constantly thinking about peace week amongst finishing my EE and doing other academic things. I heavily relied on the deputy head boy and girl, but I should’ve delegated more to other people in the council as they felt they were lacking in help. I did delegate at times but I could’ve done it more. I also would’ve like to plan more in term 3 of year 12 as some meetings, at times felt repetitive. The aim of the message being sent out felt successful however when talking to the younger students it was apparent this was not the case. I think this problem could be solved through advertising more and before the actual day - which comes back to planning more in year 12.

The actual Wednesday of peace week was really successful. This year we shifted the main area which happened at lunchtime to infant of the canteen - which was a much better space compared to last year.

The main sitting area for peace day

All the vendors and student stalls received the same amount of attention and the queues were not that bad compared to last year. As the space was in between senior and middle school, there was a lot more middle years in the area as they did not feel intimidated with the space. The music was enjoyed and overall it was a very chilled out day. To improve I would be more strict with the single use plastic brought by the vendors but also inform them on how much to bring as some of the food vendors sold out really quickly. I would also try to get more of the year 12 and 11 students involved so the year 13′s could really enjoy their last peace day.

Just Dance - a student lead stall

I think the planning process at times was hectic and stressful on top of my school work but was worth it in the end. But I would’ve wished the message was accepted more by the student, but that could be because the message of togetherness and community was new. Notwithstanding, I will try embed the message of togetherness and community throughout the year. 

Saying that, I was really happy to see the article about peace day in the newspaper as it really focused on the message of peace day. 

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Trashion Fashion CCA for junior school kids - Term 3 every wed 2 hours

I felt like this needed a separate CAS log as I am really happy with the outcome. The CCA was so successful due to the people in my year that helped me out and were so passionate about the cause the CCA was for and the kids in the CCA. 

Our CCA was designed to raise awareness for the amount of trash we produce and what we can do with the existing trash. It encouraged kids to be creative while keeping this issue of our environment in mind. 

Initially it was hard to start up as there were no systems in place to make it easy to start up a student led CCA. I had to find a group of helpers, a teacher to supervise and a room and then only present the idea to the head and co-ordinator of CCA’s. As the idea for the CCA came from our IB geography class it was easy to get others onboard and involved with the idea, and developed into an outlet for us involved in IB to take a break from work and just chill out. After the idea was proposed I thought it was okay to ask for any room, however in the first week of the CCA the teacher in charge of the art room became very cross with us and made it hard for us to keep the CCA running. After talking to her over email and apologising for what she was mad about, we met up to talk about the rules of using her art room which helped this tremendously as this made her happy and we could continue to use the room. 

Because I wasn’t really strict on who could come help out and who couldn't, we built a really tight knit community and was a really effective destress method from all the work we had in our 3rd term of IB. The kids who signed up were all friends and talkative it was really nice to see them be so creative and because we had a large number of helpers we were never short on help. 

Overall, I thought the CCA was very successful because when we asked the kids to reflect after creating their pieces and putting on a fashion show. They were all aware of the environment and the impact trash had on the environment. Below are photos of some of the things they wrote.  

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DOE Gold China Trip 21/06/19 - 18/07/19

After preparing a year for the Duke of Edinburgh gold award expedition we finally went to China. The preparation included 52 hours of a creative, physical and service activity (similar to the CAS system) and 2 practice journeys - which were a 2 night, 3 day camping weekend which included hiking 14 hills and 9 hills and getting familiar to the hiking equipment.

Screenshot of the logging system and sample logs for each week.

For the gold award is is required to have a residential project. Our residential project was in Tibet and we stayed in an elderly village for 5 days working from 8am - 1pm. Our activities included, working on the farm, plastering walls, cooking the food for the homestay and whole group and washing the dishes, moving materials to and from a building site and making and clearing trenches for the winter.

My group at the building site which included moving rocks and logs out of the building site.

I really enjoyed the residential project, because I found it easy to work within my group. We were all working equally as hard and did not have one overall leader - we worked well with each others strengths and weakness allowing us to work efficiently. Working for this village really changed my perspective on things, as it was hard for villagers to do the tasks we did as the young people and children move out of these rural areas looking for a better education and better jobs to support themselves. Seeing the villagers really appreciative for our work was rewarding and a priceless experience.

To improve I think we should’ve properly planned the activities needed to be done as by the 2nd day the DOE group had already completed the tasks needed to be done over the course of 5 days. I would’ve enjoyed going into the village more and interacting with more locals and helping them out so we could truly experience the place.

Apart from the residential work, I was really interested in the local culture. In the evenings we would learn their language, their art in making head pieces and on the last day we learnt their traditional dance. The villagers were all so happy seeing how interested we all were in learning their culture, as they told us they see their culture slowly dying. I could see some similarities with the TOK trip our IB cohort did in Temburong and found it really interesting from a TOK stand point.

When we finished the residential, we embarked on a 7 day hike. I was quite nervous as I was not actively training close to our departure date due to my geography IA and various things I needed to finish of IB yr 1. However, when we started hiking I found that the group morale really helped me keep my nerves calm and push on. In reality I found that my nerves were over exaggerating and that I found the first 3 days of the hike really easy.

A photo taken by me of us reaching the camp for day 3

I found that the 3rd day before reaching the summit was difficult when we reached camp as I chose not to take diamox, a drug which increases the haemoglobin's affinity for oxygen at higher altitudes. Luckily, there was some spare that the teachers brought and I was okay after taking some. So lesson learnt... next time be as prepared as possible and prepare for the worst.

Saying that, we were only allowed to carry 5kg in our backpacks and I found that the packing process was really helpful as we worked well in a team to sort our what we could share and really need. 5kg is quite small compared to the 10kgs we are used to bringing on the practice weekends, so it was quite a challenge to reduce the weight of our backpacks. In the long term, this helped me push on with hiking since there wasn't much strain on my back and hips from carrying my backpack for 5 hours of hiking each day.

The last 2 days of the hiking trip were the most challenging but manageable. This was because the hiking time was longer and the terrain was much more hilly. Nevertheless, age was on my side and the groups fitness really helped me push on as I am quite competitive, sometimes even running up the hills.

After hiking for so many days collectively we were all getting progressively tired. However, our hiking guides were really nice in helping us as they were always there to guide us and give us useful tips like where to set up the tent, what to wear at night etc. They were so nice they carried us across a river so our shoes wouldn't get wet and they even set up the tents for us on our last night. I was super appreciative for them and the whole group bonded to them really well.

I encountered so many problems on the way for example we had to cook food for us and another group for 2 days, it was hard for me to cook and stay warm and wash the dishes trying to stay awake. However, we overcame this by working out people strengths and weakness, and planning our meals before hand ensuring that we prepared nutritional warm food to reward ourselves after hiking.

The hiking trip really taught me how to be resilient and a leader. It was such a great experience despite not showering for 7 days and I made so many new friends and developed a new love for hiking. I would really do this again and miss it so much.

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Term 3 

Creative: Piano (1 hour weekly) 

My aim was to coordinate my right hand and left hand and become more fluently in reading the bass clef. As I had only just started playing piano this term. 

I managed to achieve my aim and progress really quickly through constant practice, helping me read grade 2 music. I was really happy with my progress giving my confidence to start playing harder classical music without my teacher’s supervision. However I don’t feel as if I achieved being fluent in reading the bass clef.  

Moving forward, I would like to improve my sight reading as my playing and my sight reading are not at par. By improving my sight reading I will also achieve my previous aim of being fluent in reading in the bass clef. 

Activity: Hiking (2-3 hours fortnightly) 

To train for my upcoming DofE China trip I aim to improve my stamina by hiking at Bukit Shabandar and hopefully reduce the time taken to hike 9 hills. I have chosen Bukit as it the same hiking trail we did during the practice weekends. 

I have reduced my time and achieved my aim as I feel more comfortable with the hiking trail and take less rest stops then I did when I first started hiking. 

At first I did not aim to continue this activity as I will be finished with DofE, but after completing the term I would really would like to continue hiking fortnightly and attempt to make this a weekly activity. 

Service: Junior School CCA (2 hours weekly) 

My aim with this service activity was to conduct a CCA which educated the junior school kids with the amount of waste they produce in their home are create something else with the waste. I thought of the in an attempt to educated them about the global waste problem we have. 

I found it challenging to get the CCA going as I needed volunteers to help me and to talk to various teachers to get this CCA started. I ended up thinking about things I didn’t think were needed and I learnt how to deal with small kids and how to sacrifice or problem solve so everyone is happy. 

I was happy with this activity as we achieved more than I had thought, the kids were so enthusiastic and almost made a new outfit every session and we managed to put on a fashion show. I was disappointed I couldn’t be there for the fashion show, but the other year 12′s who were helping out made me realised how invested other people were in my idea. 

For the future I would like to see other people putting out more student led CCA’s as this is an example of a successful student led CCA.