The Final Reflection

Over these past 2 years, I've been involved in a wide range of activities, all of which played an important role in my personal growth. Looking back, below are some of my highlights of a few of the activities I was involved in. 

Sign Language

Learning the days of the month. 

I joined the Sign Language after school activity towards the end of my DP1 year with no prior experience. Over the course of the month after joining, I had picked up the alphabets and basic greetings. Inspired by the progress I had made, I took up Sign Language again in DP2. We had a different teacher this time, Bryan, who is deaf but is still an extremely engaging and friendly teacher. 

Over the course of that year up until a week ago when I retired from my after school activities, we learned a crazy amount of stuff which was extremely satisfying as I was able to learn a completely new language.  Our lessons normally started off with a Powerpoint presentation with the new vocabulary that we'd be learning that day. It was initially a bit hard in the beginning but as time passed and also the fact that we had review sessions at the end and beginning of each session, retaining the information because much more possible. Towards the end of the year, we've had a tight knit group which ranged from 3-4 members. We'd frequently collaborate amongst each other to be of help when we forget a certain word. 

Reflecting back, I was able to develop new skills as I learned how to say new words or phrases everyday. I'm glad I chose this after school activity and I'll definitely miss Bryan's friendly nature and engaging lessons. 

Recycling and Sustainability

An old group photo taken during my first year of Recycling.

I had joined the service group of Recycling and Sustainability in my first year of DP as a member of a the group. I eventually was given the opportunity to become one of the student leaders in the beginning of my second DP year and just 2 weeks ago, I along with my co-leader passed on our responsibilities to the upcoming leaders from DP1 who would be holding the fort. 

I've definitely come a long way from the beginning of the year as a member of the group. Being a member in my first year allowed me to gain an idea on how things worked. Knowing that was beneficial when I became a leader as I knew what to do and what not to. The members in our recycling group normally switched every semester to a new bunch. I've always found it enjoyable to collaborate and get to know the other members better along with working with them by going class-to-class to collect the recyclable materials. I've also been able to work on my leadership skills over the past year in terms of being able to organize the group and getting the members to work more efficiently. 

One of the main things that I was able to take back from this service is also being able to see the recycling system in the school. For example, it was interesting to note the paper and cardboard consumption in school. 

I've definitely enjoyed meeting new members, being under the supervision of Mr.Lockwood, who was extremely supportive and warm throughout, and of course, the pizza parties at the end of the year. 

Basketball

One of our drills as we begin the activity. Photo credit: Jack

Basketball was an after school activity that I took up towards the end of DP1. The last time I had properly played basketball was in 10th grade so I was a bit rusty when I started again that year. Initially my biggest hurdle was getting the ball into the basket but after a lot of games and practice, getting the ball in wasn't as challenging as it initially was. 

Basketball involved a lot of collaboration as we normally played in two teams against each other. I was able to learn and develop new skills such as making a lay-up and 3 pointers. Being able to play basketball every Monday gave me something to look forward to and slightly helped reduce the Monday blues while also taking away the stress of the day as I could just focus on the game. 

I'm definitely going to miss playing basketball every week with the other members and also Mr. Wasko who could get the ball inside the basket from any given angle. 

Fun Basketball

I've been able to attend quite a few basketball sessions over the past semester and my skills in basketball has definitely improved. I've become much more confident with my shooting and I'm also able to successfully make lay-ups during the play.

We've been playing in different teams allowing us to collaborate and work together as a team. Below are a few pictures that were taken during the early stages of Fun Basketball (credit to Laurens).

Sign Language 2015

This is my fourth and final semester of Sign Language. We've been learning a variety of things so far such as fruits, buildings, etcs. further expanding our vocabulary. There has also been an increase in group activities lately since towards the end of the lesson, we split up in teams and compete against each and collaborate which serves as a review for  the things learned in the lesson and occasionally the ones we learned the week before.

Below is a picture showcasing our first lesson that we had for the new semester.

Learning about fruits, in this case: an orange

Recycling 2015

We recently finished the first semester of my second year of recycling a few weeks ago which calls for a reflection post. Overall, I would say that the Recycling and Sustainability group have made quite a bit of progress over this past semester.

Similar to the second semester of my first year of recycling, we had a recycling group with not too many people. Having a handful of people makes it much easier to organize people into groups and to get a work done in an efficient manner; which was reflected in that group. The work of collecting the materials to recycling was normally done in a timely manner leaving space for the members to have a period to reflect on the progress made on that day.

Another initiative that was taken up was to reduce the consumption of cardboard in the school. To make this possible, upon the suggestion of another one of our member, the cardboard boxes sold at the canteen used for holding food, was given a price of Rs. 20. With the added cost, it could be noted that the usage of those cardboard boxes dropped. A problem we faced initially was the lack of plates, since even though the cardboard boxes we charged, people continued to use them to the lack of an alternative. But the recent increase in plates incentivized people to switch over to that rather than the cardboard boxes, which helped fulfill our original aim of decreasing the usage of those cardboard boxes.

With the new semester approaching and the sign up for the new batch of members a few days ago, I'm looking forward to another semester of Recycling.

Below are a few pictures that were taken during our last recycling session:

Gathering all the recyclable materials outside before sorting them into boxes.

Loading all the boxes onto the truck. 

A picture of myself putting one of the boxes onto the truck. (Credits to Yoon Jae for taking the picture)

All of us gathered to write reflections with the DP students helping out the MYP members in writing the reflection. 

Last semester

As the new semester has arrived, I have been able to select amongst new activities. The ones that I've chosen are similar to the previous ones as I'd like to build on those skills.

For action, I'll be continuing with Fun Basketball. I've found continuing with Fun Basketball beneficial as I'm able to further increase my awareness of my strengths and areas of growth. For example, I've become much more confident with the ball than I was when I first started and I know that I could improve in certain areas such doing a lay up.

For creativity, I'll be continuing with Sign Language to further expand my vocabulary.

And for service, I'll be doing Recycling which would involve collaboration with the new members who join us.

Sign Language progress.

I have been attending Sign Language classes every Tuesday since last year. I believe we've progressed a great deal from last year. For example, things such as numbers and alphabets which were initially pretty confusing when we first learnt them have now become pretty common and easy to use at disposal due to the number of times we've been using them.

Over the past few months we've been learning a wide range of vocabulary and we often have short conversations amongst each other just to put what we've learnt in practical use. And so this improves our collaboration skills as we frequently communicate with each other using sign language.

Something new that we've been doing for the past 3 weeks is having a small quiz at the end of the lesson with the things we've learnt in that lesson along a few other stuff that we had learnt in previous lessons. This turned out to be pretty useful since it acts like a refresher for the previous vocabulary we learnt.

Below are a few pictures that were taken during the activity, courtesy of Miss Fert.

Table Tennis

In the past semester, I had been attending the Table Tennis after school activity. As someone who didn't have much prior experience in this sport, I reckon i've improved quite a bit and have become quite confident when playing a game compared to when I first started.

I was able to work collaboratively with various members who were present during the secession which allowed me to develop new skills in terms of the serves I make, etc.

Overall, I'd say that this activity helped benefit me since it allowed me to undertake a new challenge and I am now much more comfortable with playing this sport now that I have had prior experience.

(Pictures taken by Laurens).