piano lessons

In term two i started piano lessons. I have always had some sor tof passion for playing the piano and just playing any sort of instruments. i love music. Music relaxes your body and makes me feel refreshed. I liked these piano lessons because it is not the typical type of lessons where we have to read from a book and learn the notes. In these lessons we learn technique and scales. This was we are able to talk a piece of song and just improvise with it and also play using our ears. I never liked reading so i just look off youtube and learn from hearing and also from looking at where the fingers go on the piano. i think that piano really helps me get away from all the studying and stress going on in IB. This is why i like playing it. I the Piano lessons i have learnt Three songs, Super Mario, Pirates and the Caribbean, You got a friend in me - Toy story, and Just a Dream by Nelly. i love playing these songs because they cheer your up and lighten your mood. I can also play many other songs that i learnt myself using the computer and my Ipod. i will always play the piano and never stop even if i stop lessons i will still continue to play the piano at my own interest.

Painting and Sports in school

Every tuesday from 2:00-2:40 we painted the wall near the PTA. It is an eco painting showing the eco tree and the recycling sign. I am not a very good painted so i just painted the parts where details are not needed while the girl, usually do the more detailed parts e.g. the shading and the outlining. we did this for 4 weeks every tuesday. After the 4 weeks, we went onto doing the sports. This is where we do whatever sport we want to do and just get some action going on. I love sports so i personally look forward to doing this lesson on a tuesday. for 4 weeks we played basketball and that is one of my favorite sports. i think that this is really good because it helps balance out the sport and the creativity parts of our live. Everyone has got to do sports to stay fit and health and we also have to paint and be creative so that our mind doesn't shut down and be less creative.

BGIC IX (Borneo Global Issues Conference) 2011

BGIC simulation

Before BGIC we had a simulation for the local people. The Chairs from both forum acts as delegates while the SGs would act as Chairs in a committee and the other SGs would comment on the right things and the wrong things going on in the simulation. This is where we act out a whole session of debates from opening speeches to For and Against speeches for resolutions and to Formal role call votes. During the simulation we intentionally put in some mistakes in, like using personal pronounce and conversing between delegates. during the simulation we also got to meet with our delegates and familiarise with them making sure that they feel comfortable during debate. It is also good to build a good relationship between chairs and delegates as it allows the committee to be less tense and more fun. The simulation was also a chance for the Chairs to check whether all delegates knew how to do a resolution and a opening speech for the 1st day.

BGIC introduction

BGIC this year has the theme 'Women in the 21st Century' which will give us an opportunity to celebrate various development of empowering women all over the world whilst contemplating the serious issues which affect millions of women in modern life. I participated in BGIC as a Chair (Ireland). Our job is to handle the different committee's and make sure that procedures are going as they are suppose to go. each committee had about 20 delegates all with different countries. During committee sessions we debate on resolutions that have been ranked by the Chairs written my the delegates during lobbying day. During every year of BGIC there would be a key note speaker from the overseas to speak about the issues being debated upon. For this year, it is Moni Pizani, representative and regional programme director, UN women, East and Southeast Asia Regional Office. She was a very inspirational speaker and made all of us watching think to ourselves about the rights of women. There was also the first senior officer of Royal Brunei Airlines, Sharifah Czarena Suryani Hj Hashim. She came into my committee during the 2nd day of BGIC and told us about how it was like being the first Women Senior off

icer. She told us about the barriers she had in her journey to being a pilot and how she dreamt of being a pilot her whole life and it final came through.

Lobbying Day

during lobbying day we get into our allocated room in ISB (our school) according to the different committees. in the rooms, we as chairs introduce ourselves and also tell each of the delegates to introduce themselves to the rest of the committee. This lets the delegates feel more comfortable around each other so that during debate, delegate

s would speak up more, which would make the committee's

more productive and fun. Me and kelvin were Chairs for Political Forum 2 and during lobbying day delegates are suppose to finish of res

olutions and opening speeches. When delegates h

ave any questions about how to write or what they are expected to do during debate, the chairs would also be assisting them in these questions. I checked all the opening speeches while Kelvin checked all the Resolutions. lobbying day is very intense as we try get as many resolutions to the vetting committee as we can. In our committee we had 7 resolutions which passed. I was very

pleased with this because many of the other committees only got 5 or 4 resolutions passed. after the resolutions have been passed we had dinner. right after dinner, all the Chairs and SGs had to go to the library to rank resolutions from best to worst so that debate can commence immediately on the First day. Lobbying day is usually the most tiring day for the Chairs because we have to run around and check a lot of work. however it did help me become more open minded to certain things and also made me seem caring as i was able to help many delegates overcome their fears.

Day 1 (Opening ceremony)

On day

one, we usually start of with a warming welcome to the ministries, schools, teachers, students, delegate, parents, the guest speakers, and last but not least the Princes of Brunei Darussalam. During the opening ceremony we have some performances and many different speakers speaking upon the issues that are going to be debated during the BGIC ' Women in the 2st century'. the speakers also include the

key note speaker from the UN. Some of these speeches given by the special key not speakers, were very inspirational and made me realize how women are in empowerment and make me, individually want to make a change. i think that these speeches are good also because it would make the committees more interesting as we can use some of the quotes and phrases used my the speakers. at the end of the opening ceremony the Princes then hits a gong to declare the opening of BGIC IX 2011. After the opening ceremony we went onto a tea break and right after that we went onto the committees to begin the opening speeches. Each opening speech takes about 1 minute maximum. this means that it takes about 30 minutes to get through all the delegates opening speeches. During an opening speech the delegate needs to talk about how their country related to the topic questions which are ' The question on the treatment of political prisoners' and the ' Socialism Vs Capitalism'. After the opening speeches we go onto the first resolution. During a debate on resolutions, the Main co-submitter would firstly need to read out the operative clauses and then a for speech. Delegates are give 5 minutes caucus to talk about the resolution and make a for or against speech for the resolution. Once this is done, the delegates would then debate. After the formal debate delegates would then move on to the open debate where any

delegates could speak for and against the resolution. After this, amendments are made to the resolution and the majority of votes would determine whether the resolution passes or not. Right after the amendments, delegates would go through a formal role call vote where the delegates would answer with 'For ' , 'Against', or 'abstain'. there has to be a 2/3 ratio of For's in order for the resolution to pass. Once the results have been counted, we entertain right of statements where delegates are allowed to talk about their country. This is usually the best part of debate and it also lightens the atmosphere around and makes it less tense.

Day 2( Committee sessions)

On the second day we got too meet the key note speakers individually in our committees. The political Forum 2 committee got the First female to achieve a Senior officer status. When she came in to talk to us, it really helped us understand how different life would be when you are a female compared to a male. Females, were not allowed to fly planes because they had to take care of their family and feed their children. But now, females are more free to do whatever they want in most countries. Sharifah Czarena Suryani Hj Hashim, the first senior officer of Royal

Brunei Airlines, told us about her life and how she overcame boundaries avoiding her to become a pilot. She said that she had always wanted to become a pilot ever since she was young and she says flying is best feeling ever. She also said that if you just believe in your dreams and work hard for it you will get there eventually. Us being able to talk to her was very inspirational and made us want to work harder as students and get good grades so that we are able to have a good career that we like and not because we are asked to do so or because there were not other choices. After talking to Sharifah Czarena Suryani Hj Hashim we went back onto debate and resolutions just like we did on the first day. During debates however, there was a surprise crisis, where a situation is brought in hand and delegates would have bring about a few operative clauses to solve the problem that is going on live. This engages the delegates mind and makes them think more for the resolution. A person from year 13 then came in dressed like the ambassador of Iran and took any questions that were required to solve the situation. I think that the Crisis was very good because puts delegates on the spot and really tests their ability to solve certain situations. it After debates, we went to the front entrance of the ICC and took a group photo with all the delegates, teachers, and helpers where the photo's would b

e sold the next day.

Day 3 (General Assembly)

On the Final day of BGIC, the passed resolutions from the different committee get passed on to the GA. All the delegates from Forum 1 go to one room and all the delegates for Forum 2 go to another room. There would be about 100 people in each forum. In the GA there are more stronger delegates debating so therefore there would

be more debate going on. Most resolutions fail during GA because since there are many people, there are a lot of different opinions and thoughts about the resolution. During the GA the same procedures are taken on like a normal debate. It is more intense in the GA because there are better delegates speaking for and against the resolution so therefore it is harder to decide whether to speak against or for the resolution. Over all i think that BGIC has built up my confidence in speaking and also

made me a risk taker. Before BGIC i was scared to talk and shy but after BGIC i would be able to easily make new friends and also talk with more of a confidence to people and to the public. But this is not it. At night we got to go to the Empire Base where we had a party and celebrated all the hard work and effort put into BGIC. This was very fun because the Base is amazing and we could also dance and eat inside the base. BGIC was a great experience for me and i wish i could do it again another year.

Service: 15 hours

Pusat Bahagia Swimming

Today was our first day on teaching the Pusat bahagian Students how to swim. These students are all disabled with the majority of them who are mute. This lesson was quite chilled because we just started to get to know the students and we also had to find out what they were capable of doing. The first thing we did was let them play around in the water making sure that they were use to being in the water. Then we made then play some games like, hitting the ball around and balancing the ball on the spoon and also picking up the rings from the bottom of the pool. We also did some technical swimming stuff with them like kicking continuously from one end to another. This was a good indicator for us to see each of the students levels. i am sure that the students had a lot of fun today. At the end of the lesson we chose a buddy so that we could have one to one training with the students. I chose Hannan. he is probably the youngest boy there and he is also quite shy but very cute. Next week we would have to come up with a better plan of the lessons and also have some more ideas on different activities. We also have to learn the different sign languages since they cannot speak. Through the lesson today i learnt to become a good communicator because i had to use a lot of body jesters to make sure that they could understand what they were suppose to do. it also made me feel open-minded which was very good because i was able to listen to others and also learn from one another.

Action: 1 hour

Picking up the fobissea students

Two days before the Fobissea Event some of us volunteered to pick up the students arriving from the airport as a warm welcome and taking them to the Orchid Garden Hotel where they would be staying during the competition. This was really fun and made me more confident as i had to communicate with many of the people. They would ask me questions about Brunei and lucky i knew all the answers to it. One of the coach recognized me from the previous Fobissea which was kind of cool in a way. We had to hold banners with their schools name and when they walked out the door we had to say welcome to Brunei. This was meant to make them feel more welcomed but some of them kind of got a little scared. After they come out we take them to their bus and straight to the hotel where we then distributed the goody bags to them which has a hat, bottle, name tag, shirt. This really made me miss Fobissea as i always use to get goody bags from the previous Fobissea's.

Service: 2 hours

JIS football Funday

On the of November JIS (Jerudong International School) hosted a yearly event called the Football Funday. This is where teams sign up and compete against each other. There is a boys and girls category and three different age groups, Under 13, Under 15 and Under 19. I was put into the under 19 group for ISB team B. There were 9 people in our team ranging from students aged 15 to 18 years old. We placed 6th place out of the 8 teams in the whole tournament. I was quite happy with this result because many of the other teams were a lot more experience and older. Most of the teams play in other tournaments internationally and in Brunei and a lot of them are 19 years old. Before the tournament i was not expecting to win but more of having fun and I had a lot of fun on that day. Watching the other people play made me learn a few newer skills that I didn't know before and it also made me think a lot while I was playing the games. I had to think about where to pass and how to make sure that the opposition could not pass me as I was playing defender. At the end of the day it was all about having fun and learning and hopefully the next time i play in football funday we can do better as a team.

Action: 5 hours

Helping out in the Under 15 Fobissea Games

On the 19th to the 21st of november the IB students were told to help out in the Under 15 Fobissea games when were hosted in Brunei as we were able to gain more Action ours from it.i have participated in the fobissea games for 5 years so this was really exciting to bring fobissea back into action where i can see the actual competition. The actual competitions lasted for three days where students compete againsteach other in Basketball, Football, Athletics and Swimming. I helped out on all three days doing the girls and boys basketball and the Athletics high jump.

On the first day there was the boys football and the girls basketball. I was helping out in the girls basketball doing the score sheets, timing for the timeouts

and also holding out the amount of fouls people had. Before this however we had to go to the hotel and bring the teams to their destinations. This was so that they would know where to go for the next two days. There were two courts so there were two different groups. the winner of each group would play the runner up of the other group and then the winner of that would be

able to proceed into the finals. During this i had to communicate with many people including the players and the coaches. Since we were the once in charge of the table, all the any complaints or problems were given to us to handle. We would either let it go with the teacher or solve it ourselves. I think that this was good because it really showed that we were thinkers and also very open minded to the peoples comments.

The second day was the athletics day. This was when we all got separated into doing different athletic events like the high jump, long jump, javelin, timing for the sprints, shot put, etc. Me and Hafizah were both delegated to do the high jump. During this event we had to change the bar at different levels according to the jumpers jumping height. Many of the people jumped really high and it really amazed me on how talented these students were. This was very reflective as i learnt many skills from the jumpers. As you can see in the photo it got really dark and started raining. This meant that the jumpers were not able to jump because the surface would be too slippery and they might fall. Luckily the rain only lasted for a while which meant that the events could continue after. After all the events finished we had to clean up the stadium and made sure that the equipments were put back properly and that there were no rubbish lying around on the field or on the stance. On this day there was also the swimming events that took place in the national stadium at night time. i was not able to attend this because i had a dinner to go, however i would have liked to see the swimmers swim as i was a competitive swimmer in the younger years.

On the third and last day it was the boys basketball. Basketball is one of my favorite sports and in the last three years i have won two silver medals in basketball. I was really looking forward to how the boys played and seeing whether some of them have improved. it was also exciting to see how much we helped the under 15 boys while we were playing them every week in the basketball trainings. i really wanted the ISB boys to win because i knew that they trained really hard. on this day i was allocated to do the same job as i did on the first day. it was a really intense day as ISB was really close into getting into the finals but at the end they had to settle with third place. the runner up were regents from Thailand and the winners were the Taipei European school(the picture on the right) . They were really good, but then again they train almost everyday so I guess they are prone to be good at basketball. There is also a basketball culture back in Taipei so this is more beneficial to the students. This whole experience has made me become a inquirer as i had to ask many questions at the beginning because i was not that sure what to do at certain situations. The food was also really good for all three days.

Action: 15 hours

Mentoring

On the third week of school, we were asked to mentor year 7's because they needed help in fitting in to secondary. since they were introduced to a new system of school, they had lots of questions to ask about how everything around work. The boy i was mentoring was Azique. If Azique had a problem of any kind he would be able to go up to me and ask me the question which we would then be able to talk about and sort out. through mentoring i learn how to be caring for other people. this also made me feel happy because i was able to help and solve peoples problem. We go into tutor class with our buddies every Wednesday and talk to them for 10 minutes from 7:15 to 7:25. I think that this is very limited because not much is being able to be said in 10 minutes and most of the time the morning bulletin is being said so therefore our time gets cut down to 7 minutes. we are however still able to help our biddies and give them advice. i always ask my buddy about how his week is going, and if he had been doing his homework. Azique is a good boy that doesn't get into trouble at all so i am glad that he is coping well in the lower secondary. sometimes i would check his diary to see if he had written his homework properly and also to see if he had ticked the boxes when he finished his homework.

Service: 10 hours