March 9th to march 15th

~Netball: Netball this week was again playing netball games. We didn't try learn any particular skills, but rather just learnt through playing the games. Friday practices have been cancelled because Ms. Denny can no longer make it on Friday.

~Pessoc: Pessoc this week was pretty good. I played with the same guy, and the conductor said it was much better than before. There was also one new piece, called the hebrides, which I've played before in the Uplands chamber orchestra, and it this made it easier for me to play it in PESSOC. i was surprisingly able to lead the section when they got lost, because of my prior knowledge of the piece.

~Chamber: Chamber practise went as per normal. We will be performing next week. The recording we did this week wasn't that good, and i came in late for my second solo because i misinterpreted the conductor's hand movement.

~Hip Hop: i was unable to attend hip hop this week.

~Reading Buddies: There was no reading buddies this week, as the year 4s had other non-reading-related activities.

~UES: This week was spent alloting duties again. I've decided to go and update the upenso blog- www.upenso.blogspot.com. Suzie also told me that she was entering my name to be a potential president of UES, and in the event that i DO become president, i hope i will do a good job and bring the society to greater heights.

~mentoring: This time i forgot to show up for the mentor meeting because i had to attend a music rehearsal for a recording. i will apologise to my mentee and set up a new meeting.

~Math Tutoring: Christine couldn't make it for math as she had DT.

~Piano: Piano this week was the same. This time instead of the adagio, i played the first movement of the Beethoven Sonata. It was quite bad, because I haven't practised that section properly for a long time, but i really enjoy the chord progressions that beethoven uses.

~Solfege:Solfege this week was moved from sat. to tues because of relay for life, and it was quite difficult. We did two music dictation pieces, and the first was easy, but the second was really hard because there were so many notes. I missed about 5 out of the 16 bars, but i think i did relatively okay, because it WAS really hard.

~Theory: Theory this week was really interesting. We learnt about chord scales, which is essentially finding a scale that relates to a chord. For example, any minor chord has a a dorian scale that accompanies it. we also learnt about sharp 4ths/11ths, which lend a very jazzy sound to a chord by creating dissonance. Wilson also recapped on the minor, major, 7ths, diminished, flat 5 and dominant chords. I find that this is an improvement to having to write compositions, and it helps a lot in my understanding of modes and how all the concepts fit together.
~Relay for life: relay for life is a project that has spanned for the last nine weeks or so. first of all we had to plan which activities we would like to initiated in order to begin fundraising. Our group decided on mainly baking and also craft items. We also planned to cater for valentine items like roses and cupcakes and so we made order forms that students could fill up. We then printed the forms, cut them and distributed them to the secondary classes who were interested and we made announcements in tutor period. Following this, forms were collected at the end of the week, along with any money owed. i was in charge of ordering the roses, and we ordered 100 roses at the price of 2RM, with the intent of selling them at 3ringgit. We were able to sell all the roses. We also met after school to bake things like cupcakes, write the valentine notes, and make fudge. In total we were able to fundraise 689 RM, and although we were the best group, i still think we did pretty well.

The second part of relay for life was the actual relay part. This happened on the 14th to the 15th of March at the Youth Park. we gathered at the Uplands tent at 3.30pm and changed into the relay for life shirt. After that, we had to listen to speeches and follow the programme given to us by the organisers. We started walking at around 6 O Clock and walked for 2 consecutive hours. After that i ate a quick dinner, and then then went back to walking. I walked until about 6 in the morning before sleeping for one hour and walking again. The main reason why i was able to do this was because i was continually walking WITH someone and so the company kept me going as well as keeping me awake. i also participated in one of the races where a group of 5 had to run for 15 minutes and compete by accumulating the most number of steps taken using a pedometer. it was pretty fun, even though we didn't win, and only came 3rd. One thing that really struck me was that at around 5 O clock when i was gathered with some other walkers, we were talking about how painful our legs were and someone said, 'Maybe this is how cancer patients feel every day of their life.' This made me feel really glad that i joined relay for life. Cancer is something that people have to fight against, and has become more and more common in society that nearly every person knows of someone, or is, afflicted with cancer. I really approve of the fundraising we did because i think its very wasteful to let lives be lost because of the lack of financing. This should be the last reason for death- the physical fight against cancer is already enough of a drain, nevermind having to worry about how to pay for treatment and all that. I hope that the fundraising we did was able to make a significant difference in someone's life. This event has taught me how a community must be united, especially when trying to overcome or confront an issue as big as cancer. I intend to participate in relay for life again next year.