Two new CAS activities

The new CAS activities that I'm currently involved in are the graduation committee and Habitat for humanity.

For the graduation committee, I'm in charge of the entertainment section, together with Bindiya. We held auditions recently in this past week and are intending on choosing 6 to 8 bands to perform on the night, and perhaps ask the other bands to be on standby in case they want to play before they leave permanently.

Other than that, i'm also on the decoration team and we have made plans to go buy materials on the 5th of June. Some of us went to check out the prices of material and found that the shops in gurney are riduculously overpriced, so we're looking for other alternatives.

For the graduation team, I think we're under a lot of pressure to make this a successful and memorable night for the graduants. We've nominated Cheryl for our leader, and she's been very efficient with everything. Mark, Cheryl and I also went to see Sarah, the events manager at Park Royal, about the features we would like to have, and so far we've managed to settle everything pretty well. There were some issues with price because the hotel wanted 100RM but we could only afford 90RM per person, but thankfully we were able to stick with our initial price.

Talking over the details made me realise how much planning and organisation is required for such social events, and hopefully we'll be able to meet all our deadlines, especially now that we have ongoing exams.

My second CAS activity is Habitat for Humanity. On the 22nd June to the 27th June, we'll be going to Sarawak Kuching to build houses for those who need them. Before this though, we'll be having a fund raising event on the 6th of June, called the cycle ride charity event, where we hope to raise as much money as possible to sponsor the trip for us students, and two accompanying teachers. The main section of this will be the cycling, where people pay 50 ringgit to be sponsored to go on a 78km bike ride around Penang. The other sections would be the car boot sale, and some food and entertainment for people.

For this charity event, I'll be participating mostly in the music (entertainment) section, and i've organised and officialised the events for the entertainment section. We've invited bands from neighbouring International schools so as to involve more of the expatriate and local community in our affairs, and are also looking for younger students in Uplands to come and participate. i myself will be busking on the day with Cheryl and Apple, and also perform in a string quartet with Mitchell, Caren and Janet.

Other than that, I'm also involved in the facepainting and football. We will have to constantly monitor our equipment so as to prevent them from getting damaged and also to watch out for children so that they do not get hurt. I may also help out in the food section by joining my friends for baking. Hopefully everything will go smoothly, and we will be able to earn sufficient funds for the trip.

April 7th to May 3rd

-Netball~ We had netball once in this span, and we practised by playing a game of four against four, because we had limited players. I found that it was quite difficult for me to run into space and i usually got in the way of my teammates. I think i should look before i run, and not be too focused on the ball.
-PESSOC~ I've just realised that PESSOC performance clashes with our exam week, so i doubt i'll be able to perform. Because of this i will no longer attend practices so regular, but will post about what i learn when i do go for the session.
-Reading Buddies~ Reading buddies went as per normal. There are some new students, but so far i haven't had the chance to read to them. I don't like how some of the students enjoy repeating the books they read, so I encourage them to read new books. Some of them also enjoy skipping pages and words, so i will try to be more dilligent and catch them at this.
-Mentoring~ Mentoring is no longer one of my CAS activities, but this week my mentee came up to me for help, and i quite like how I'm able to teach her stuff that i've learnt previously, so i won't discontinue being her mentor.
-Hip Hop~ Hip hop has been really fun. We went to see the dance group's newly renovated studio and it looks very impressive with the mirrors. WE also got to watch a dance performance put on by the group and it was very amazing how they were all able to improvise their dance moves so fluidly and quickly.
-UES~ I've now become the secretary of UES. This week we watched a video of a 12 year old speaking about the environment at a UN conference, and her speech was really motivating. Later we went to fiix and repaint the bottle holder that was placed in front of the cafeteria. we've also allocated who's going write on the UES blog at www.upenso.blogspot.com
-Football~ This is my latest CAS activity! We were divided into newbies and pros, i was a newbie and so i ended up playing with most of the other girls in my year who were also newbies. We learned some dribbling around cones and also how to kick, pass and stop the ball. We also practised some throw ins and shooting goals. I managed to score two goals for my team in penalty kicks!
-Tutoring~ I saw Christine one last time before her exams. THis time we went through trignometry, and i tried to test her so i could check if she really properly understood. She did fare pretty well, and i think she now understands SOH CAH TOA well enough to answer the core paper. Our lesson was extended because i also wanted to drill some formulas, like how to convert speeds and also how to do sequence questions.
-Solfege~ Solfege this week was part singing and part dictation. For the dictation part, there was something interesting because it was new- we had to write in bass clef and we also had to dictate a double line, meaning a melody and a bass line. This was quite easy, but i made some careless mistakes. Hopefully we will try this again so that i can practise more.
-Piano~ The one piano lesson that i've had so far was basically a recap of Bach, Czerny, and Beethoven. I got a new etude from Czerny, and have also started working on the other sections of the Beethoven Sonata.