Eilidh's CAS portfolio

IB Session: May 2016

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CAS Project: Physiotherapy and other activities at the local Disabled Home

For our CAS project, my CAS group and I decided to do something at the local disabled home just 45 minutes away from the school. After the first site visit, we decided to raise money for the disabled home’s physiotherapy department so we can buy a plinth for them. During our visits to the home we’ve done physiotherapy sessions with the residents of the home and fun activities like pass the parcel and musical chairs. We also did some colouring with the residents whom all really seem to enjoy it. It was heartwarming seeing that the little things we did for them made them so happy. I personally think it was there were some hands on activities they could do to break out of their daily routine of passively sitting in their beds or cots and watching TV. I definitely formed some bonds with some of the residents who I coloured with and it was sad during my last visit to not know when I would next see them. Helping with physiotherapy was extremely interesting and also fulfilling. There was a certain sense of gratification in knowing that the exercises we did with the residents would actually help improve their quality of life. The only thing that bothered me was that what we did there wasn’t enough and has left me feeling a sense of responsibility to try and help less fortunate people like them as best as I can in the future. 

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Medini Live! Arts Festival

On the 7th of June, there was the Medini Live! Arts Festival held in the Mall of Medini. Our school’s orchestra, string quartet, choir and own pupil band played for the event. The choir sang Fly Me to the Moon and Seasons of Love. The orchestra played Amadeus, Take Five, The Best of Green Day and Pirates of the Caribbean. The string quartet played the usual Say Something and Canon in D. It was quite an eye opening experience as this was the first time that the entire orchestra played outside of school. It wasn’t conditions we were used to as it was open air with a lot of background noise and the acoustics weren’t fantastic. It was also very windy so all of our music was getting blown everywhere. During my solo in Say Something, my music flew upwards covering the exact notes I needed and for about one bar I didn’t play anything, which was quite awkward as the cello would’ve been the only instrument playing at that time. It was a good learning experience though, if the orchestra is to play in New Zealand next year on tour. It was also nice to see the other artists around our region. I’m sure when we get enough distance from this event, we’ll be able to laugh about it! Hopefully the orchestra and choir get more practise playing for a public audience before they go to New Zealand

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Rafting

Over the half-term break, my friends and I went to Japan. While in Japan, we went white water rafting as the snow had just melted so the water was pretty high and the currents were quite strong. Although it’s not completely considered a CAS activity, we still had lots of fun and I thought this would be a good way to record it. I hadn’t been white water rafting in a long time, the last time being in 2011 with grade 1 rapids in New Zealand. This time it was in freezing cold water with grade 3 rapids. It was amazing and I got to sit right in front so I got splashed the most! It was fun and exhausting but also brilliant as we were preparing for our exams at the time and it was just a great way to forget about everything for a moment and enjoy ourselves.

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Charity Art Auction 2015

The third annual Art Auction took place on Thursday, 7th of May. The newly elected Prefects body had to help out by carrying the art pieces, managing the silent auctions, wrapping the auctioned pieces and making sure it went to the right people. It was a wonderful night for awesome causes and the school raised a good sum of money (nearly 60,000RM). I felt quite privileged to be a part of this event as it is quite exclusive and pupils usually aren’t part of it unless they are asked to come and contribute to it. I also played the cello in the string quartet as people walked around the Morris Foyer and looked at the pieces up for silent bids. 

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Sports Day 2015

In the school’s most recent Sports Day, I participated in 2 events. The 400m and long jump. Even though I’m not very athletic, (coming in last for 400m and 2nd last for long jump) I enjoyed participating in the events and earning points for my team. I was absolutely exhausted after the event but it was a really good tired, a fulfilled tired. It was a fun day altogether with friends and family of friends. It was great to support others as well and to be in a team that are all quite sporting. In the end, Hunt won the day but it’s still fine because Chichister had been coming in first for most of the other competitions so we may well still be first overall! 

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Lacrosse

On Sunday the 26th of April, MCM had our first lacrosse match ever against Anderson Junior College and the Singapore Lacrosse Association. We all met at Turf City excitedly having never played a real match before. We had been training for quite a while already, starting since the beginning of Michaelmas term. It was quite amazing how well we worked as a team as we also played with member of the prep school team who we’ve never played before. We came out with an astounding result of 2 wins and 1 draw! I think this was a testament to how hard we had been working and Miss Niven’s commitment to us, her talent and awesome coaching abilities.

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Pi Day Competition

The 14th of March is known as Pi day as in America, it would be written 3/14/15, which are the first 5 digits of Pi. In school, we had a Pi competition a few days before Pi day. The aim was to recite as many digits of Pi as possible and the pupil who could recite the most digits would win a chocolate pie baked by Mrs Tennant, our Psychology beak or also the best baker in the College. It first started as a bit of a joke in Miss Court’s office in the Marlburian to memorise the digits of Pi using the song 'Do a Deer’ from the sound of music. But before I knew it I had learnt enough digits of Pi to sing the entire song and I was entering the competition. Although I didn’t win by a long shot, I still had some fun embarrassing myself in front of all my friends and beaks and had the pleasure of being 1 of the only 2 girls who entered the competition.

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MCM Rocks

We had our first ever MCM Rocks concert on 21st March! I was in the orchestra and choir once again. The Orchestra played the jazz piece ‘Take Five’ and also a medley of Green Day songs entitled ‘The Best of Green Day’. The choir did a Queen medley. It was a really enjoyable night and it felt really good to be able to perform the music that we had been working on for quite a long time on. It was also lovely to see the creativity of others and the actual rock bands that the students had put together on their own and the musical talent of the pupils.

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Care Haven Visits MCM

On 31st January, over 40 children from Care Haven came to MCM through MC Squared’s invite for an afternoon of fun activities and games. We split up into 2 groups, one on arts and crafts and one on sports and silly games. It was difficult to plan the games as the age range was all the way from 4 years old - 20 years old. So we had to split up the groups according to their ages so that we could design activities more suited for certain age groups. For the older children and young adults, we played more serious sports such as badminton, football and basketball. For the younger children, we played games such as duck duck goose, musical chairs and so on. It was a really fun afternoon and the children also looked like they had lots of fun. It was a privilege to be able to share the schools amazing facilities with people who aren’t as fortunate as us.

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Carol Service 2014

On the 14th December, we had our annual carol service in the evening. I participated by singing in the choir and playing in the school orchestra. We played classic hymns like Good King Wenceslas, Silent Night and so on that the congregation sang along to. The choir also sang Sussex Carol and others. 

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House Shout 2014

House Shout is an annual song competition between all the boarding houses in the school. There are 2 categories, Junior and Senior. This year, Honan won the competition with our rendition of ‘Let It Be’ originally performed by the Beatles. We were all very pleased with this as we had rehearsed long and hard and even changed songs at one point from ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’. Munawir and Wills were both great and although our song choice was simple and so were our harmonies, the blend of sounds were incredibly beautiful and irrefutably the best. 

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Tennis 

Tennis is my main sport in school and normally I train 3 times a week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, with Friday being only set plays. Although I do other sports in school like touch, lacrosse and netball, I like Tennis the most as I find that out of all the sport I do, I perform the best at Tennis. Over the course of the last 8-9 months, I think I have improved tremendously, having now played my first tournament. We’ve worked on many different techniques, such as the ‘on the rise’ technique, drive volleys, focusing more on top spin and so on.  These are a few pictures from earlier in the year. 

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Christmas Fair 2014

During the Christmas Fair, I volunteered to help out as part of my service for CAS. I was on the tattoo and face painting station, where people (mostly children) gave in their ‘snowflakes’ to get something done. I was best with the stencilling glitter tattoo’s, so when people wanted glitter or foil they would ask me. Although I was only meant to be on the tattoo shift for 2 hours, there were people who didn’t show up for their shifts so I spent 4 hours doing tattoos. I was actually happy that I got more time on this station as I found it fun and it was so nice to see all the young (or slightly older...) children get so excited about their facepaint or tattoos! These are some of my satisfied customers!

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MC Squared Movie Night 

On the 29th of November, MC Squared organised a boarders’ movie night where we played Monsters Inc. as it was for both Senior and Junior boarders and everyone loves Monsters Inc.! We sold popcorn, mini magnums and soft drinks to raise money to bring about 40 orphans from Care Haven over to Marlborough on the 31st of January for some fun activities! We aimed to earn a profit of 900RM, but we only managed 400RM, which isn’t a failure as we still turned a profit and it showed us which drinks and products would be most popular and which ones weren’t so that next time, we’ll be able to buy the foods accordingly and generate even more profit to benefit our causes.