Cānjiā(参加)
To participate. Welcome to my C. A. S. (creativity, action, services) Diary! My name is Marriyum and I'm from Pakistan. I am currently living in Malaysia and I am an IBDP candidate for the year 2015. If you have any questions feel free to leave them in my ask!
When I reached the venue I met up with my squash coach. She directed me towards the squash courts and provided me with a squash racket. She asked me of my history with squash, which was really scarce.
On the very first day of my English teaching. I reached the orphanage Alamat Rumah Anak Yatim Lambaian Kasih Sungai Penchala at 8:45. I was introduced to my supervisor and the administration of the orphanage.
Once the introduction had taken place we then proceeded to meeting the children my classmate and I were going to teach. We both took an individual test for each of them. Most of the students were extremely shy and knew little to no English at all. The communication between them and myself was very limited and was mostly was conducted by gestures.
The test was a long process on it's own as it was an individual reading test, using the The San Diego Quick Assessment of Reading Ability test. Wherein we had to note down all the words that a student could not read and when they started getting very frustrated or could not read more 5 words in a row the test would end. Each word they read correctly would earn them 1 point.
From the results we divided all the children into 3 groups:
Higher Level: These were the students who had gotten at least 30 points for the test
Middle Level: These were students who had gotten less than 30 points for the test.
Lower Level: These were students that could not give the test at all or had gotten less than 10 points.
I was given the Higher Level students as I cannot speak Malay at all and communicating with the ones with the most familiar with English will allow me to teach them more effectively than those with a poorer English. Essentially I was given 12 students.
My goal is to teach them how to read and understand English, how I am going to conduct this can only be decided once I start to thoroughly understand where they stand as English speakers and evaluate their personalities and behavior and form an appropriate plan.
The second day of practice was changed to a different time as it was too close to my new CAS activity for services.
We started the activity by stretches for ten minutes using the stretching guide given to me by my coach. The rest of the time we spent practicing. There was some improvement and now there is sometimes an unbroken back and forth between my coach and me for up to 5 shots which didn’t occur last time.
I still need to work on my service. My coach still says that I get too frustrated and it is hindering my learning, I need to relax and enjoy the game.
When I reached the venue I met up with my squash coach. She directed me towards the squash courts and provided me with a squash racket. She asked me of my history with squash, which was really scarce.
Then for the first 10 minutes we did stretches. After that showed me how to hold the racket and told me some of the basic rules of playing the game. Most of that day she taught me how to serve, how to hold the racket, how to hit the ball. None of which I was able to master within that time period.
I can serve sometimes but many of the times I miss or I do not use enough force to have it bounce past the half court line.
For now my coach has asked me to watch videos of squash players and try to get used to the technique they use or the tips they give.
One of the qualities my coach said I lack are dealing with frustration, she said that patience and practice is the only way I will learn and getting overly frustrated with myself will be counterproductive in reaching my goals.
Aid the Needy Charity drive was basically a project led by my fellow classmates wherein they raised money and collected donations to financially support a home where they tutored children. Once the money was raised they needed extra man power to go to the home and set up the donations, clean the place, assemble the furniture.
Although I was not present for the week when our class raised money and collected donations, I did however create the raffle tickets for raising the money and the reply slip to send to the classes to inform the parents.
On the 30th of August we packed all the donations and tagged them. I was in charge of tags which I created for each of the box. I also made a Plan Schedule to give the each of the students on the day we were to go to the foster home.
On the 31st of August we went to Pusat Jagaan Beribuan Kasih. I was assigned as the leader of cleaning the home. We had a lot of equipment with us such as a broom, mop, pales, cleaning liquid. etc. 5 other girls and I spent most of our time cleaning the floors. I assigned each of us different areas on the foster home to first clear away the dust with the broom and mop the floors. After we were done we helped out on different stations: for example distributing food and carpentry. Once everyone was done we helped clear away all the carpentry materials and organize them properly. We did not, however, get time to sort out and arrange the donation items. This was a big regret because that was one of the areas which I was leading but unfortunately we did not have the man power to complete that task within 3 hours.
What I expected from this activity was a more efficient and a faster performance and hoped to get a lot more done for the foster home to see a great improvement. Even though that was not the case I still believe that we did improve their quality of life through all the donations and equipment we provided for them. I did learn how to guide students that I was supposed to be in charge of, I learned that I needed to be stricter and decisive, I gained self-confidence from being in a position where I was the leader and the result turned out fairly positive. Overall from a leadership point of view, I believe that I gained a lot of skills and I feel that even though out objective was not fully completed I gain a lot from the experience. The entire foster-home home however humbled me to the greatest degree, the children’s kindness and eagerness to help out was really heartwarming to see. They made a lot of effort to communicate through smiles and handshakes since we did not have a common language.
This activity was not only beneficial for me and my fellow IB students, I believe that it was quite beneficial for the group of students whom we were in charge of. It was also beneficial for the foster home as it gave them a better living environment than they had had before.
If I could do this activity again I would do it for a longer period of time and I would not stop at just cleaning the home with mops and brooms. I would have loved to paint their home, redecorate their furniture and maybe create a more homely and welcoming look to their home. I would also be more communicative with my team and give them a time frame to optimize productivity.
Learning outcomes:
Increased their awareness of their strengths and areas for growth.
I can excel at independent work
I need to improve on my leadership skills
Undertaken new challenges.
Lead an entire group of students
Planned and initiated activities.
Created and designed reply slips, labels of the donations and raffle tickets
Helped in planning and assigning roles for the activities to take place in the home
Planned my group's activity
Worked collaboratively with others.
Worked with other students
Lead a group of students for the cleaning of the home
Shown perseverance and commitment in their activities.
Despite shortage of time my group and I tried my best to complete the home
Engaged with issues of global importance.
Child abandonment is an issue that is known all over the world and there are numerous foster homes and orphans that are lacking in supply and help.
Considered the ethical implications of their actions.
While being in the home we had to show a lot of respect and kindness to the people living there.
Made sure that none of my group members did anything unethical or rude.
Even in cleaning we made sure that we did not disturb anyone, and did not go into any closed or occupied rooms.
We were all very careful with their belongings and made sure that nothing was misplaced or broken
I worked as an intern in the 1Link offices, in Karachi, Pakistan, for 2 weeks. My main job at the office was to make sure that the ATMs from different banks that use the 1Link services are fully functioning. I did this by making sure that the logs, that record the transactions, provide complete information needed for a full functioning service.
The first 3 days I mostly learned how the entire system works (5th-12th August) and then the rest of the day I carried out the testing. I planned out and designed a personal the testing guide which resembled a comprehensive checklist to monitor the information in the different transaction logs (13th August). On the last 2 days I carried out the testing for 20 logs.
In this activity I personally thought that I would be dealing with a lot of different software and programming, however that was not the case. There was a lot of preparatory work for me to do before I got to deal with the data logs and experience an unknown software.
I also expected it to be a very passive activity, but that was not the case, I learned a lot of interpersonal skills. It gave me a lot of insight on how people communicate in that environment and how the employees balance friendliness and professionalism.
The major difficulty that I encountered was communicating. At first I was extremely shy and didn't ask too many questions, but once I saw the code of conduct that was required to converse with essentially very busy people, and adapted to it asking questions and communicating became much easier. For example the guides that I was given on the first day contained a lot of terms I did not fully understand and I didn't feel comfortable asking my supervisor, but soon I saw how employees from different departments would easily approach people of different expertise and ask them various questions and they were very respectfully given an answer, this made it much easier for me to communicate with my supervisors and even other employees.
In the beginning of the activity I was unsure as to what exactly my job was going to be as I was handed a lot of technical guides which I was supposed to study and I didn't know what exactly they were for. This made me feel quite intimidated and unsure of whether or doing this activity was a good decision. But soon my uncertainties were vanquished when I started understanding the text and was constantly shown examples of its relevance to the testing area.
My biggest regret in the whole process is that I could not continue this activity for longer because just as I started the testing process my official days were over. It would have been amazing to see what more I could learn from another month’s experience considering that I learned so many different skills in just six days.
Having done this activity I will be able to quickly adjust to a professional setting if I were given a chance. I think from a IT point of view, I was finally given a chance to put to use many of the skills I learned from my ICT course for IGCSE’s and I think the real-life experience made me more adaptable to the different software used in all kinds of various companies. It was an overall boost of confidence to be able to work in such a smooth pace in a completely new location and environment.
Learning outcomes:
Increased their awareness of their strengths and areas for growth.
Communicating with the other employees was a challenge that I overcame for the most part, but still need to improve on.
I identified the norms of the professional work space and managed to adapt to it.
Undertaken new challenges.
Created an individual presentation
Created the comprehensive "checklist" to monitor the functionalities of the ATMs.
Planned and initiated activities.
I had to plan the contents of my checklist and create it
Worked collaboratively with others.
I took part in multiple conversations about testing
I was invited for a meeting with one of the clients
Shown perseverance and commitment in their activities.
The literature provided to me was quite tedious and lengthy and it required a lot of perseverance to fully understand
Engaged with issues of global importance.
Working with a service provider company who has clients in numerous different global banks
Being careful with sensitive information
Considered the ethical implications of their actions.
Respecting the employees and clients
Always keeping in mind the sensitivity of the information I was working with and being careful with confidential information
Developed new skills.
Adjusting in the professional environment
Engaging with employees of different expertise and backgrounds
Engaging with clients with different personalities and understanding of the technicalities of the process
Reading and understanding a completely new software
Overall it was a very rich experience and I feel that I will be taking away a lot of interpersonal skills from this activity. I also learnt how professional environments actually are which something I never really fully understood before.
On the last day I continued with my logs and submitted the reports and checklists in. After that I had a short discussion with my supervisor.
This day consisted mostly of independent work. I was much faster at the checklist system and I was able to get through all of them by the end of the day.
On the second last day I was given about 20 logs that I had to check using my checklists and report any problems that occurred within the logs. The process was quite repetitive. On the second last day I was also invited to sit through a meeting with one the the 1Link client banks.
Although most of the conversations were not exactly on testing, as testing is just a small part of the whole process the company works on, it was still very educational to see the dynamics of meeting with a client. Most of the employees were highly trained IT specialists but they had to converse with a client who’s know-how was not as polished.
The conversation allowed me to see how to translate ideas for a mindset of a different department and allow them to fully understand the situation without getting fully into the technicalities. This allowed me to understand the ethicalities of dealing with clients, and gave me an idea of how to balance between respect, professionalism and personal likability.
On the fifth day started off by a briefing on how testing works. Then I was shown examples of how testing is carried out where basically a “checklist” method to see if there is any information that has been left out by the ATM (if so the problem needs to be fixed by other departments). So I had to create 8 comprehensive checklists.
That day required a lot of perseverance because the process was quite repetitive and draining.
One my 4th official working I was given data logs that are used in ATM transactions and I was briefed on how to read them and how the previous content I was given relates to the logs. My task for the morning was to familiarize myself with the terms of different operating systems that are used in ATM transactions. That day, was also the first day after the Eid-ul-Fitr holidays therefore I was, along with the rest of the employees, invited to a lunch.
Throughout that lunch I worked on my interpersonal skill, conversed with the employees I hadn't gotten a chance to speak with previously. I heard about people who had worked in different countries, had different areas of expertise and different experiences. I got a valuable insight of what “professional relationships” and conversations were like.
That afternoon I was given a document to examine and summarize which was about e-commerce. Once I had completed the task I had to do a short presentation on project, wherein I described the processes, advantages disadvantages, etc. Then I was asked a few simple questions regarding the document.
That day was mostly about collaboration, although there were no projects in which we worked together, getting to know each other well and developing a the professional tone of conversations was both a skill I started to advance in. Having that basic familiarization with others will allow me to work better with others in future projects.
I was unable to go to 1Link on the 7th of August because of safety reason. There had been a bomb blast in the area where my family resided, Khayaban-e- Muslim the night before, therefore it was advised by my family that I should not leave the house for that day.
The second day is when I started thoroughly reading the different guides that I was given in the first day. I started reading the in depth definitions of the different data elements, for a clearer view I was told to refer to the packet containing the different definitions for each data elements. This endeavour took most of the day. In the end of the day two of the employees of the testings department had a short discussion with me about the content I had been learning for the past few days.
I believe that reading and understand so many different kinds new words took a lot of perseverance. Many of the time I had become extremely confused and had to refer to many of the different reference guides or read a lot of the text all over again to understand it.
I still felt awkward and interpretive asking to other employees for help, although talking to them at the end of the day was quite easy and it built up my confidence. It was also interesting to take part in a conversation that was more professional than conversations I am used to.
The first day was mainly comprised of introduction. I was met by my supervisor who briefed me on the general work done by the office, introduced me to some of the people I would be working under, informal introduction to the different Message Format and the respective data elements. I was also given a laptop where the IT department set up an account for me, transferred all the relevant data into the laptop. I was also given a reference guide for the different definitions, an in depth definitions of the different data elements and summary of the message formats.
I was told that internet would not be available to me for much of the data that we were going to be working on in the future would contain sensitive information.
After that I spent a lot of the time reading all the new material and trying my best to understand it using the reference material I had.
I personally had trouble with asking many questions. I believe I kept my work more independent than I should have and made an effort to communicate with the employees about the literature.
The hospital visit was the very first activity I took part in as an IBDP candidate. It was a new experience since it was with people with whom I was not well acquainted and I was in an environment that I hadn’t volunteered at before. The activity included 2 stages, preparation of gifts and the actual visit to the hospital. The hospital was the Hospital of Kuala Lumpur, Paediatric ward, where we were to meet children admitted and try to comfort them, converse with them and learn from them.
The preparation went quite smoothly, each of the IB students were given a role to arrange all the various gifts for the children and packed them in to bags in a very orderly manner.
The next day, 23rd of July 2013, was the trip to the hospital. We gathered all the gift bags and carefully arranged them into the bus. When we reached the hospital, we were quickly briefed and given story books to read to any of the children.
I met a small cheery boy who was around three years old, and although I did not get to talk to him nor tell him the stories because he could not speak English and nor I Malay, I played with him and gave him the gift bags. He was extremely shy and although I could not take part in a conversation with him or his mother, I showed him the pictures form the books that we brought and distracted him while his mother and my classmate were having a talk. I met several other children and heard their saddening stories translated to me by my classmates.
This activity was different from what I had imagined it to be, I thought that it was me who was going to try and bring smiles to these children’s faces, but in truth it was the other way around. It was quiet an inspiration to see how strong and happy these children were even through all the pain and suffering they had gone through.
The biggest difficulty in this activity, for me, was the communication problem, none of the kids knew how to speak English, and I could only hear their stories from their parents and caretakers. I also found myself being unable to ask many questions as the more charismatic students were mostly holding up the conversations, this made me feel that I may not have been as engaged in the activity as I needed to be, some of the times the people would speak to each other in Malay and other students would have to translate the conversations for me which was quite a difficult process, but I was consoled by the fact that many of the children were genuinely happy so see so many new people bearing them presents.
I believe that it was most important for us to show kindness and respect to the people in the hospital and leave a positive impact. I personally believe that this activity would not have had much of an impact on the patient’s health or struggles but it may have been a way to brighten their day, which was the only realistic goal that I was hoping to achieve and I believe we did achieve it. It was not an independent achievement but a collaborative one.
Overall the activity was very interesting, I was thoroughly humbled and grateful. It was a very meaningful experience for me and made me gain respect for so many parents and families all over the world who stop their entire lives to take care of their child. If I had the chance of redoing the activity I would do it for a longer period of time so I could connect with the children on a personal level.
Learning outcomes:
Increased their awareness of their own strengths and areas of growth
The lack of a common language was not a barrier
I was very respectful and considerate
The experience was humbling and made me more sympathetic and grateful
Worked collaboratively with each other
Worked collaboratively in wrapping and arranging the presents
Shown perseverance and commitment in their activities
Assembled, wrapped, arranged, carried and delivered all the presents for the children
Played with the boy despite not being able to speak the same language
I was showed respect and waited patiently while the parents were talking to the other students in Malay
Considered the ethical implications of their actions
Behaved with a very positive attitude despite the saddening state of many of the patients
Acknowledged that I was a part of a group whose role was to be a of a source of positivity for the children and directed my attention to bringing joy to the patients.
