My CAS 2018 - 20 @masintalanana-blog - Tumblr Blog

Jerudong Park Trip - Service

Probably my biggest challenge as house captain so far was organising the house trip to Jerudong Park. It took a lot of preparation and organisation to take place but the results were satisfying.

I came up with the idea after many of the boarders had just finished their exams and thus had emptier slates for the rest of the year. So, it was best to organise it then. I had to propose the idea to my House Master first because I needed his help to get things like transport and parental permission. After he approved, I needed to send a google form out to see how many of our boarders were willing to attend. One challenge there was making sure they did it before the deadline I set for them since boarders are known to be quite lazy and do things last minute.😂 However, with the help of my House Master, we got all the responses in by the deadline and unsurprisingly over 90% of the boarders wanted to attend.

The next stage was contacting Jerudong Park to tell them we were coming and to negotiate ticket prices. Normal entry tickets cost 15BND each since we all count as adults. However, as boarders we tend to be quite short on money, so I had to negotiate a feasible price for everyone. After an hour long phone call, I was able to get the price down 7BND per person. Furthermore, the boarding house sponsored the tickets with 2BND each so people only had to pay 5BND each, a third of what they would have paid if I did not do anything.

After the tickets and date were fixed, we had to inform the parents and get permission from them to come. So, the tutors and I met up and wrote a consent letter since it is ethically wrong to take people’s kids somewhere without asking for their consent. So, we wrote the letter and emailed it to all the parents of the boarders in Eagle giving them another deadline to give it in by. The letter demanded the parents’ permission and their medical insurance numbers should anything go wrong.

Once we got all the letters back, it was time to complete the risk assessment. The risk assessment is basically a long list of things that could go wrong, and what to do if one of those things actually happens. Luckily, such trips have been organised often at JIS so we could just find one that had already been done and use it as a template for ours.

Even though the preparation was very draining, the day of the trip was very enjoyable. We got to ride all the rides and spend time with our friends. Some of my non-boarding friends even came along for fun. I would say the best attraction in the park is the go karts. We spent most of our time there. At the beginning I was kind of scared to go max speed on them but after some laps my confidence grew and managed to win a few races.

House Football Refereeing - Service

Since I am a passionate football player, the head PE teacher of the school asked me to referee the U15 house football matches together with my close friend Riley (another football fanatic😂). Thankfully, it was a cloudy Thursday afternoon so we did not sweat too much from the heat. However, what did make us sweat was the frustration from being a referee. Some players really tested my patience and some terrible football was played (only sometimes though). However, it was key to remain calm and do my job professionally. I made sure that I remained as disinterested as possible and just accepted the game for what it was.

One big issue I encountered while reffing was two kids getting mad at each other and calling one another unethical things. I had to put my detective cap on and find out what happened. it turned out that one kid kept tackling the other, even if he did not have the ball. However, the argument was rather foul so I decided to send both of them off for 5 minuted before they could come on. Later that game when they came back on the arguing had ceased and they played without complain.

#footballforlife

Lip Sync - Activity + Creative + Service

This year I was honoured to be a group leader in the annual Lip Sync competition hosted by one of the boarding houses in our school. Since I am house captain I was anointed as group leader of Eagle 1 together with our eco-rep Ruard. Each boarding house has 4 groups which each have students from year 7 until year 13. The aim of the competition is to have an act of around 4 minutes in which you have songs to lip sync to and have dances for. The groups that do the best receive awards. The awards include Best Overall Group, Best Boys/Girls Group, Best Dressed, etc. Preparation for our group started around 5 weeks prior to the competition and we immediately ran into problems.

The first stage of our preparation was choosing the songs we were going to do. The older guys had different ideas from the younger ones and this left us in a stalemate. As a leader it was difficult because I wanted to make sure everyone felt included and that their input was valued. So, to take everyone’s choices into account, we split the performance up such that some songs were done only by the younger ones and some only by the older ones. Then, we close off with a song that everyone likes and dances and lip syncs to (as shown in the picture where we are all with arms over shoulders in one line singing and dancing to Hey Jude).

After having all our songs in place it was time to make up the dances to them. Again, we encountered a stalemate since none of us were passionate dancers.😂 However, a y8 came up with the ingenious idea that we watch dance parodies to the songs we were doing on youtube. So, after doing some research, we. found good (and clean) dances to our songs and also added some moves of our own, including a back flip!

For 5 weeks we rehearsed 2-3 times per week, an hour each time, after study finished. During this time all the members in our group got more comfortable with each other and our rehearsals become more fun. I am glad to say that all of us contributed ideas to the group. Within the 5 weeks, we went from mediocre to professional.

The night of the actual event, we were the second group up. So, whilst the first group was performing, I gave my group a pep talk and we did our cheer at the end. I felt how pumped everyone in our group was. All that was left to do was to get on that stage and shred it; and that was exactly what we did. We danced and sang like our lives depended on it. In the end, it proved that hard work does not go unpaid since we were given the award of Best Boys Group!

When reflecting upon the event, I learnt how important it is for the older ones to set an example to the younger ones since they look up to us. In the beginning, the younger ones were not focusing on the task and we were left almost split as they felt like they were insignificant. However, I talked to the older ones in our group and explained how we should be inclusive and also value whatever the younger ones say. After doing this, with time we realised that they started inputting more and cooperating more. Also, they became more mature which was especially evident as one of our year 8s starting taking a leading role in the organisation of our group; this being something that inspired me to keep going. Also, in the times where I felt that we were stuck or not doing it right, we just kept pushing since I sensed that over time we were doing this more for ourselves and not the competition.

Overall, this is something I would definitely love to lead in again and I most certainly enjoyed this event very much!

#blessed

U19 Football - Activity + Creative

(I don’t have a picture of our team as it is on my old phone which broke sry😅)

For the whole of term two and three, I was part of the JIS U19 football squad.

At first, we just started with training sessions. Getting to know my team mates was not a problem as I had been playing football with these people for at least the last 2-3 years. The training sessions were fun yet productive. We often did an hour of drills followed up by a half hour match. I really enjoyed the football because it was challenging. The training exercises were of a wide variety and the skill set of the team was varied as well making the matches challenging and fun.

Our learning from the training sessions was soon challenging as the fixtures against other schools in the area started to roll in. We mostly played against local schools which makes it more interesting as most local schools do not like our school. I guess this was a problem because during the matches the local teams would often try to foul people extra hard and sometimes some bias could be felt from the referee against us. However, if we were to win we had to ignore these problems and keep playing our football. We played skilfully as a team leading to lossless season.

One more personal challenge I had to overcome was my physique. At the beginning of the season, I was quite unfit. Something that can be detrimental to performance when playing matches in the scorching Bruneian heat and humidity. To fix this problem, I made sure I did more sports outside of school like basketball and more football in order to ‘fit’ my body up. This proved effective as closer to the end of the season I was able to play full 80-minute matches as a dynamic left midfielder without collapsing.😂

What made the football creative was the fact that our coach focused a lot on strategy; something that had never really been introduced by previous coaches. Some of us, including me, were devised to create attacking and defending strategies for the team e.g. how to attack 3-on-3 or how to defend 2-on-3 effectively and remain organised. These attacking strategies proved effective during matches after some tweaking during training as proven by our lossless season.

House Captaincy - Service

(Sorry for the bad quality image)

This year I am proud to say that I have been anointed as house captain of my boarding house: Eagle House.

The process all started with a personal statement to our housemaster, outlining why I want to be house captain. After that, it was followed up by interviews by my housemaster as well. The personal statement was not too hard to do as I have already applied for other positions like year group captain where the same was necessary. However, the interview, no matter how many times I have been in one, will still always be nerve wracking.

The night of the interview I was extremely nervous as I really wanted to become house captain and not screw it up. I had 3 others competing against me so I knew that there was no space for big slip ups. I went into the interview extremely nervous. However, I realised that there was no point being nervous. All I had to do was tell the truth and hope it sticks. Obviously, it did as I am glad to say that I am now house captain.

Though, that is not it. It is not just a title. It serves a great purpose. A house captain is a leader, a community man and a role model. Of course I cannot always get it right. However, I will try my best to be the best house captain the house has had by building upon integration between the years and with our sister house: Fireback. Furthermore, my role as house captain is made more pivotal by the fact that I am the house captain of a boarding house, not a normal day student house. This means I have to be there for my Eagle brothers in and outside of school.

However, I truly believe I can do this. If I stay organised and motivated I believe I can direct our house to another house cup win and a better environment for the Eagle brotherhood to flourish in.

Service + Activity - JIS Colour Run

I volunteered myself as a helper at the annual JIS colour run in 2019.

The colour run is an event held all over the world. It is used to promote fitness, have fun, raise for charity, you name it! My specific job in the colour run was to throw (or spray) the coloured powders on the runners. This year there were close to 500 runners to 'colour in’! The runners can choose between doing 1km, 2km or 5km.

To participate in the event, one had to wear glasses and be willing to be sprayed down with the powder which is actually pretty difficult to remove from one’s clothes😂.

Even though the event was an overall enjoyable experience, there were a few difficulties which we had to overcome. First, at the beginning of the run it was likely to be cancelled as thick dark grey clouds were forming literally 5 minutes before the run was meant to begin. Because of this, we had ti quickly move all our bags, powder and equipment into the school to protect them from potentially getting wet. However, by sheer luck, at the starting time of the run, the clouds somehow quickly dissipated. This allowed us to bring everything back outside and also meant that the run was not going to be cancelled!

Another difficulty that we encountered was that some runners really were not keen on getting sprayed by sticky coloured powder. Some literally shouted from afar that they did not want to get sprayed. So, to fix this problem, using the powder we split the road into two halves. The half away from us being the spray-free zone. Consequently, we received significantly fewer complaints.

Overall, overcoming the challenges and the company of my close friends made the event extremely worthwhile and I would definitely do it again next year!🔥

Activity - House Basketball

As you can obviously see from the picture, I am not the tallest sportsman out there! From the beginning this was always a problem for me when playing basketball. Basketball is unfortunately a sport where height brings an athletic andvantage. So, I lacked that advantage and had to compensate in other areas like technicality, game IQ, stamina and agility. Luckily, I can say that I am pretty fit; atleast fit enough to last a baskeball game with good effort. Furthermore, my experience in basketball aids me in making the right decisions in games i.e. passing, shooting, positioning, etc.

However, basketball is obviously a team sport. So, even though personal skills matter, it is really the teamwork that decides the game. However, in our team’s case, I can gladly say that our team is like one unit since we all sleep under the same roof as boarders. Overall, this helped us get to an overall 3rd position in the competition.

Activity + Creative - TOK Temburong Trip

For our AOK - Indigenous knowledge systems, our class had a weekend trip to Temburong to live a few days with the Iban tribe.

The trip was a short bus ride to the muara port where we took an hour boat ride to Temburong. Once we arrived at the Temburong jetty, we had another half hour bus ride to the camp. At the camp, we were assigned our tents and chose our tent mates. After putting our stuff down and a quick bite to eat, we went straight for a 3 hour walk in the jungle. The whole walk, from beginning to end, was really interesting. This was because our guide, a local tribe member, knew everything there was to know about the jungle. he showed is numerous animals, useful plants, fun games, etc. It was really intriguing!

The tribe made us take part in indigenous activity including blowpiping, painting, fishing, and storytelling. Furthermore, they also taught us a local cooking method which is cooking marinated chicken in bamboo sticks over fire. Turns out it leaves the chicken nice and tender!

However, the highlight of the trip was the morning walk to catch the sunrise live in action. To start the day, we had to wake up at 4am! It was ridicukously hard for me to wake up because I felt dead. I could barely sleep because to my surprise, I felt cold during the night! To stay warm, I wrapped myself in my towel and balled up. Furthermore, I was sleeping using only a mat. So, I constantly felt like my back was broken. However, a nice morning stretch session from my tent mate Isaac helped fix my abnormally old body. Though, in the end the pain was completely worth it because watching the sun open its eye from behind the cloud covered hills was absolutely picturesque.

Overall, even though I am not used to spending more than a few hours in the jungle, the trip helped build my resilience, especially in the jungle walks. In addition, it help expand my international mindedness by being more aware of the cultures around me. Now I can say that I truly respect the Iban way of life.

Service - JIS School Aims Video - 12/12/18

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97pM8AgIBsQ (<- the video link)

Me and some of my friends were invited by Adam from y13 (main videographer for JIS) to participate in the new video for JIS’ new updated school aims. Adam makes most of the school videos and when you watch them you will be truly stunned by his cinematographic skills as they are truly out of this world.

When we were first instructed by him what to do for the video it sounded a bit weird because we could not imagine how the scenes would piece together. So seeing the final cut was something breathtaking as I thought that such cinematography was only possible in movies from big Hollywood franchises. The video was so good that it made it onto the JIS youtube page for everyone to see.

Overall, filming the video in order to represent JIS was a great honour as now every time a newcomer sees the video he will see me; an African and Dutch kid living in harmony with all other kinds of races in Brunei’s sanctuary. Thus, highlighting JIS’ integrity and international-mindedness.

Activity + Service - Copa de Jerudong - Term 1

Throughout the whole of term 1, every Tuesday from 3:15pm to 4:45pm, Copa de Jerudong; the fiercest inter-house competition in JIS, would take place. Copa de Jerudong, ironically named after Copa America, is a 7-a-side league format tournament where each house plays two 20 minute matches every Tuesday against different houses to gain points; a win = 3 points, a draw = 1 point and a loss = 0 points. Copa de Jerudong would often be the highlight of my week as I love football. To win the tournament, one must finish in the top 4 of the table by the end of the regular season. Then, the top 4 play the Champions League format where there are semi-finals and finals and the bottom four do the same but it is funnily called the Europa League.

Eagle has always excelled when it came to house sports as we were always full of athletes. Consequently, the expectations on the field were often high compared to other houses. Throughout the competition we often breezed through opponents. However, one opponent that we always had difficulty with was Swift house who had a strong set of players too. One major setback was that throughout the season we lost once and drew once to them. That one game was the only game we lost so realising we had to play them in the finals was nerve-wracking. However, in the final, due to our star player Riley we were able to pull through with a magnificent goal from him and solid defence from the others. The picture you can see of our team was actually right before the finals so you can imagine what is going though our heads at that moment. Now, winning the finals did not win us any house points or trophies. However, we righteously claimed back our title as footballing champions of JIS as the year before it was Swift who won Copa de Jerudong.

Even though football is very much a team game, I faced many of my own struggles throughout the season. For example, I would always feel very nervous at the beginning of matches which would often translate into sloppy starts. My role was to be the playmaker so I could not afford to mess up as I have to convert the defence into offence. However, once the match was underway I would loosen up and relax; forgetting about everything around me thus letting me play my game. Sadly, I was not able to overcome this nervousness. Though, one benefit it did give me was that I would get bursts of adrenaline which would prevent me from getting too tired during matches. This was proven useful as. even though I was the playmaker, I was the seventh highest goal scorer in the competition with 5 goals to my name as shown on the spreadsheet (do not mind the misspelled name.)

Activity - “It’s A Knockout” - 04/09/18

This year I participated in the annual “It’s A Knockout” competition hosted by Osprey representing Eagle (of course). The competition consists of fun yet challenging activities like the sack race, three-legged race, and what I did: the egg and spoon race and many more activities. The point is to finish the course the fastest out of the four boarding houses. To make the competition fair each activity is split into middle years and upper years contenders. The winner of the competition is decided through whoever gets the most most which they attain through their placing in the different activities and categories.

Initially, I was very nervous and shy to do the egg and spoon race. This was firstly because the school year had just started and so I was scared that I would be judged by anyone; a common teenage problem I have to say. However, seeing everyone laugh with each other when someone failed or cheer their friends on inspired me to care less and just have fun. Besides, why would I care what the people I do not know think of me? Consequently, my friends (Eric, Riley and Derrick) and I enjoyed ourselves very much throughout the competition and “It’s A Knockout” will remain as a vivid memory in the back of my mind.

Creative + Service - THIMUN Singapore - 20 nov. -> 23 nov.

JIS was invited to participate in the annual student-led THIMUN conference in Singapore. Consequently, JIS had to make a selection of their best debaters in order to make the cut as schools all the way from Switzerland sent their best student to participate. This meant that competition would be at a high standard. However, unlike FOBISIA, UN conference do not have ‘winners’. We simply integrate and discuss resolutions to major world problems just like the real thing; using the same format and language, something difficult to learn!

The training process started through my weekly 2 hour participation in the MUN CCA held at JIS by previous ‘veterans’. There, I learnt the general structure of the debate and the syntax used for speech. However, it did not prepare me enough for what was to come. I never felt too prepared and was very intimidated when I arrived and saw other smart-looking people at the conference.

However, when I was assigned people to sit with; my stress and nervousness quickly disappeared after the realisation that this was the first year of THIMUN for many of my other ‘colleagues’ and that they had as little a clue of what happens next as I did. One of the best friends I made outside of JIS at the conference was Alex; a Chinese kid who lives in Shanghai (see third pic.). However, as time progressed, we quickly got used to the structure of debate.

Another big problem was the fact that in my GA, the GA concerning health and the youth, there were around 150-200 people participating! Consequently, proposing amendments/strikes/new clauses to the resolution was very scary to do in front of all those people. What made it worse was that more experienced delegates sounded so smart that it demotivated me. However, the realisation that I did not have much to lose as many were in the same position made me gather courage and submit an amendment. Furthermore, if it was not for the head chair: Alice Jeong encouraging me I would have probably not gone up to speak.

In the end, the trip was CERTAINLY worth it and I can confidently say that I genuinely miss all the people I met and I really am in a hurry to meet them again next year. Furthermore, the conference helped me open my eyes to the real world as Brunei’s bubble has a way of making people naive to the rest of the world. Learning about these world problems helped me open my mind and realise that I need to be more conscious of what happens around me as this awareness might prove detrimental to my future. Finally, it was a great honour to represent JIS in the conference and I sure tried to make JIS look as good as possible. Now, with all the things I have learnt from this conference, I will make JIS look even better next year!

07/10/2018 - Football Funday - Activity

On the 7th of October 2018, my team and I set out to compete in the annual Football Funday hosted by my school: Jerudong International School. This 7-a-side football competition is widely known across the Jerudong and Bandar area so many outside teams compete as well as our own JIS squads. We make our own teams and shirts as it is my team’s annual tradition to come up with different shirts. We collectively make the shirts and get them fabricated at Aewon.

This year, we had to recruit many different players than usual as the OG’s have left Brunei; one of the downsides of being in an international school😭. However, this does not mean that the others are not as good. With this year’s squad we managed to get 3rd in the whole competition out of 20 teams; a remarkable achievement nonetheless. The day itself was very hot and sunny with no sight of a single cloud meaning that energy was easy to be wasted. So, drinking a lot of water was key to playing well. Consequently, we made sure that each player brought two 1.5L bottles to the competition. Furthermore, for each of us it was the first time playing in the U19 category; meaning that our opponents were bigger, stronger and smarter. This as a result lead to us having to improve our game to a much higher level. Though, due to our results, I know now not to concentrate on my opponent’s age but their quality of play.

Personally, my role in the squad was playmaker. In 7-a-side matches it is difficult to maintain forms so players are given roles rather than positions. Consequently, I was responsible for assisting many of our goals to our team mates Riley and Derrick who were our major goal scorers. However, this is not to say that I did not score any. Throughout the competition, I managed to score 3 goals; an achievement I am proud of as it shows that I was able to play outside of my role as well as fulfil it.

On the other hand, the competition did not go perfectly. Firstly, I was very nervous at the beginning of the tournament as everyone looked intimidating. Especially as we played our first match against Brunei’s national team who managed to beat us 3-0! However, after that match, I started to loosen up and not give the ball away too easily due to stress and pressure. I was able to relax and realise that I am playing for myself and that it is just a game. Consequently, I stepped up to my part to help carry my team to 3rd!

Creative - 25/10/2018 - House Debating

At JIS, our houses organise different competitions for us to win points with to contribute to the house cup. At the beginning of this academic year I contributed to our joint-house debating team for the first round. Each house debates with their sister house which for my house (Eagle) is Fireback. So, together with my partner Aditi, we set out to make a strong debate against the abolishment of nuclear power. With good preparation and strong public speaking skills, we were able to win the judge’s votes. In addition, I was voted best debater of the debate! Our strengths were our strong communication and preparation which helped us make convincing points. However, one of our weaknesses according to the judges was the fact that we did not address the judges before speaking! Overall, winning the first round for my house was a great experience!👌 What further amplified our success was the fact that we went on to win the house debating finals!

#proud #fireeagle

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