and thats a wrap

The end of my high school life is fast approaching and I will soon be proceeding with my degree, woohoo. That is after I sit for the rest of my IB exams in May, of course. If you know me well, you definitely know how excited I am to experience uni life, hehe. These two years back in KL have been quite tough I must say and it wasn't adapting to life here, I absolutely have no problem with that if I were to be honest. In fact, there is nowhere else I'd rather live in than KL (long term, settling down wise). This is where I've lived most of my life in anyways. But changing schools towards the end of your schooling days is not easy, and on top of that jumping straight into IB did not help smoothen the transition either and hence the stress level. 

One thing (and probably the only thing, oops) I'm really gonna miss about school though is my CAS (one of the IB requirements that is abbreviated from Creativity, Action and Service. The IB requires its candidates to engage in activities that covers each strand and on top of that, a CAS project that should be from the student's own initiative revolving around these 3 strands within the 18 month period of the diploma )project. I don't usually post anything school related, but this CAS project of mine ( along with a few schoolmates) has a special place in my heart so it deserves to be here because then I can look back at it whenever I want to and remember it forever. Our take on student initiative from being something I thought I was forced to do quickly became something I enjoyed and  became easily committed to. Basically, every week, for an hour, we gather a group of 8 bus monitors that were chosen by the school's busing office in a classroom (Shoutout to cikgu for letting us use her classroom!) and teach them English. In an international environment like this, being able to converse in English is very crucial. Not being able to do so may lead to some people having low self esteem and choosing to isolate themselves as a result, which is awful.

Oh before I forget, we call this project Behind The Scenes (BTS).

Based on the lesson plans we've made beforehand, we assist them in learning and exploring new aspects of the English language. Whether its verbs, present and past tense, or sentence building, at the end of the day, our goal is to build up their confidence in speaking the language. Bearing in mind, these ladies have been up working since very very early in the morning. My bus used to pick me up at 6:45am, just imagine what time they have to wake up for work! Making our lessons fun and enjoyable is thus very important. 

Of course, in everything you do, there are challenges you may have to face along the way. Personally, I've never had any difficulties with the language because I've been speaking it ever since I could remember, it's easily my first language. But some people may not have been given the same exposure, and hence the learning process may take up more time. Learning a new language is very tough. I've taken a few years of Arabic back in middle school, but can I speak the language? no. I'd stutter so much to even say a simple sentence.

I honestly have so much respect for these ladies. They're willing to spend an hour of their time weekly amidst their busy schedules to learn or further improvise their proficiency of the English language by trusting a group of amateur high school students they respectfully address as their"cikgu-cikgu kecil" to guide them. Every time they see me, or any of us anywhere in the school compound they'd say hi and acknowledge us as their "teachers" and I swear its so cute!! 

Sounds cheesy, but after a whole stressful week of school (let's be real, when is school ever not stressful) with workloads starting to mountain, tests back to back, I still have something to look forward to for each week. Our lessons are usually pretty chill, with everyone being able to clique with one another. There was actually a similar project started by a group of seniors 3 or 4 years ago, with the cleaning ladies instead of the bus monitors. Behind The Scenes, along allowing interactions between students and school employees brings realisation to me about how I have been taking everything that I have, specifically in this case education for granted. And what's the point of having knowledge if you don't share them with others?

We're currently 2 lessons away until our final session of the year, aka my last session ever. Honestly kinda bummed cause I really am going to miss it, but you gotta move on in life eventually amirite?