DownSideUp = Service

Before the term break, we have been given a list of organizations that we might be able to contact and choose an organization that we are interested in helping the organization. So, during the term break, I chose an organization called 'DownsideUp' because I have a friend that used to help the organization but now she has gone back to Malaysia. I have sent them an email asking what I can do as a volunteer at the organization and also I ask for some details about the organization. I really hope that I can help them as best as I can.This is what the fundraising manager answered to me.

Dear Aina,

Thank you so much for your initiative! Who did you find info about Downside Up? 

We do need volunteer help as well as additional funding for Early Intervention programs.

Volunteers usually help us around the office: preparing fundraising activities, mailing packages et.c.

Right now we have 2816 children with Down Syndrome in our programs, and their number is constantly increasing. We have shourtage of 7 mln rubles (around 165 000 euro) in our 2011 budget and only 2 months ahead of us to attract new donations. So we will be grateful for your fundraising ideas and donations!

Are you in Moscow right now? We can arrange a meeting at Downside Up premises. 

Best regards,

Ksenya Chernyavskaya,

Fundraising manager

Weather Club

Weather Club has being held at BIS for a long time by Mr. O'Connor. I have done it before when I was in Year 11 and it was actually fun. We have to take readings every 24-hour and we do it at 11am everyday. But not everybody have to take readings everyday because we have been divided into groups and in one group we either have 2 people or 3 people and I'm in a group of 3 with Nasha and Yein. We will have to take readings once every 3 weeks. We are doing the Weather Club because we want to know whether global warming is happening or not by looking at the difference between the average temperature and the actual temperature throughout the year. I really hope that we have the accurate results everyday and we are going to be able to know whether global warming is happening or not. 

The CAS learning outcomes that I achieved by participating in the club are :

• I worked collaboratively with others as I'm taking readings with Nasha and Yein while Nasha and Yein take the readings and I write them in the Weather Club book
• I'm going to show perseverance and commitment in this activity as we do it every once every three weeks
• I engaged with issues of global importance as we are taking readings which can be used to study the climate change throughout the year

Children + Homework

During the term break, I decided to make a free tuition for the small kids. I called all the parents from the Malaysian Embassy and told them the plan. I told them that I will do it on Wednesday, 19th October. I told them that I want to help the kids do their homework, not by doing the homework for them but helping them answer the questions that they are not good at.

So, on Wednesday, 7 kids came to my house with all the homework that they had including maths, science, english, and more. I tried to help them as the best as I can, and when I really didn't know how to do it, I would ask my brother to help as well. It was actually really hard for me to help all of them but at the same time and I had a lot of fun with them. I also learned some things that I never knew before in science, which was kind of embarrassing actually but at least I learned something. 

After helping them with the homework, I gave them chocolate cookies which I made the night before especially for them. When we were waiting for the parents to pick them up, we played a Malaysian game called "Congkak". They made a lot of noise by playing this games, some of them were cheating and if someone realized they started to shout at me and I would just disqualified the kid and let others play. 

I really had a lot of fun by helping and playing with them. They also showed a lot of enthusiasm with doing their homework. I hope that I will have the time and opportunity to do this again with them. 

The CAS learning outcomes that I achieved during this activity are :

• I planned and initiated activities as I was the one who planned this activity and I think I did a good job by helping the kids.
• I considered the ethical implications of my actions as I told all the parents about this activity.

International Day

On Friday, 14th October, we had our International Day like we always have over the past years. It was a lot of fun. Since all of the IB students had to make an activity, Nasha and I decided to to a Southeast Asian Game which is called 'Sepak Takraw' and if we want to do it we would have to do it outside. However, the weather was not really good for us to play the sport outside. Then, we planned another activity that we could do inside which we called it 'Musical Chair Quiz'.

Basically, we play the musical chair like we usually do, then the last person to sit down and the person that doesn't get any sit, we ask them the capital city of a country, and the person who gets it first will get the sit, of course. After that, I asked them whether they enjoyed the activity or not and I was very happy that they said yes and they wanted to do it again but we didn't have time. 

After we have finished with all the activities, we had our lunch with all the dishes from every countries. I brought the dessert that I just learned and made it the day before which called 'Apam Polka-Dot'. I didn't eat a lot during that day because I didn't have my appetite eventhough every single dishes were absolutely delicious.

In the end, we had our Cultural Show like we always did every year during International Day. And again, I performed with my brother and another Malaysian girl which I played the guitar and the other two sang. I was really nervous at that time, since I am still a beginner at playing the guitar, but just when I started to strum the guitar, my nervous part was gone which was great.


The CAS learning outcomes that I achieved during this event are :

• I undertaken new challenges as we were asked to plan an interesting activity for the kids.
• I planned and initiated activities since Nasha and I came out with plan by ourselves that will make the kids like our activity and also learned something from it.
• I worked collaboratively with others when we were doing the activity, Nasha played the music and I asked the questions.
• I developed new skills as I was learning how to play the guitar for the song that i chose to perform with my brother and the other girl.

Apam Polka-Dot = Delicioso

On Thursday, 13th October, I decided to learn and try to make Apam Polka-Dot, it is one of the best desserts that we have in Malaysia. I decided to make this dessert because my mum always does it if we have a special dinner or if we want to give something to our neighbours and when my mum does it I always eat a lot of them since they look so small, cute and delicious. I just can't resist them. 

 

First, I find the recipe using the internet, which actually were not very much. Then I asked my mum how to mix them, and I kept asking questions to my mum all the time. It helps a lot. That's what we call learning. However, even I kept questioning my mum, it took me a long time to make this apam because it is complicated especially when I had to put it in the cups and make the dots. The other thing that was kind of hard for me as well was to divide the mixture into two and to make the division equal because we need to have two colours or more to make this apam. I only had two colours because if I had more, it would have been even more complicated for me. But maybe next time I would do it with more colours which is going to be more colourful. 

The CAS learning outcomes that I achieved by preparing this are :

• I increased my awareness of my own strengths and areas for growth because I have never known that I could do this dessert since when I looked at my mum when she was doing it before, it looked very complicated. 
• I undertaken new challenges when I was doing the dots since you cannot press the syringe too hard or it won't be a dot.
• I planned and initiated activities since I searched for the recipe, went looking for the ingredients and made this dessert.
• I developed new skills as I was doing the dots because in the beginning of it my dots weren't accurate and they weren't even dots and I improved by doing it more and more.