FOBISSEA - 20 November 2010 - 10 hours

So today was athletics in the morning and swimming in the evening, for swimming I was one of the people doing track events, so all the running stuff. We were all designated a place and I chose first place. We had to pay close attention to what happening and then make sure then once we knew who got the position we had we had to make sure they sat down on their place chairs. It all sounds easy and most of it was except the part when you took the people to the chairs at the end of the race the 1st place people would be celebrating and hugging people and everything and I mean that’s understandable but then when they started going somewhere else and you were trying to tell them “can you please come this way?” it was quite crazy.

For swimming there were more people there than the teachers needed and in the end I was sat on the side of the pool with Amalina and another teacher watching the lightning warning machine, throughout the entire night there was lightning quite far away which wasn’t a big threat but then around half way through at 845 or so it started to rain and then the lightning machine said that lighting was close by so everyone had to get out of the pool. Then it started pouring so everyone had to get up to the bleachers. The rest of the swimming was cancelled.

• increased their awareness of their own strengths and areas for growth

• undertaken new challenges

• worked collaboratively with others




FOBISSEA - 21 November 2010 - 5 hours

This morning was football, I was assigned as a linesman, I’d never been a linesman before so I wasn’t really sure other than the way I point the flag when the ball goes out I was quite clueless but as the day went on I noticed the ref didn’t really pay attention to me, well he did with outs so I really had to pay attention. This was actually quite difficult because sometimes I’d be refereeing a game when I wanted to watch the other so when the ball went out I always snuck a peak at how the other game was going. It wasn’t hard to stay unbiased but there were times at the beginning where I made mistakes by pointing the wrong way because I got confused but after a while I got used to it. Along with refereeing between games or mainly after a game there were times I’d be busy consoling my friends on the football team, there were 2 girls in the ISB team that are good friends of mine and they were both injured so it was quite a hard day for them. Another thing is because I had no shoes and the field was very muddy by the end of the day my legs were covered in mud but honestly it felt so good though, the food seeping through my feet was such a good feeling for some reason.

• increased their awareness of their own strengths and areas for growth

• undertaken new challenges

• worked collaboratively with others

• developed new skills




INTERNATIONAL DAY - … November 2010 - … hours





Football (Assistant) - 11 Jan 2011 - 1.5 hours

This term, because football is focused of the Under 13 team, instead of playing I'm helping Ms. Jancox coach the girls instead. It wasn't new to me since I've been coaching Middle-school girls football for the past 2 years in Japan. Since this was my first week I didn't plan any of the drills or anything but i basically just helped Ms. Hancox with the drills she planned. It was a more fitness orientated practice though so I was able to work on my fitness which was not very good at all.


• increased their awareness of their own strengths and areas for growth

• worked collaboratively with others





Football (Assistant) - 18 Jan 2011 - 1.5 hours

This I organised the drills and I focused on passing drills. I'd never actually thought up drills before so i basically just used drills that I used to have to do when I played. It was a lot more difficult teaching the girls here how to kick, they messed around a lot and some really did not have basic ball handling skills. I wish the girls would just try a bit harder to improve their ball skills, some of them are really good and some have potential. I want to try and get them to focus a bit more so they improve. Ms. Hanco and I were talking about it and thought next week we should continue with the ball handling and just keep doing the same thing trying to get them to develop those skills.


• increased their awareness of their own strengths and areas for growth

• worked collaboratively with others




Football (Assistant) - 1 Feb 2011 - 1.5 hours

This week we we basically continued the ball skills but I changed some things around a little bit. I wanted the girls to be able to lift the ball but then whenever they lifted it to pass it never got to the person or it didn't get off the ground so I thought the best way to fix this was everyone would take turns lifting the ball, not to anyone just lift it up and there would be some people to collect those balls. Once they could life the balls up then then transition to the next level with a partner that could lift as well. With that they'd be able to concentrate solely on lifting first then once they had the hang of that they would learn to direct that kick to a specific person.

• increased their awareness of their own strengths and areas for growth

• undertaken new challenges

• worked collaboratively with others

JERUDONG INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL FOOTBALL FUNDAY - 5 hours

7 November 2010 – 5 hours

JIS Football Funday was a great experience for me and I think it really tested my teaching and organizational abilities. I was in charge of the Under 13’s teams, that meant that I had to make sure that the team stuck together, and that I everyone was ready to play at the start of the match because if we were late it would be an automatic loss. Generally I’m not very organized so when I was told that I was responsible for all this I was quite nervous. Previously I have had experience in coaching a young girl’s football team, I have attended practices for middle school girls for the past two years in my school in Japan but I’d never been in charge of them during a competition without the help of a teacher. The starting point was the hardest part because I had to calm the girls down and figure out how to organize the team during a game. Since I have played with most of the girls I know what positions they play but I was unsure which were the stronger players because when they practice most of them still just mess about. The team was very active so it was quite hard to keep them calm so that they did not waste their energy between matches. I was able to play each of the players and but as the group stages progressed I played the stronger player more often for longer time periods, I felt bad about that some of the girls didn’t get to play as much in the last few games but then it was either risk the weaker players making a mistake and losing or keep the stronger players on and play the weaker players when the team got ahead. Normally this has been the method that I have played with during sports competitions and though some of the girls may have wanted to played more I made sure to play them in the games against the weaker teams. When it comes to sports I get angry and frustrate quite easily but during the games I was able to stay calm and organize the players without getting worked up, this may be due to the fact that my team was a good team and I could see they were trying their best so there was no need to push them any harder. At the end of the day three teams (mine being one of them) were tied and another was an Under 15 team that should not have been in the competition, the officials decided on a final between the under 15 team and the other team, we felt that this was unfair and since the under 15 were not going to win a trophy no matter what the final was then played between us and another team. We won the final and came first. I thought the girls did really well.

• increased their awareness of their own strengths and areas for growth

• undertaken new challenges

• worked collaboratively with others

• developed new skills

PUSAT EHSAN CHARITY BAZAAR - 7 hours

2 October 2010 - 7 hours

Before the Pusat Ehsan Bazaar I was looking forward to helping people out but all I did for the day was stand behind a drink stand selling drinks, I was really bored but then I felt that it was for a good cause so it was important that I stayed there helping. Even though I didn’t do much in the sense of selling drinks I was able to talk to the ladies that I was working with and I talked to them about how Pusat Ehsan. Pusat Ehsan is a charity for the disabled and some of the lady’s I was working with were people from Pusat Ehsan, I felt really bad that they could live the way they did. Generally when I see disabled people I feel really sad because I can’t imagine how tough their life would have been and I, personally, would not know how to handle living with those disabilities myself. The fact that there are so many disabled people in the world that no one helps truly appalls me. During the day, because the ladies did not speak very good English, I had the chance to practice my Bahasa Malayu. At the end of the day we just helped pack everything up and we went to receive our certificates for helping out.

• increased their awareness of their own strengths and areas for growth

• worked collaboratively with others

• engaged with issues of global importance

Service - Mentoring - 1hours 20mins

1 September 2010 - 10 minutes

I met my mentee for the first time today, her name is Trudy, she’s just moved here from England and she’s having a hard time settling in. She seems a bit shy; I guess that’s probably because she has to talk to a “big kid” or something like that. I remember when I was in year 7 and the IB students looked all big and cool. I was trying to form a foundation to the relationship today, well something like that, I wanted her to feel comfortable around me, I didn’t want her to feel intimidated or anything like that so were just talking about everyday stuff, our interest, what we liked; sports, music, that kind of stuff, I want her to see me as a friend not some teacher or anything. It was already obvious at this point that she missed England but before we got into the topic it was time to get to class.

• increased their awareness of their own strengths and areas for growth

• undertaken new challenges

• worked collaboratively with others

8 September 2010 - 10 minutes

Trudy was really upset today, I think she had a bad start to the day and that just made her feel worse. She really misses England and the rest of her family. She’s a boarder here, her mum lives really far and she only get to see her mum once a week, she really doesn’t like boarding and she dislikes Brunei in general, I really want to help her. I really get where she’s coming from though, I felt the exact same way when I was in Japan, I absolutely hated it, and after three years the only solution I could find was leave but there has to be something else, I felt so helpless I mean she’s probably hoping that I can somehow help her and I just don’t know Brunei well enough to help her out. All I can do is be there for her during the mentor sessions and I told her that if she ever needs to talk to me I’ll be in the IB Work Room.

• increased their awareness of their own strengths and areas for growth

• undertaken new challenges

• worked collaboratively with others

15 September 2010 - 10 minutes

Today was a much better day, she seemed happier but she was still upset, I thought maybe she should try talk to her mum about it, because her mum’s the only family she has here and I think she really misses her mum but she misses her dad as well. She had to settle back into England not too long ago and get used to living with her dad and as soon as she got used to it and she started liking it she was taken away from that, that’s probably the hardest thing because you keep thinking of how much better everything is back home. For someone in year 7 there isn’t that much to do in Brunei especially if you’re a boarder, from what my friends have said in year 7 everyone just went to each other’s house or they went to the pool but that would be during the weekend and that’s when she’s with her mum.  I’m thinking of asking around on what people can do in boarding, because even though there are things to do it seems that they’re normally occupied so I don’t really know. I think it would be good for her to talk to her mum, since she’s not living with her, her mum wouldn’t really know what’s going on so if she spoke with her mu maybe that’ll help.

• increased their awareness of their own strengths and areas for growth

• worked collaboratively with others

22 September 2010 - 10 minutes

We had quite a short session today we just chatted about little things; Trudy always seems a little glum whenever I talk to her but maybe it’s because it’s early in the morning and most people are always less active in the morning. She told me that she spoke to her mum more about Brunei and the UK I’m really glad about that, she seems to talk her mum a lot especially about her problems and that’s something I think is really great, especially for someone like me because I rarely talk to my parents or anyone about my problems and sometimes telling someone can be really helpful. I hope her and her mum can come up with a situation to her dilemma because no matter how much I listen to her I can’t really change anything about her situation but her mum will be able to decide what she believes will be best for her, personally I think that if Trudy stayed in Brunei she would grow to like it more as she got older.

• increased their awareness of their own strengths and areas for growth

• worked collaboratively with others

29 September 2010 - 10 minutes

Trudy seems to really want to leave Brunei, she seems to really dislike it and I feel sad about that. Trudy is very persistent in trying to convince her mum to let her go back to England and this reminds me of myself a few years ago when I wanted to leave Japan it has taken me a long time to realize that even though I thoroughly did not enjoy Japan it was still a good experience. I want to try and get her to realize that there are always good and bad things about places and even though (for her) Brunei is horrid and boring that there can always be positives in a situation I just can’t find something that would make things better for her. She seems to be a popular girl with numerous friends but she doesn’t enjoy herself here and she’s enjoying herself more than she was at the start of the year but she constantly compares Brunei to the UK, I really want to try to get her to understand that the UK is obviously a very different place but even though Brunei might not have the most entertaining things there are very nice people in Brunei and that is hard to find in the world today.

• increased their awareness of their own strengths and areas for growth

• worked collaboratively with others

3 November 2010- 10 minutes

Today Trudy told me that she was leaving in December. When I heard this I was actually quite sad, I mean I’m not very close to her or anything but I just thought that I would have liked to get to know her better. Another reason is that I thought it might have been good for her to at least try stay here longer, give Brunei a chance at least but I’m happy for her. For the first time since I’ve started talking to her did she actually seemed genuinely happy, she was happy to talk about activities and school and she even wanted to know about how school was for me and everything so it’s quite different from how she’s been for the past month or so.

• increased their awareness of their own strengths and areas for growth

• worked collaboratively with others

10 November 2010- 10 minutes

A few weeks ago I was given a sheet to fill out with information about Trudy and I finally remembered to bring it to school this morning. We spent the morning just talking about her hobbies, family all that stuff. I knew some of the stuff she told me already since we talked about some of the stuff over the past few months but I still learnt some new stuff.

• increased their awareness of their own strengths and areas for growth

• worked collaboratively with others

24 November 2010- 10 minutes

Today was an interesting day, Trudy’s moved places in class and she’s sat next to some girls her age that I know quite well. They’re very nice and Trudy seems to get along with them quite well, she was a lot happier and I’m glad she’s has good friends here, I still feel it’s a shame she’s leaving so soon but I guess it’s good that she’s happy with moving and everything.

• increased their awareness of their own strengths and areas for growth

• worked collaboratively with others

1 December 2010- 10 minutes

It’s the last week of school! There is a new girl in class who has been assigned to one of the new boys in our year but what today we had me, Trudy, the new guy and the new girl in year 7 and basically what will happen is, if there is a new boy in year 7 next year then the girl will be assigned to me and the new guy in our year will get the new boy. I’m not very good with names so I don’t remember their names, I’ll be sure to learn them soon… hopefully.

• increased their awareness of their own strengths and areas for growth

• worked collaboratively with others

5 January 2011- 10 minutes
As Trudie left at the end of last year, today I was introduces to two new girls who would be my new mentees. They were very shy and would now speak very much which is quite different to Trudie who was quite easy to talk to so I did not get to find out much about them. I think this will be much more challenging. Also the girl that I thought I would be mentoring this term is not one of the girls I am mentoring so I am quite confused.

12 January 2011- 10 minutes
Well this morning I was looking for the girls I met the previous week and I realised I did not know which class they were in, nor did I remember what their names were. I felt awful as it is very typical of me to forget things as well as forget names. Luckily in the end I found my mentee and she was a very nice Nepalese girl in the boarding house. Her name is Nilima, I really must make an effort to remember that.

19 January 2011- 10 minutes
I just started boarding this week so I will get to see Nilima more than once a week and hopefully talk to her as well. I was just talking to her about if she liked the boarding house much, who here friends are and other stuff.
26 January 2011- 10 minutes
Today we spoke about where Nilima used to live, she has lived in a lot of countries and even though she prefers those other countries she's settled into Brunei ok. She doesn't really like it but it's rare for many people to like Brunei I guess especially in year 7 where there isn't a lot to do.


2 February 2011- 10 minutes
Since tomorrow is the Chinese New Year holiday I was asking Nilima about what she was planing to do, from what she has told me she will be in Seria the whole time with a her family, she seems quite happy about this.
9 February 2011- 10 minutes
Nilima and I just caught up and talked about our holidays, I told her what I did and she told me what she did. She spent most of her time in Seria with her family, and then we were talking about how it was in the boarding house with her friends and since we are sat next to her friends the whole group of us just started to talk.

16 February 2011- 10 minutes

This week we joined Joann and Fon, since they are mentoring Nilima's friends and we all just talked as a group. Joan was giving her girls boy advice and I found it quite funny, I told Nilima something different but it was fun to joining them this morning.

2 March 2011- 10 minutes

Similar to last week we were with Joann and Fon, Joann was starting on the boy advice again when we decided to stop her. It's quite surprising how the year 7 girls don't like any boys, when I was in year 7 I remember being quite fond of a few boys even though I'd never tell anyone I liked them, maybe they're secret like that as well I guess.

9 March 2011- 10 minutes

We didn't talk to Joan, Fon and their mentees today, we just talked about stuff in general; school, activities and stuff like that. She's a really nice girl and I like talking to her because we just talk about things that are happening nothing serious.

16 March 2011- 10 minutes

Since Friday is the last day of school before the holidays, we just talked about what our plans were over the holiday. I was asking her about her maths since she had it with her, she says she's ok with maths and doesn't find it too hard.  

13 April 2011- 10 minutes

20 April 2011- 10 minutes

27 April 2011- 10 minutes

4  May 2011- 10 minutes

Quiz Night - 3 hours

30 September 2010 - 3 hours 

Last night was a very hectic night for me, we were short in people so we all had to do a lot of extra jobs and to add to this, this was my first quiz night so I really did not have any clue what was going on. I arrived early to help set up everything; printing out the question sheets, sorting out the food and arranging the tables. Though printing out the sheets were easy it was difficult to arrange them because some sheets were printed out wrong and everything so we just had to go along with it since there was no time to re-print everything. When Quiz Night started I was in charge of minding the food stall, and then when everyone was at their seats I would collect the previous sheets then give out the next sheets then take those sheets up and mark all the question sheets and the cycle would continue. I found this the challenge my multi-tasking skills and also tested my memory, I’m normally a forgetful person so I really had to concentrate on everything I was doing so that I wouldn’t forget anything. I think the most challenging thing about the night was juggling all the things; I was not the only one that had numerous jobs to perform during the night. Everyone working that night had to work together because if we fell behind it would be hard to catch up with everything and we didn’t have many answer sheets so all the markers had to share a few sheet between them to mark all their sheets.

• increased their awareness of their own strengths and areas for growth

• undertaken new challenges

• worked collaboratively with others

ACTION - 41 hours

Football - 24 August 2010 - 1.5 hours

My first football practice wasn’t bad; all we did was some drills and then play a game. Throughout the practice I tried not to say too much, I only knew 2 or 3 of the people on the team so I didn’t want to say anything to some of my teammates that would offend them or anything. When we were playing a game tried to just play for fun, I tend to get very competitive and everyone seemed to just be getting used to playing. I was up front with Fleur, I hadn’t spoken to her before that game but by the end of practice we were playing together really well, it always takes a while to get used to other peoples playing styles especially since in Brunei everyone plays 7 a side games whereas I have been playing 11 a side.

• increased their awareness of their own strengths and areas for growth

• undertaken new challenges

• worked collaboratively with others

Football - 31 August 2010 - 1.5 hours

Today at practice there were even more new faces, it made it even more difficult for me to remember people’s names because there were so many people I didn’t know. Practice was pretty much like last week, I was quite annoyed though because I just couldn’t do anything today, my passing was horrible, and my shots were all off, I didn’t know what was happening but then there was one part where we got a corner and I crossed it in and someone passed it back to me, I don’t know but I just felt like taking a shot and it was amazing, from outside the left edge of the box the ball curved into the top right corner of the goal, that made me feel so much better because before that I made the same shot from the other side I just messed it up completely and I was getting really annoyed I couldn’t score. There were also times when the younger players didn’t know what they were doing and it really frustrated me but they were new so I couldn’t really blame them.

• increased their awareness of their own strengths and areas for growth

• worked collaboratively with others

Football - 7 September 2010 - 1.5 hours

We found out that we are playing an Australian team in two weeks time so we’re going to be playing full pitch for the next two weeks. I’m basically the only player on the team who has ever played full pitch because everyone here plays half pitch games because that’s what they play in FOBISSEA. The team has good players but it’s amazing that the majority of the team is really young. Today was like last week we had drills then we played a full pitch game instead of the usual half pitch.

• increased their awareness of their own strengths and areas for growth

• worked collaboratively with others

Football - 14 September 2010 - 1.5 hours

Practice was more serious today, our game is tomorrow so we just warmed up and then we started a game but it wasn’t a proper game it was more like a way what the coaches could tell us what we were doing wrong and what we were doing well. It was so we knew what to do in a game situation when something happened.

• increased their awareness of their own strengths and areas for growth

• worked collaboratively with others

Football (Game) - 15 September 2010 - 1.5 hours

The game today was absolutely horrible, I haven’t been thrashed that badly in a football game since Kinnick in 9^th grade (yr10), those girls were amazing, I mean oh my lord, once upon a time I wanted to play football professionally and after playing against those girls I would have no chance one thing alone they’re HUGE, like they’re well built and tall I felt like such a bloody weakling playing against them and I could even kick HALF as far as them and I’m pretty much the strongest kicker on the team here… They were really nice though and they played a clean game and they were far better than us there’s no question about it, they were fitter, faster, stronger, bigger, and better in every way. From this game I’ve learnt that I really need to get way more fit and start exercising more.

• increased their awareness of their own strengths and areas for growth

• worked collaboratively with others

Football - 21 September 2010 - 1.5 hours

Well this practice was a “you need to get fitter” practice, basically because of the game it showed how unfit we were. For the whole practice we were running and doing push-ups, jumping jacks and crunches. Oh my lord I felt I was about to die, I’m really unfit I always have been I’ve never been able to run for long since I was like 3 I’ve never been able to I can try as hard as I can but it just doesn’t work. I can sprint but I hope that this will help me because my fitness is a big setback for me in football I have the skills to do whatever basically but I don’t have the fitness to keep playing my best for the entire game.

• increased their awareness of their own strengths and areas for growth

• worked collaboratively with others

Football - 5 October 2010 - 1.5 hours

We’re continuing the fitness thing and I cannot honestly say it’s easier; the field is so hard to run on! I have really weak ankles and every step I take makes me feel like I’m going to twist my ankle. In a way having a bad field is good because then I learn how to be more careful when I run. Since last week we’ve started playing half pitch games again so that makes games easier. Before we started playing games we had some passing drills it was like a 3 vs. 2 thing and for every ball you got stolen off you by a defender you’d have to do 5 push-ups and I was one of the defenders and oh it felt so good to steal all the passes and tallying up the number of push-ups people had to do, I felt so evil. We did this a few times then we just played a game, I had a really good team today and it was so nice to play with good team-mates because the flow of the game is so much better, I don’t have to worry about the defence not being able to tackle their striker, or the strikers not being able to take a good enough shot to score.

• increased their awareness of their own strengths and areas for growth

• worked collaboratively with others

Football - 12 October 2010 - 1.5 hours

Practice started off with the usual warm up fitness thing, I thought I’d try run differently this week(on my toes) and it was really a lot easier but I could only run on my toes on the hard surface because the soft spots felt too scary for me. I actually do feel fitter and that it probably because I’m starting to run a half hour every other day and football is definitely helping as well. The Phuket football competition is coming up and since I’m not going I’m assigned to go with Ms. Hancox to help out the less experienced players, most of them hadn’t played football much before so they’d never basic football skills. It was quite a boring first half of practice for me because nothing we were doing was really that challenging I would have preferred to be helping out with the Phuket team but I’d probably be bored there doing nothing other than standing on the side lines saying/thinking what they should be doing.

• increased their awareness of their own strengths and areas for growth

• undertaken new challenges

• worked collaboratively with others

Football - 26 October 2010 - 1.5 hours

This practice was basically a repeat of last week but there were new students today, they were in Yr 7 and they were going to be playing in the under 13 on JIS football funday. They’re a very small team, in height and in the number of players, they’re not bad and they’re all very happy and energetic. One of the players aishya, she’s in Yr 8 and she’s this small little thing but she’s really good, she reminds me of a girl that used to play on the year below in my old school years ago, she has so much potential and I really want to see that develop.

• increased their awareness of their own strengths and areas for growth

• worked collaboratively with others

Football - 2 November 2010 - 1.5 hours

JIS Football Funday is this weekend so we were doing a few plays and stuff like that. We practiced throw in and how they would control the ball from a throw in and what they should do if they lost the ball and all that stuff. I didn’t really do a lot of playing I was just offering my “expertise” haha. I was just trying to help them and teach them what to do in that sort of situation. We had some defensive and offensive drills, they’re pretty good for an U13 team.

• increased their awareness of their own strengths and areas for growth

• worked collaboratively with others

Football – 16 November 2010 - 1.5 hours

This was the first practice for a while that I got to play with older people. FOBISSEA is this weekend so the team needed to be pretty serious during practice and play well. At first I was pretty serious but then I just got frustrated that everyone was just messing around so I just couldn’t be bothered so I just played for fun. They’re a really good team and I hope that during FOBISSEA they will play seriously because when they play well they are pretty amazing.

• increased their awareness of their own strengths and areas for growth

WALKATHON - … … 2010 - 3 hours??

Oh my god, waking up so early on a weekend should not be allowed, we got there 7 because we were told it would start at seven then we got there we waited for like 40 minutes and then stretched for 20 minutes then started walking, everyone was walking so slowly! And the walk was so short I was expecting a full on few hours of walking sweat-dripping walking but nothing I got bored walking with my friends and I just started walking ahead of everyone. I’m glad I participated since it was for a good cause and everything but I wish it was more active. It’s ok though we got ice cream at the end:].

• increased their awareness of their own strengths and areas for growth

Sports Day – 6 October 2010 - 3 hours

Today was not a good day, I was put in the 1500m race and I came last god I felt so pathetic I hated it, I didn’t even want to run but then being yellow house captain(ew yellow) it was basically an obligation since we didn’t have enough girls. After everything we did the only award I got was 2^nd in javelin and that really sucked, I mean for heats in the 100 m sprints I got 2^nd place but then my time wasn’t fast enough for me to place in the finals and jeez that was so sad, I felt really pathetic I mean for someone who used to be a sprinter it was really pathetic. All the other stuff wasn’t that big of a deal since I’ve never really done much else in athletics other than javelin and sprinting, I’ve always been horrible with jumps and that was basically all the other individual events we did.

• increased their awareness of their own strengths and areas for growth

• undertaken new challenges

• worked collaboratively with others

School Trip (Temburong) - 9 ~ 12 October 2010 - 12 hours

Temburong was the hardest three days of my life. The first day

• increased their awareness of their own strengths and areas for growth

• undertaken new challenges

• worked collaboratively with others

• developed new skills

Rugby - 17 Jan 2011 - 1.5 hours

I joined rugby expecting it to be touch rugby as that was what the club said but instead of touch it has been changed to tackle. I was the only girl playing and there was a lot of mud today. I haven't played rugby for about 3-4 years but getting back into wasn't hard, it didn't even feel like it had been that long since i last played. We did some drills where we had to tackle people and drop to the ground and everything, that was really weird for me since I'm one of those people that do not fall down, in any sport i play I always stay on my feet. That's why I wasn't good at volleyball because I would slide to get the ball unlike others. It was so weird voluntarily dropping to the ground and I did not want to be in the mud. I was the cleanest person out of everyone but that was partly because I would wipe the mud off me whenever I had the chance. At the end of the day though I basically gave up trying to stay clean, the field was in dreadful condition and as it had been raining earlier there was no way I was going to be able to stay clean. I found out I made player of the week, I was quite surprised because I wasn't as good as most of the guys but it was ok.

Rugby - 24 Jan 2011 - 1.5 hours

This practice was less muddy, we ran 2 laps around the field and did a lot of fitness work. Some of the less experienced boys were quite frustrating since they kept dropping the ball so everyone of us were punished. It's ok at least this will make me fitter. I was really surprised I could run 2 laps around the field non-stop normally I'm dying after two laps maybe all the sports I've been doing is paying off.

 

Basketball - 20 Jan 2011 - 1.5 hours

Today was the first time I'd played basketball in about a year, it wasn't a proper practice I was just helping out with the Under 13 team but while I was playing I was just thinking "Oh my lord, what am i doing?!" I love basketball but unlike football it's not as easy to get into, in football whatever team your in, the game is always pretty much the same, but in basketball you play differently dependent on your coach. When I first started playing in Japan it took me so long to adjust because they played so differently there luckily with my experience in Japan I'm a lot more adaptable with basketball. I was a lot more fit than I expected, I was trying to push myself but my shooting was still off. It was a fun practice and even though I felt kind of lost at some points I felt that for the first time back in the game I did alright.

• increased their awareness of their own strengths and areas for growth

• worked collaboratively with others

Basketball - 3 Feb 2011 - 2 hours

Practice was quite relaxing today, there were parts where I was getting kind of tired and times when I just got really frustrated because at the end I was playing with the younger girls to help them and they were just, yeh. This week was better than the other I was better at knowing where I was meant to be. It's cool how quickly things come back to you, even after not doing something for a long time. For example, we were practicing free throws and it's been soo long since I'd taken once but I remember my follow up and everything and I could still get my shots in. I guess the whoel muscle memory is actually true for normal people and not just proper athletes.

• increased their awareness of their own strengths and areas for growth
• worked collaboratively with others

• increased their awareness of their own strengths and areas for growth

• undertaken new challenges

• worked collaboratively with others