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
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
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