Reflection

Exactly one year ago, we had our first CAS experience in which we performed in front of the entire school. We has hand exercised and some of us did yoga postures as well. It's been an exuberant journey this year. In my opinion, we got an opportunity to visit every colour of the rainbow by being exposed to a versatile bunch of CAS experiences.
         I feel like a completely different person right now after being a part of different experiences including MUNing, food stall services, foreign exchange programs and fun activities like face painting as well. In fact, I think I've just discovered myself.
         This activity especially has been a special one for us since this whole program stands as a huge inspiration. We had the big opportunity to honour the first 45 scorer of our school. Being his schoolmates and his best friends, we marched around the field with more pride than ever. Most importantly, the words in his speech, "People say patience is a virtue, but I think impatience is a virtue" directly struck my mind. I learned that a simple way to reach your destiny is to be impatient to achieve your goals.
        This activity gave me the energy to begin working even harder to reach my goal. I honestly think listening to your own friend can inspire you more than any other speech from famous personalities. Saluting our Indian flag and the top scorers of the IB examination of November 2016 at the same time was a big fortune for the whole of our batch. Every second of the march past was a definitely moment to cherish!
        We learned how to work in coordination for the march past. This strengthened the bond that we the students of the DP batch 2016-2017 share since we helped each other come back in to coordination when one of us missed a step. This short journey will stand as one of my best memories forever!

Journal 15.5: Republic day

Today was the grand event. We celebrated republic day one day earlier since the 26th is a national holiday. As the chief guests entered the arena, each of us saluted Nishanth, who was the only candidate in India to score 45 in the November 2016 examinations, Mithin who got an extremely high score of 44, and their parents. Once they were escorted to their seats, the program began. The juniors hosted the program and the little kids performed patriotic dances and and sang patriotic songs. Mithin was called up forward to hoist the flag, after which we all saluted the Indian flag. Later, Nishanth was made to stand next to the flag and we performed the march past to salut him for his tremendous achievement, and also to carry the pride for this achievement as we all belong to the sam family : TIPS. Thankfully, the entire batch completed the march past without any noticeable mistakes. In fact, our trainers and teachers appreciated us for having done a perfect march past coordinatively with the band as well. Before the program came to an end, Nishanth gave a an inspiring speech. He said “impatience is a virtue” which actually struck a cord in my mind. He said that impatience is the key to learning. He also mentioned that the score he achieved was because of the shoulders he stood on, including his family, the entire teach faculty and his friends. I had goose bumps till the end of the speech. That’s how inspiring it was!

Journal 15.4: New friends!

We had guest from Micheal Jobs school. A band of girls came over to our school with the instruments required for the march past. The best part of today was how we mingled with them and did the march past together with the instruments. There was not much of a problem with coordination today because the drum beats were clearly heard. Also, they taught some other march past traditions like marching on spot 3 times before moving forward and marching 3 times of spot before ending the parade. Those small changes definitely nourished our practice session today because it looked more organized and in fact, way more formal. These girls were highly talented and actually seemed like they were trained for years to play the instruments while marching, even though they were the same age as all of us. Finally, we could see the difference between the last practice march past today and the very first march past we did. I personally felt proud of myself and the others as well for correcting all errors and marching without any major flaws  and with a lot of confidence.  Finally, before ending the practice session, we learned how to salute the guest when they enter the gallery for the republic day celebration.

Journal 15.3: Taking the lead

Since we were quite familiar with the march past, our trainer instructed us to try marching without the command “left,right,left”. Again, we started dashing into each other because of the opposite hand movements in continuous files. So we all started saying the command for ourselves to come back to track. Just like the previous days of practice, we marched continuously until all of us did it almost perfectly.

Journal 15.2: Getting better

We started practicing the actual forward march today. After a few rounds around the field, our trainer gave us specific positions in files and chose one commander for the group of boys and the group of girls. The boys were positioned behind the group of girls. Once the commander said, “IB DP Year 2 girls/boys, by the left, forward march!”, we began marching with our left foot and right arm in the front. There came the problem because we couldn’t coordinate with each other and most of us ended up dashing on to each other. So, our trainer helped us by repeating the command “left, right, left” in a specific tone and of course with a specific beat.

      Then, it seemed more organized and all of us maintained our positions in our respective files with improved coordination.  As we continued marching, our trainer prompted us to keep our head straight and up with pride. He also kept telling us to keep our arms as stiff as possible. All of us worked on those few things as we progressed.

Journal 15.1 : First day under the sun

     Today, we began practicing for the march past that we will be performing on republic day, the 26^th of January for the toppers of the 2016 IB november board examinations. It is going to be a grand way of honouring our own seniors for bringing pride to the entire student community and the faculty of our school.

    Of course, it was quite difficult to march for a couple of hours continuously under the scorching hot sun. We focused on marching on spot, today. Since it was the first time I learnt how to march in the formal and appropriate way, it was challenging to coordinate my arm movement with that of my legs. Either I marched too fast, or my arms would swung too slow. However, there was an improvement in the syncronization between both movements towards the final practice today.

    Needless to say, I did have some body pain after the practice, yet i felt quite energetic and confident deep inside. I felt the confidence because I was able to march with pride and without any hesitation, although I did make a few mistakes in the beginning.