final post

Hey everyone!
I miss summer school!!! Even though it has already been a week, I still think about the time I had in Melbourne everyday. I miss the people, the food and especially the fun I had there. Young Leader Summer School (YLSS) was a great experience! I can say that it is the best so far in my 15years. Over the two weeks, all of us grew to become a better leader and also a better person. This camp taught me many things.

I am not too self conscious now. Before, I always think how people will look at me but now, I am mostly being myself! :) I have also learnt to be more participative. When the organizers ask for volunteers to participate in games, I am more willing to volunteer myself. I know I will gain more experience and also have fun at the same time when participating. At the starting part of the trip, I volunteered mostly unwilling. For example, during the opening ceremony, the aborigines invited us to join them for the dance. After much persuasion from Ms Low and ms tan, we went up. It was definitely more enjoyable doing the dance than watching it from the side. So, we should volunteer ourselves at any time.

Also, from the karaoke night, I learnt that we need to do proper planning before carrying out the activity. My group screwed up our performance because there was a last minute change. For anything to succeed, we need good and detailed planning.

From interacting with my group, I have learnt to speak up more often. I voice out my comments. Although others might reject my ideas, but at least I know that my ideas are heard and that there will not be any regrets for not giving my opinion.

From Trivia night, I realized that the other campers from other countries are really good in their general knowledge. For example, one of the questions, they gave the first line of a storybook and asked us to name the title of the book. A girl from India got it as soon as she read the question. We need to really buck up on our general knowledge. We cannot just know things that we learn in school. There are many more things outside the world that we should find out. From this experience, I will try to read the papers everyday to gain more knowledge.

During team skilling, we were grouped into different groups again. I was with Germaine. There were many activities such as group dance, longest sentence formed and many more. My group had the lowest score all the way until the last activity. The last activity would decide the winner and I was very tensed when they were announcing the winner. My group won in the end!! Its like we were last and then suddenly, we won. That’s really amazing! We were all elated!

For the group presentation, we had to present individually- in front of the whole summer school. We were all nervous as we do not have much experience doing public speaking. But after presenting, I realized it’s not so scary after all. If not for this group presentation, I doubt I will have a chance to speak in front of so many people anytime soon.

After two weeks of fun and engaging activities, on the last night, my group was announced winner! We all felt accomplished and rewarded for the effort we have put in. It was all worth while. Although I am not very close to my group, I realized that we can all work very well together. Amazing race, group presentation, miniolympics. These were the activities that showed team spirit within my group. We were supportive towards each other and we never blame each other for anything. That’s the good thing about my group. Winning the best group award was really just a bonus.

This marks the end of summer school. I know it won’t be anytime soon till I experience something like this again. I wanna thank the teachers and all the others who went there with me. I had a time of my life!! :D


Signing off.