AWARE: should we beware it or not?

So the Singapore Goverment is trying to standardise sex education. I may be wrong but that is what I get from reading the article about AWARE this morning. One Principal disagreed with the programme because it went against his schools values.

I feel that there should be some guidelines but schools should be given the oppertunity to teach their students in any way they see fit. I am very very grateful I am in an all girls school because if I were not, I have no idea how I would sit through a sex ed class.

I am going to do more reasearch on AWARE and let everyone know about it and my views. Now, my thoughts are still a little foggy. If you have any infomation or would like to share your views on sex education, drop me a comment below or email me at cheyenne_phillips@hotmail.com

My Darling DRAMA MAMA juniors

Dear Diary,
I don’t believe it. After watching them work hard, shed the tears and sweat, they days of staying back extra late, the sleepless nights to finish home work and study for tests, my darling drama juniors received a sliver for their Singapore Youth Festival Competition(SYF)  in the Central Judging. With a standing ovation, the biggest round of applause ( according to the secondary ones) and the sliver award, my darling DRAMA MAMA juniors are ashamed. The moment my Katrina told me, I ran down faster than ever to find disappointed looks and broken hearts.As we made our way to the AVT where Ms Teo, Ms Tan, Mrs Koh, Mr Flanigin and Madam Nora, students peered at us as they made their way down to the hall. We were drama girls. We made ourselves known. Now, it was known that our SYF results were not to expectations. In the AVT, I was the only non-SYF member and I shared when Mrs Koh asked me to, my feels. I told everyone there how I cried when I didn’t get in, how much I was worried about them during their SYF practises. How much, if I was on stage, getting a standing ovation, no matter what part I played, I would be the happiest girl on earth. I cried with them. I was proud of them. They may have broken our chain of gold (on paper) but they didn’t break the chain of our success and entertainment and also the chain of pride I have for them in my heart. I believe the teachers and staff of SACSS would agree with me.

I wrote the above text during lessons because it was bugging me so much. 9:40 am. It was bugging me like crazy. I just had to get it off my chest. After school, I joined in a meeting between the SYF cast and the leaders. I was invited into listen and for support. Some were still upset but I believe we ended up getting everyone believe that we were proud of them. They did amazing. You know what? I won’t even try to describe how well they did! They entertained. They had fun. To me I don’t care about the silver. That standing ovation was the prize they should be crying about. They should be crying tears of joy.

Let me this way. 4 people said they were a silver while they might have been 200 people in the audience. 200 people gave them a standing ovation. Now, 200 people thought they were fantastic while 4 disagree.

You know what? Look at the numbers. I think they add up nicely.

Alot of nosie was made about the day of silence

On the 17th of April, students across 100 collages and universities in the United States participated in the day of Silence which was officially sponsored by the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network. They wore shirts saything that being gay was ok with them and kept silence for a period of time to support those who were silenced due to their sexutality.

I feel that this is a good example of what should be happening. Not the keepiong silent bit ( although we do have so much noise in the world) but the acceptance of homosextuality. A lot of religious people like to say that homosextuality is against God. That God hates the GAYS.

Sigh. Just throw the bible back at them. God created us in his image. He made us all special. He loves all the children of the world ( which also includes the adults).

If you want throw science at them. Dolphins do commit homosextual acts. After a while they will be trapped in a box they can’t get out of. However, the best thing it to leave people alone. Let them believe what ever they want to. Even if their insults hurt.

Research Topic 1: School

So, my school is trying to get us to prepare for Orals and essays. School happens to be a topic. So this post is about my views.

The reasons why I like school? Well, there are many reasons. School gives me the opportunity to make friends and grow and learn with and about them. I also enjoy learning new facts and information about the world around me. I enjoy working with different classmates and learning their strenghts and weaknesses so that I know who I can work with. School is a very good environment to express talents and is an environment which lets students make mistakes and learn from them easily.

However, the long school hours ( even after the recent adjustments to my school’s timetable) and the different social cliques are the down side of school. School is so much like work life. Students can not enjoy the joys of childhood. Students are exposed to the idea of perfection that having  decent childhood is not easy.

The discipline system in my school to be perfectly honest is not what I would consider an effective system. My school believes in the RESPONSIBLE THINKING PROGRAMME. Basically, when I student breaks a rule, they are sent to the RESPONSIBLE THINKING CLASSROOM ( which is air-conditioned!) to do RESPONSIBLE THINKING and hand in their form to the teacher and not have to return to class. They can take their time to ‘think’ about their actions. Which means they can just go back to class at the end of the lesson. This is so ineffective because students take up class time which they wanted to do in the first place. Also I doubt people who misbehave in class deserve air-conditioning. A better solution would be after school detention. It takes up students free time which they will try to avoid happening. Also, the room used shouldn’t be air-conditioned. A disciple system needs to affect them negatively for them to learn.

OUR FUTURES???

Being part of one of the graduating classes in my school, my form teacher has this tendancy of reminding us to 1. study 2. prepare not to have a social life after June and 3. think about our futures.  I honestly can say that I have thought about my future. AND I even have back up plans to my back up plan. I feel that most of my classmates know roughly what they wish to persue. Now we are approximately 4 months to our O level examinations and it is pretty tramatising if you ask me.

There is this girl in my class though, whom ( and I’m not even sure why) I am worried about. She doesn’t really like me much and I don’t care but when my form teacher was going around asking what we wanted to do in the future, she said she didn’t want to do anything. We all, of course, thought she was joking and laughed as a class. Trust me. You would laugh too. She is one of the smarter ones in our class and she is a ‘rebel’ too. I am not sure if you would consider her a model student but her grades are definately above average. Way above average.

With brains like that, I can’t see the reason why she does not want to do anything in her future. Everyone might have laughed but I doubt she was joking. She sounded very serious. I don’t know what she has in mind. Find a rich husband? Depend on mum and dad? Both seem unlikely to be true.

To me, it’s strange. A young bright woman and yet doesn’t want a future? Was she kidding? I truely hope so. For her sake.

I don’t know why I am taking a sudden interest. I should be studying Biology. I have a test tomorrow. And my future ahead of me.

A vision of students today

Stuff you didn’t know about the holidays

The wars we fight

Freedom Writers and the diary of Anne Frank show such inspiration, bravery and courage and everyone of us look at them and go ‘Wow. They went through a lot. They were fighting a war’. Let me ask everyone this. Aren’t we fighting a war? Aren’t we all fighting an undeclaired war? We might not be using violence. We might not be physical in our wars. We are all at war.

Hear me out.

How many of us are going through family problems? How many of us are facing problems at school? At work? Bullies? Gangs?

How many of us are fighting a war with ourselves?

How many of us feel like we have the whole world on our shoulders and at any time, the moment we show weakness, the world would come crashing down?

If you don’t face that, you are either one lucky human being or not human at all. The problem with conflict and war is that it is all around us. We sometimes don’t see it or refuse to see it or we just become the ignorant creatures we can be and ignore it all together. Everyday, we all fight wars. I fight a war everyday. I fight a war with no one else but myself and I know that some annoying person who reads my blog will irritate me tonight or tomorrow. But I really don’t care.

My friend is in one of the most complicated wars I have ever seen. And I don’t even know how to help. She is going through so much and all I do is stand there fighting my own war. She fights a war to be with her family, to protect herself from her family. She fights this war to want to know what being a ‘family’ is all about. It is almost a year since she changed coustody and now I don’t know if I did the right thing insisting she do it. And out of everything else I have to handle, I beat myself up everyday because she is my best friend.

I beat myself everyday and that is one reason for my war. Now, I am fighting for more. I am fighting for respect. Directing my cast and getting respect from them isn’t my problem. Anyone want to know the real reason why I took up this? I wanted the challenge. I wanted the challenge to prove to the adults of my parish that our youths are capable. They say our youths are not active. We aren’t involved. We are respecting our faith. Look. Look at what our youths are putting up. Look. Listen. Listen to their voices. Listen. Listen to the way they praise. Listen to the way they sing. Listen to their words.

Some wars are shared. The respect I want from the adults is what all teenagers want. Don’t believe me? Look in your parish. In your place of worship. In your community. In your neighbourhood. In your city. In your state. LOOK in your COUNTRY. Look in OTHER  countries. Look world wide. Adults believe that anyone who is not working is incapable and hence shouldn’t be given a chance to earn and gain respect. Step in our shoes for a second, will you? You don’t get it. We constantly are told indirectly that we need to prove ourselves. We feel that way. We need to be the best we can be, for our friends, for our families and for the benifit of the whole entire world. We have so much to prove.

People say do your best. It is ok if you fail. Do your best. Be your best for it is all we need. And you do your best and you do fail and you see it in their eyes. The disappointment. The sadness. Everything is gone. And those are the people who believe in you. For those who don’t well, they expect you fail. So you have to make those who believe in you proud and prove those who don’t wrong.

See the war we are fighting….I am fighting.

Freedom Writers.

That is what we are. We should all be given that title.

Happy Cannosian Saints day!

Today, my school celebrated the feast day of the saints we live our lives after.  After the mass, there was installation of the class commitee and I was there, being presented to my school mates and my biggest fear was not being able to inspire them. Not being able to see how they develop our school.

The concert my VERY AMAZING TEACHERS PUT TOGETHER ROCKED MY SOCKS OFF.

Yeah. Good day.

You know what would have made it better.

If things with my friends and I patched up.

When I am in the mood I’ll talk about it alittle bit

What it takes to be a leader!

Every time my principal talks to my school, she always mention the words ‘leader’ and ‘inspire’ and she will always throw in the occassional ‘please girls!’ I guess, my the reactions of my school mates, that most find her morning lectures are scholdings. I would beg to differ. Ms Martens ( a principal like this deserves credit doesn’t she?) has granted us our greatest wish we wanted for years. To be treated like an adult, to be treated with some maturity. And by the looks of it, many still think we did something wrong.

I love it when my Principal or Vice-Principal talks to us. I don’t take them as boring lectures about our behaviour or our attitude. Most of the time I don’t see it as we did something wrong. In school, you are suppose to make mistakes and learn from them. No point NOT learning.

Back to my point. My principal always tells us to be leaders. Easy right?WRONG. According to her, to be a leader, you need to inspire, you need to be true, you need to be responsible. You need to have this long list of qualities to be a leader. Let me brea it down which I feel is the most important one.

You need to inspire. You need to motivate the people you are working with to do what you want them to do. You need to inspire for people to do something. Anything. This applies to everything and not just work and school. When you blog about inspiring things and situations and you make someone want to do something, you are a leader.

So go on everyone. Be leaders of the world.

Inspire.