Almost 9 Months After

It's been about nine months since the conference in Segovia and graduation is coming up soon! Just one month until the final IB exams and then a month later I'll have officially graduated from high school! College admissions decisions have been rolling in during the past week and I've decided on the University of Southern California with a major in Neuroscience, so stoked!

In the past few months, between all the IAs and sports and whatnot, I've taken up tutoring. After coming back from the conference in Segovia, thoughts of the project that my team and I had worked on continued to occupy my mind. Our plan to build a school got me thinking about education and teaching, and soon after the school year started, I began private tutoring for primary school children in my school. As I took on more and more students and learned how to deal with young kids in a way to make learning more enjoyable for them, I started leaning towards the idea of teaching the children of my local community who attend public schools. Then, a friend of mine began discussing ideas of going to a cancer centre in Jakarta every weekend and playing with the children there. So, my friends and I began making contact with the directors of the centre to start a program in which we could teach the children, as they don't attend school. The children come from families that do not have the money to pay hospitals to keep their children staying in hospital rooms, and so the children and their families live in the centre instead. We began visiting the centre in September, first bringing toys and colouring sheets to connect and be friends with the children before bringing out the math books. We started with very basic mathematics, and since pausing the program in early March due to the upcoming final IB exams, some of the children have mastered their times tables :)  It really feels great to be able to give back to our community and help those who have less than us.


Here I am with my friends and one of our students!

Sadly, since the pausing of our program, one of the young girls has passed away from her cancer. When the cancer centre called my friends and I to let us know of this, we were absolutely stunned. Even though we knew all the kids were ill, it never crossed our minds that one day they might be gone. These children were always happy and playing, and in the times we had gone to the centre not one frown was to be seen. Her passing opened our eyes to the reality that loved ones may be taken away from us at any moment and that we need to cherish every minute we spend together. Rest in peace always, Calista. xx

And my two darlings

Not the best of pictures, but aayy to be fair it was 6am when we were saying our goodbyes. I miss them so much! I actually got to see Erika (second picture) a while ago when she visited Jakarta, pretty awesomesauce catching up and whatnot :)

Just the best roomie ever

Hi Alex I miss you

Pictures! #2

And here's when we all watched Spain whoop Italy's butt :)

Pictures!

I know it's been over a month since the conference and that this is a 'late post'. But I was just looking through a ton of pictures from Segovia and thought I'd post them! Here's some of the scenery of the city and the university (I apologize for the bad quality, not a pro photog here) !

Segovia, Leaving Day

:(

Not cool saying goodbye to everyone. Saying goodbye to all the friends I'd made. Seriously, 1 week just wasn't enough, we were all just starting to really know each other and meet more and more people. One of my friends said "it's always like this, just when everything is perfect it has to end."  and yea, Segovia was perfect.

I really don't think I'll ever forget that week. Too much love to forget. But aayy it isn't so bad, it's not like we completely cut off contact, I'm still talking to some of the people I was tight with. And it's not like we'll never see each other again, there's always things that can be arranged, plus there's going to uni in the same country and meeting up again :)

Just, thank you IB and IE University, for bringing us all together, cause seriously that was an incredible experience. And thank you too Fairview International School for even making it possible for me to go.

So much love for the people I met.

#segovia2012
♥

Segovia, Day 5

Last day :(
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As usual, started off the day with speakers. One of the friends I made spoke, his name's Ziyad El Mouniri if ya'll wanna check his work out (aayy there morocco!)

Today we got to go into the city earlier than usual, around 11, so we had plenttyyy of time to chill. I grabbed some lunch in the city and I got to finally have my Spanish hot chocolate (if you don't know what it is or haven't had it, oh how I feel for ya)! Soooooo gooooodddd :')

Once we got back to the university the 5 groups with the most votes presented their projects and we could ask questions and whatnot. After that, there was a break and then we had the closing ceremony - :( - and then dinner. AND THE DINNER WERE THESE SUPER MASSIVE PAELLAS <3333  one veggie, one pork, and one seafood. And seriously, these were omega huge paellas. I had the pork (I'd actually had pork everyday in Segovia, at every single meal hehe. Hard to find pork in Indo!) and dannggg it was delicious. Another Spanish-food-I-want-to-eat-in-Spain crossed off my list. After eating, we all learned to salsa, and ohmyyy you gotta move dem hips a lot. It was really fun though, especially when we danced with partners, cause I danced with one of my girl friends and geez we just kept messing up. After the salsa dancing, music was put on and we all just danced and jumped around with each other (for the last time :( :(  ). And then we said our goodbyes to people that weren't staying in the same hotels as us, cause most likely we wouldn't get to see them the next day (buses to Madrid left at various times - 2 AM, 5 AM, 7 AM, 9 AM, 11 AM, and 1 PM). Aaaaa man really sucked to say bye :(  but lucky for mee, most of my friends were in my hotel and there were a few people from the other hotels that I was friends with on the same bus as me for the next day, so I didn't have to say bye to too many people