I left quarantine one day before school started again, and I got thrown into the first weeks of G12 with an explosion. Although we heard the stories last year of our Grade 12s, we always thought they were exaggerating. But no, they weren't, and we understand why. The first eight weeks of grade 12, beginning of school until October break, are the most stressful and busy weeks of your whole IB journey. Many of our IA (Internal Assessments - one or more essays we write in every subject submitted to the IB which goes into our final grade) were due as well as our EE (extended essay, research paper of 4000 words). And if that isn't enough, our teachers loaded us up with test after test, although our head of grade promised us in August that we would not have that many tests, we ended up with three tests a week - I do not really understand what he means with "not that many". We do get it, the tests are essential for our predicted grades which we get in November, where our teachers estimate what we could get as our final IB grade as those are the grades we apply to uni for, but still, it was definitely a lot. And I am talking from a quite privileged point, as many of my friends had to work on all of this remotely.
Nevertheless, we got through it now :) Looking back I am definitely proud of what I have achieved in just eight weeks, but even now in our October break, the work does not really seem to stop as more IAs are due after. The reality of being in the graduating class have only slowly reached me, many of my friends going to the US have already submitted their early decision/action applications for university, and it is gradually getting very real. It's a bit crazy to think about leaving this place in seven months, and a bit sad. But most importantly, it's pretty scary. Yes, I already moved onto the other side of the globe once, but I still felt like I was in a sheltered home over here. Once we are off to uni, we are all completely on our own feet. Yes, it is very exciting but also weird to think that I am already done with school pretty soon.
And no, although we are very very happy that our new Grade 11s are slowly all coming to the boarding house, they are not making it easier for us accepting the fact that we are the old ones now. Just before the break, my two baby-scholars (the next German Scholar in G11 and my adopted scholar from Austria) arrived, and I was so happy to finally meet them in person! I showed them the boarding house and the school and could very much emphasise with the overwhelming feelings they experienced, I can still clearly remember how I felt when I arrived. So we ended this stressful phase with a lot of joy about everyone new coming. The October break will be mostly spent with trips and a little orientation around Singapore, although I definitely plan on working a bit on school work I will join as many as I can as our grade 11s are amazing and many friendships have already been built! Seeing the new kids settling in so well after such an unusual start to their UWC journey brings us a lot of joy, and it makes me reminisce about all the fantastic memories I have gained over the last year and all the good stuff that is yet to come!
Covid cases are decreasing every single day, my friend Francesco made it back a few weeks ago and even my best friend Nandini is in quarantine in Singapore right now, and we hope that soon we are in Phase 3, meaning lesser restrictions. This is very important to me since I auditioned for our musical this year and got in, so we are hoping to be able to perform in front of an audience and not just record it. As well as joining the Musical at the beginning of the year, I got into our vocal group Bersama, and I joined football again, so I definitely tested my time-managing skills in the first busy weeks.
These last eight weeks have really tested our physical and mental strength, but we are happy about every assignment that we submit and that is done, and we try to balance the work with social time in the boarding house, now with the new kids, it is definitely a worth distraction! I'll start my university applications in a few weeks as I am going to the Netherlands after the UK decided to consider EU students as international students which jacked up the uni prices to an average of 20,000 pounds a year. Going to the Netherlands means that I do not have to worry too much about my grades, meaning I can focus on my last eight months in Singapore, and I still have some time to comprehend that I'm one of the big ones now :)
(Also, we celebrated our UWC day and I have attached some new pictures :))