The Linh D. Journal

The Linh D. Journal

april 2013 - Celebrating 18 months of CAS

How I started CAS

DO WHAT YOU LIKE; LIKE WHAT YOU DO

Life Changing Moment

Reasons why I won’t be a

teacher

Producing your own magazine

Contents

THE CONVERSATION

How I started CAS...The start of my CAS journey wasn’t very

smooth and memorable. But without it

there wouldn’t be any meaningful ending.

HIGHLIGHT

Like what you do; do what you like.

My way of combining Service and Creativity together, and more importantly, how I realized

an universal truth

LIFE CHANGING MOMENT

Running ClubThe most tiring project that I’ve made it through ... ALIVE!

THE VIETNAMESE SPEAKER

Smile BankI stepped a step outside.

A NIGHT TO REMEMBER

Charity ConcertAthletes work for years just to shine for one moment, and so do SSIS’ talented musicians

THANK YOU, CAS

Piano LessonsSometimes a little bit of CAS pressure make you become more efficient, motivated, or simply less lazy.

PRODUCING YOUR OWN

MAGAZINE

Dragontale The whole reason why you are able to read this.

REASONS WHY I WON’T BE A

TEACHER

Summer Tutoring“Those who can, do ; Those who can’t, teach” : Oh You’re WRONG.

THE CONVERSATION

How I started CAS...To be honest, my CAS journey didn’t start smoothly. When most of my IB Diploma peers handed in lots and lots of pro-posal for their CAS projects, I didn’t have anything in mind - anything I’d like to do for CAS

It took me a while to hand in my first proposal, it was a Cre-ativity project where I decided to continue my Piano career after years of discontinuation due to my laziness. At that moment, I thought “CAS can actually help me to take piano more seriously, and perhaps more passionately. Such a

win-win situation!”

Despite my enthusiasm to-wards CAS, I ended my jun-ior year with only 3 propos-als. One of each pillars. There were so many promising ideas, but not many of them

made it through:

For Action, I thought of learn-ing Yoga, or Swimming. I’m an incredibly introvert girl. So I don’t really familiar with any sport except Chess (which is also a sport but not very ‘Active’ isn’t it?). I planned to go to the yoga lessons that my

Mom was currently taking

early in the morning from 6AM - 6:40AM. I never man-aged to attend any session because it was impossible for me to get up early back then. The Swimming plan, for some sort of the same reason, fell

apart too.

I would rather have a few CAS projects

that define me rather than

having lots and lots of them just for the sake of CAS and my

resume. For Service, I thought of many things too. I researched about charities and orphanages to work at, but they were so far away from my home, and it was difficult for my parents to arrange me transportation on a regular basis. The only Service project that I got in my junior year was a tutor-ing project, which my student

had to come to my house everyday.

And then I realized that all of those reasons were so un-important, but I couldn’t un-derstand why they affected my CAS desicion that much, especially for Action and Ser-vice. It was frustrating! What if I failed the whole Diploma just because of CAS? Should I just take on any random projects to fill up my portfo-lio? But isn’t CAS supposed to be for the development of your characters and person-ality as well? There were so many questions, but I felt like I know the answer. I would rather have a few CAS pro-jects that I enjoy and define me rather than having lots and lots of them just for the sake of CAS and my resume.

I really started CAS at the start of me senior year. I have five different projects this year, and I truly enjoyed all of them. I was able to learn, to change and to develop my-self as a person. One of them, which is Craft for a Cause, was so inspiring and enjoy-able that I’m still working on the project although I’ve fin-

ished with CAS.

Linh Dao

LIFE CHANGING MOMENT

Running ClubAt the start of my senior year, I wanted to do somthing dif-ferent, anything. I was also lacking an Action project for CAS, and collectively they were the reason why I signed up for Running Club at SSIS.

I chose running club because: It was not a highly-competi-tive sport, and doesn’t require as much skill like sports such

as volleyball or basketball.

I can easily practice running whenever I can at home

I think it would suits me well because I’m not a very active person and running would be a good action project to keep

me active.

I underestimated running.The first session was on the 27th August. And it was one of the most painful day of my life. Although we ran and walked every one minute, I wasn’t able to catch up with the whole club, which was

quite... embarassing.Eventually I came back last...

I wanted to quit from the first day. If it wasn’t a CAS com-mitment that I’ve got to make, I would have just quit from the first day. I had never ran like that before, so my body still hurt 2 days after the first running day. It was a very, very significant experience, a true Action encounter for me. After the first session I decided that I will practice

running every day, or at least as frequent as I could to catch up with everyone and if pos-sible, never come last again!

It rarely came true.

Although I ran regularly, I still couldn’t catch up with the others. But I guess that made sense. Athletes train for years. It wouldn’t sound very convincing if I only did 5 ex-tra runs and become the top runner of the club. However, I did see myself improving. Running for a minute, or even two is a piece of cake for me now, which is totally different compared to the day I started.

(continued on next page)

This is the year-book picture

of the Running Club. You can

see me in a blue shirt standing at the far right

of the photo.

Gradually I enjoyed running more and more. As a result, I only missed one session of the Running Club, which was already a huge achievement! There were people who ran faster than I did on the first day, but they eventually gave up! Until now, I still run vol-untarily after the project had finished, and I guess this is really the thing that mat-ters: the impact that CAS has left on your daily life after it finished. Coincidentally, I was able to come back to my strength again. I was involved in the designing process of the Running Club’s T-shirt. I also coordinated with the printing company to produce a brand new T-shirt instead of stick-

ing to the older design

ing to the older design. I also coordinated with the printing company to produce a brand new T-shirt instead of stick-ing to the older design that the club has. The outcome, of course, was much better than last year’s. My supervisor, Ms. MacArthur, was very pleased

with my work.

Compared to Badminton, which I did last year just to make myself more “active”. Running club posed a real challenge. I might not be able to reach my goals, which was to not finish last, but I truly saw myself slowly, and stead-ily improving. I have never been an active, sporty person, so even though this was a rela-

tively small and short

compared to other projects such as Craft for a Cause or Dragontale, it was still one of the projects that I believed

have changed me.

One time, I exercised to hard that my blood sugar might have dropped too low. Every-thing around me turned pitch black and I was alone. It was scary at the first place, but it was such an exhilirating mo-ment, a life changing moment because I felt like I’ve uplift my limit somehow. I could have run for 5 less minutes than I did and never knew that I was capable of running 5 more minutes, that simple

sort of thing.

Linh Dao

FLASHBACKThis photo was taken during a Badminton session in my junior year. Together with Running Club, these are the only two Action projects that I did for CAS. I’m definitely not a good ath-

lete, but after each project I feel like I have become a better, healthier person. Thanks Action!

I STEPPED OUTSIDE

TheVietnamese Speaker This year, I stepped outside of my Vietnamese group and start to work with friends that don’t share the same culture and mother tongue with me, and it turned out all right!

As a part of my CAS project, I designed the organization’s of-

ficial logo.

At the start of this school year, I joined Sherry Kim’s new or-ganization called Smile Bank, a project dedicated to helping victims of the Agent Orange

in Vietnam.

Most of the club members are Korean and non-Vietnamese speakers, and because of that, beside my main role as a de-sign coordinator, I was also in charge of contacting and find-ing information about dif-ferent Agent Orange shelters that needs help so that the or-ganization can sponsor more

and more victims.

I was very happy that I was able to use my Vietnamese skill - something I have al-ways taken for granted - to help people reaching towards each other. The motivation for me in this project came when I witness the suffering of the kids at Thien Phuoc Or-phanage, where Smile Bank is currently sponsoring and also by working with Sherry. I have learned so much about organizational skills from Sherry, which have helped me a lot with organizing my own

project Craft for a Cause.

Linh Dao

One of Smile Bank’s event was the screening of Skyfall, where I was in charge of advertising and

helping on the day

HIGHLIGHT

Craft for a Cause

do what you like; like what you do.

I believe that service work, like any other thing, must be origi-nated from passion.You must enjoy doing it, don’t make it a painful. Because of this ap-proach, I start a project where I used my hobby (making craft) to serve for a good cause.

During the summer before my senior year, I had a hard time figuring out what would be my next service project. Back then I didn’t know that I would have many other Ser-vice projects like Dragontales or Smile Bank, so I was pretty frustrated. I just didn’t re-ally know what to do. Among the clubs available at school I couldn’t found one that I truly believe that I would be able to really contribute to, I didn’t want to join a club just for the sake of my CAS or my resume. During the summer a friend of mine taught me how to make friendship bracelets, which I still enjoy doing until now. It was so much fun to make, but I don’t like wearing bracelet or watches so at the end of the day I kept giving bracelets to

my friends.

One day I started to think about selling bracelets and other craft goods like greet-ing cards at our school charity bazaar as a CAS project! So I recruited a gang of students who have the same hobbies as I do and that’s how we started.

Since making bracelets was time-consuming, we started to expand the range of our craft goods to greeting cards, quotes collection, stickers, notebooks, sewing goods, etc. so that our members have a wider variety of projects to

choose from.

To keep track of things, I’ve created a Google Spreadsheet to record all the goods, CAP hours and even the project’s balance. Craft for a Cause was sponsored by the PTA for a 500,000 VND starting fund. By the end of the bazaar, we earned around 2,400,000 VND, which was a solid achievement. All proceeds had been donated to Smile

Bank.

I thought that would be the end of Craft for a Cause, be-cause I was a graduating sen-ior, there won’t be anyone who will take up my place when I leave next year. Sur-prisingly, a freshman in Craft came to me and ask whether Craft for a Cause would con-tinue, because she really en-

joyed making bracelets.

I enjoyed making bracelets a lot, but I don’t really wear them. I gave these to my sister

Our greeting cards were also very popular during the PTA Charity Bazaar on the 18th November 2012

This made me very happy, because I feel like I was able to inspire people to follow my way. I restarted Craft for a Cause, and we are currently working on launching Craft for a Cause next year as an of-ficial after school activities at SSIS. There are many things to take care of, and my time as a senior is running out, but I always look forward to each meeting because I’m do-ing what I really enjoy. I want to help other who share the same hobbies with me to have a place to relax, make friends, have fun and serving the community at the same time. Thanks to Craft for a Cause, I was able to become friends with freshmans and sopho-mores whom I would never have a chance to talk to if we didn’t work together like Pavi, Julie, Ruby, Giang, Na Young,

etc.

To help promote Craft for a Cause to the community, I have brought the idea to the Global Issue Network Con-ference in ISHCMC from 8 -10 March 2013 to advertise for our project. Our service-promoting booth in the Ser-vice Fair took place in the 9th March was the most popular and crowded booth at the conference. During 45 min-utes of the Service Fair, we were able to sold out all the craft goods which we have prepared in only one week prior to the conference. As a result, we were able to raise 860,000VND to fund for our material costs for the next

school year.

From a personal perspective, Craft for a Cause has made a big impact on me. It was the first leadership role that I had taken since I started CAS, which meant a lot of respon-sibilities towards our supervi-sors, members, vision and the ability to plan ahead, espe-cially for a newly established project like Craft for a Cause. In the end, this project had provided me the chance to work with many people, thus improving my communica-tion, organization and man-agement skills, which will be

very useful for my future.

I also appreciate Craft for a Cause in way that it has also helped me strengthen my friendships with my “Craft Gang” - a group of CAS stu-dents who stood with me since the very start. Although we have been together for a year as a group of IB Diploma students, working with them on Craft has brought us closer together and created many memorable experience that I would never forget after I

graduated.

Linh Dao

A big thanks to Mrs. Featherstone for always supporting me and the seniors in my ‘Craft Gang’ : (in the pic-ture, from left to right: Marina Yamamoto, me, Linh Nguyen, Jo-an Chen, Khanh Ta and Monica Woo)

A photo of me making bracelet in the rush preparation for the GIN Saigon Conference, hosted at ISHCMC.

A NIGHT TO REMEMBER

Charity ConcertThis was a short and quick Creativity project that I par-ticipated in. My friend Monica has asked me to join her CAS project “Charity Concert”, in which she and her friends were organizing a concert

night at school around midOctober.

I was in charge of designing posters and leaflets to adver-tise for the event as well as participating in the overall planning of the event. Since most of the members in the group were performing on the day, I was also in charge of checking tickets at the en-trance, selling extra tickets and other logistical tasks.The concert was a great success, I was in charge of counting the money we raised and the total

amount was around 12 million VND ( around $600)!

Linh Dao

This was the design for the Charity Concert’s ticket that I made.

These are poster and program of the Charity Concert that I was also in charge of making.

THANK YOU, CAS

Piano LessonsThis was my first CAS pro-ject that I started from No-vember 2012 until around December 2013. The reason which I chose to learn Piano for CAS was that although I started my piano career since I was five, I never really quite made it. I have always given up halfway and almost start from the beginning again. For this reason, I chose Piano as a CAS project in the hope that the pressure of CAS commit-ment would be able ot help me overcome all the obsta-cles that had prevent me from

mastering the art of piano.

During this project, I learned new classical pieces as well as contemporary pieces. I also challenge myself with pieces at different paces, etc. For the first time, thanks to CAS, I was able to learn how to you the pedals to adjust sound and echo. Because I started and quitted at a young age, my legs back then weren’t long enough to reach the ped-als. Without them the sounds would sound very amature and shallow. As evidences, I will upload the video/audio of me playing the following

pieces:- Valse favourite & Turkish March by Mozart- Valse, Opus. 69, No.2 by Chopin - Canon, The Entertainer, and more!

PRODUCING YOUR OWN MAGAZINE

DragonTalesThis school year, I participated in the desgining process of the SSIS magazine DragonTale, and was able to learn new skills in publication design. Without DragonTales, you would never be able to read this magazine today. I’m really glad and grateful

to have done this project.

Years from now when I thought back about CAS and DragonTales, I would prob-ably remember a chocolate chip cookie. It was the reason why I joined DragonTales at the first place. During the club expo at the start of the year, Mrs. Katie made some deli-cious cookies to recruit new members for DragonTales. Only people who signed up got a cookie. I signed up, the

cookie was so good.

However, I came to my mind that I wouldn’ t be able to contribute effectively as a writer because I was not good at writting. Instead, I asked Mrs. Katie and Jae Yeon to let me design the pages for Drag-onTales for CAS. I thought this was an easy project to do, but I was wrong. I usually do my designs using Adobe Pho-toshop. However, designing pages for a magazine would require a DTP (DeskTop Pub-lishing) software, like Adobe InDesign, which I have never tried to use. I did not know this until the first batch of ac-ticles came and the deadline

for actual printing was drawing near.

That’s when I had to rush to learn and got used to the features of Adobe InDesign. Thanks to Mr. Dzim, the de-signer of DragonTales, I was able to take a grasp of this new, professional software and hand in the submission

on time.

One difficulty that I faced doing this project was that the DragonTales meeting time was in conflict with my NHS meeting time, and so I couldn’t participate in any meeting. But I supposed this had improve my communi-cation skill in the sense that I had to coordinate between Jae Yeon, the magazine editor , Mrs. Katie, and Mr. Dzim for any technical issue online, via email or short conversations outside of the meeting. So far I finished the design for Quar-ter 1 and 2 issues. I’m working on the third issue and will still be working as DragonTales’ designer after my CAS is fin-ished, because this is such an

interesting project.

Thanks to Dragontale, I was able to produce my own mag-azine... (continue on next

page)

My designs for the the Quar-ter 1 issue of DragonTale and also my first designs ren-dered using Adobe InDesign.

called ‘The LinhD. Journal’ to present my CAS journey. Making a whole magazine was another experience because it showed me how much hard work is put into each Drag-onTales issue by its members. Mine was only a short, simple, electronic magazine and yet it took me a week to write, edit, typeset and format. Imagine the effort to plan, write, or-ganize, design and print and finish a DragonTales maga-zine. It’s such a great effort!

My only regret was that I didn’t achieve my goal in set-ting up a designer group for DragonTales that was stu-dent-based. I might not make it for CAS, but since I’m less busy now, I might make this come true by posting a recuit page in the third issue of Drag-onTales for students who are like me, wanting to contribute using their creativity through the designing process instead

of the writing process.

One of my design for the Quar-ter 2 issue.

REASONS WHY I WON’T BE-

COME A TEACHER

Summer TutoringLast summer, I agreed to tu-tor a son of my mother’s friend in the belief that “Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach”. That, of course, I be-lieve, was the biggest mis-conception ever made. Those who said that had never been a teacher, teaching is very hard. It has always been hard

and will always remain so.

But I didn’t know that last summer.

My student was going to take the entrance exam at the Brit-ish International School for Grade 10 placement. He used to be in public school, so he was unfamiliar with conver-sational English as well as English terms used in school subjects like Maths and Phys-ics. My job was to teach him mathermatics and physics vocabulary, from the most basic (‘plus, minus, multiply, divide’) to the advance on ge-ometry and algebra as well as basic vocabulary in physics. His English proficiency made me worried, but his ability in solving mathematical and physics problems was above average. So my main job was to go over the new vocabulary as well as past papers of the IGCSE exam for student in Grade 10 in the UK to make sure that he understand and

fulfill the command terms of the entrance that he was go-ing to take. Since we only had more than a month to prepare for the exam, I had to tutor him almost everyday for 2 - 3 hours. Unfortunately, very slow progress was made, I felt like his English was not ready for the test yet, especially in Physics where we would need to answer some short answer question. With Math, howev-er, the student was constantly making progress with an av-erage of 70% to 85% for each exam paper, which I thought

was satisfactory.

I had spent a relatively long time in international schools, that was the reason why I found it difficult to get the ideas to the student in Viet-namese, and yet his English is not enough for a conversation about Math and Physics in English. What frustrated me the most was the feeling that he did not understand me, and I couldn’t make it easier for him to understand an idea or question. This is when I re-alized that being a teacher is a huge and sacred, difficult job. People should have said “Those who can’t, do; those

who can, teach” instead!

As I feared he failed the en-trance exam, one part is be-cause of his English and I be-lieve no one could improve it significantly in a month. He eventually got into the bilin-gual department of the school

(BVIS) instead of BIS.

Linh Dao

I want to thank everyone who helped me make my CAS pro-jects became true and in the shape they are today, from the supervisors to students and friends who were always giving me advices and sup-port in order to finish the CAS

Program. Thank you!

Special thanks toMy SupervisorsMr. Nguyen Thanh My Mr Joe GrazianoMrs. Mai Nguyen Ms. Kim Kyung HwaMr. JohnstonMrs. ZimmermannMr. Dzim NguyenMs. MacArthur Mr. EllsonMrs. Featherstone

Monica WooJaeYeon Park Sherry Kim Linh NguyenJo-an ChenMarina YamamotoKhanh Ta Julie Song Ruby Chen