3 Years of Blogging from Creative Writers Blog: 199 Posts & 1120 Comments: Thank You Dear Readers & Dear Authors!

This is our 200th Post today:

As we would have loved to add a special touch to this 200th Post, we have one of our very celebrated writers from the Young Talents Zone, Mr.Aditya K, to add his experience again in beautiful words. To make this more special, we requested Mr.Aditya to share two of his most recent learning experiences and he did.

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Reconnect: Part 1:

Young Intach

ReConnect’s First Expedition

The five members of Mumbai’s first Heritage Club, ReConnect, and our mentor Mrs. Gaynor strolled over to the main gate of the school, intently waiting for the Jeep that would drive us through our first expedition. We all hopped in, sorting out our stationery while the car rolled through the dug-up roads of Juhu, heading directly for Bandra. We crossed archaic buildings like the Mithibhai College, the coarse waters of the Juhu beach, the Talao Lake, St. Joseph Convent from 1803, St. Peters Church, St. Stephens Church and finally our destination, Mt. Mary. Mount Mary was a basilica, meaning it contained relics of a great person. This basilica is extremely famous in Mumbai, and has a huge fair in September to celebrate the birthday of Mary.

The members of ReConnect marched to the entrance of the basilica, where we noticed the heavy Portuguese influence on the construction. We noticed the silence of each footstep rebounding off the high arches that formed the dazzling ceiling, intense with bright designs like the walls which portrayed the life of Jesus in vivid colours. The tall statue of Mary stood amidst vibrant flowers looking down on the benches.

After noting down facts, we leaped back into the vehicle in awe. We rode into St. Andrews, where we got a jolt to find graves dating back to 1908, piled out in the entrance like paving stones.

After taking down& closely observing the features of the church, we rode back to school.

Going on this one trip has increased my knowledge on the heritage of Mumbai and the history behind it by acres. It has been a great learning experience.

Love Mumbai!

Thank you

Aditya K

Reconnect: Part2:

Five heartbeats boomed across the MPH as the remaining students of the audience marched in. Could they hear these heartbeats? The five of us who were crouched backstage could definitely hear them. We waited in anticipation for Mr. Craig to finally announce us on to stage.

We five members of the ReConnect (Heritage Club) were prepared to do a magnificent assembly with two grade 11 students. After everyone hushed down, the presentation started in full swing.

We were introduced one by one and the information began to be let out, little by little. Our topic for the assembly was World Mother Language Day, which takes place on February 21^st. Our main concerns were about languages going extinct and how to prevent that. Each of the members walked over to the spotlight and presented a given topic about Mother Languages.

My topic was the death of an 82 year old lady in the Andaman Islands. But it was not just the death of a human but also the death of the language Bo, of which she was the sole speaker. Now even languages are endangered; not just our animals. ReConnect revived and presented the numbers 1-10 in Bo. This was followed by every one of us presenting a short speech in our mother tongue.

The assembly ended with an intense debate about whether it is better to learn and preserve your Mother Tongue or the universal language, English. As it turned out, both of them are important, as you should communicate with everyone in a mutual language and maintain your mother tongue. I am certain that everyone left the assembly hall soaked with information!

However, this assembly was the second event of ReConnect that week- the first one will be remembered by most of the women staff in Middle School. Since it was International Women’s day on Monday (18^th March), we members of ReConnect went handing out roses to all the females we encountered in the school and received numerous You made my day!’s from them.

These events have made us in ReConnect more confident in approaching people, as well as given us more information.

Thank You.

Aditya K

School Ecole Mondiale

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Related Posts:

DNA

Journey

Pulau Tioman

The News behind a newsppaer:

All the students of grades 7, 8 and 9 marched over to the buses parked in a grid pattern like the houses of the Indus Valley Civilization. We were all geared up and ready to drive down to the DNA (Daily News and Analysis) printing press in Vashi to learn the entire story of the newspaper that reaches our doorsteps at 7 in the morning, right from setting what percentage of coloured ink the logo on the front page needs to the proofing of the paper to insure that there are no smudges.

DNA News

The long drive from the school in Juhu down to the printing press in Navi Mumbai was predicted to take up to two hours, but time flew by- for most of us- as we chatted along with our friends, seeming to find more topics outside of the window. After asking “Are we there yet?” uncountable times, we final got there.
The printing press seemed quite a serene and quiet place from the outside, but that opinion was shattered when we heard it after we got off the bus. The transition from the somewhat cool bus to the scorching heat of the factory compelled our sweat glands to force the sweat out. There was a faint synthetic ink smell lingering in the air, wafting around the huge rolled bales of fresh recycled paper.
As we made our way through huge machines humming, we caught sight of paper being unravelled and printed on at a tremendously rapid pace. In fact, the press could produce 4500 newspapers in just an hour!  Talk about rapid news!
The people at the DNA press were simply fantastic and very helpful. They kindly explained various segments of the press in detail, answering all questions and clearing all our doubts. They diluted their talk by showing us the machines as well so we could comprehend the information visually.
After we were shown how they printed paper, the buckets of ink, how they dried it, how they printed plates, the coloured ink percentages and how they preserved the ink, we were taken into a large conference room to give us an introduction on DNA’s history as well as ‘YA!’, which is a newspaper just for kids, of which we each given a copy of.
I learnt a couple of great things there, such as the fact that they added a chemical to the ink so that it didn’t smudge. I also learnt how the newspaper was assembled and put into boxes to be carted off. I never knew that so many processes have to be followed in order to make a newspaper- right from a newspaper reporter writing an article to advertisement spaces being sold to printing it.

This experience has increased my knowledge by miles- around as many miles as there are letters in a newspaper.

Thank you DNA and their entire team for such a wonderful experience and Thank you EcoleMondiale for this amazing opportunity.

Aditya K

School Ecole Mondiale

The City Of Gates

I vigorously waved my hands at my parents outside the tinted windows of the luxury bus. They enthusiastically waved back, though they were looking as if they were missing me already. The bus sped away, leaving a cloud of smoke in front of the school.

It was 6:00 in the morning, and the whole of Grade Seven were set off to Aurangabad. In this four day trip we would be covering many national heritage sights such as the hand carved and painted caves of Ajanta and Ellora.

We faced our first challenge right away- staying in the bus for our eight hour ride to Aurangabad. Although all my friends were in the bus, I had already started to wonder what I would do. I started to chat with my friend in the neighbouring seat.

As the journey began, our first serving had already begun with warm and soft cheese sandwiches, thick with the fat slices of cheddar cheese. I gobbled it up, thinking we were running late and so we couldn’t stop for breakfast at a restaurant.

I was proved wrong as we stopped nearly an hour later at McDonalds for a bio break. While we were adjusting to these washrooms on the highway, the trip organisers dropped into the restaurant to pick up around fifty wraps and burgers. We knew, and our smiles said it, there was more munching to look forward to during the travel.

They served the wraps first after half an hour. The wraps were soon followed by a choice of vegetarian, non-vegetarian or ‘Jain’ burgers. I took the potato (aloo-tikki) burger, being a vegetarian. I was bloated after eating these heavy and stuffing snacks.

After stopping two more times for water breaks, we entered a restaurant five hours later for lunch. There we enjoyed an Indian buffet lunch. It turned out that we were in Ahmednagar, a huge district only around 120 kilometres away from Aurangabad. ‘Just around three more hours’, I told myself.

The bus resumed its journey to Aurangabad. The students, including me that is, were totally freaking out and making a racket enough to give challenge to a sound proof door anywhere in the world. I felt too bad for our dear teachers whose gift for that day would have been all that but a headache, that they would have wished for.

We reached the hotel two hours later. It took almost ten minutes for the teachers to calm the hyper energised students down. The sight of the hotel set us all off. After we entered the hotel in a relatively behaved manner (still looking like grubby gorillas) we were given our luggage and the room leaders had the key handed over to them.

I led my group to the room and inserted the electronic key into the slot. The door opened, giving out an electronic beep. I peeped inside, expecting to see a shabby room that had holes in its splintered wooden flooring and cockroaches in a puny bathroom which didn’t have running water (you should read about my other yearly trips to the rainforests and islands! – Click Here to read Them: Click On the Trips to read them:Trip 1 & Trip 2).

My jaw fell towards the ground. I stared at the luxurious carpeted room with immaculate beds that had the blankets tucked in neatly. A day couch was standing out in front of the soft curtains. I took off my shoes and shuffled my sore feet towards the inviting couch, placed clearly in view of the little LCD television. Tables and drawers were placed under the gigantic mirror. I was happy to see that next to the air-con control panel, there was a button which when you pressed it, it would increase the air-con temperature by two degrees every hour to be eco-friendly. That was when I noticed that the owner was Vithal Venkatesh Kamat, who owned the ORCHID, the world’s most eco-friendly hotel (Ecotel Hotel). I had read his autobiography (Idli, Orchid and Will Power) earlier and had always been inspired and impressed by his ideas.

The bathroom was nowhere close- it was even better than the room. The flawless tiles shone out behind the marble sink. The rest of it was just as good, including the WC, shower and mirror (that never seemed to fog no matter how hot we took our showers).

I immediately reserved one of the beds and placed my day pack on it to mark my territory. I scanned the room and found that there were four drawers in total- just enough for one drawer per person. I assigned a drawer for each of my room-mates, being the room leader, so that our room wouldn’t be messy as we could put all our small belongings in it.

I thought about how here we didn’t even have to share drawers, while in my trip in grade five in my old school we once had six people in the sleeping space meant for three people. The idea was to teach us to adjust & learn to adapt.

I took out my wallet, my watch and a little pouch that I wore, which contained some bubble gum (meant for the bus ride) and my itinerary for the trip so I would know what we would be doing next. I put all these in the drawer and freshened up and changed.

After having a few hot snacks and some boiling and delicious coffee, we assembled in a presentation hall for a PowerPoint presentation on Aurangabad which covered everything we were going to be seeing. I used it to confirm my itinerary.

The PPT presentation lasted two hours, after which we set forth our queries. It was followed by dinner and then, lights out.

I was feeling sleepy because it had been a long day but the sleep didn’t come because I had been sitting down and eating the whole day. I finally gave in to my mystic dreams.

Our room woke up and got ready even before the wake up call. We headed down to breakfast, my face shining because of the sun screen I had generously applied. We munched our breakfast and departed for the Ajanta caves, which was a two and a half hour journey from our hotel. That was barely nothing compared to our journey to the
hotel.

We reached the man made caves on the top of the mountain on time. The caves had been carved and painted more than four hundred years ago. They were rediscovered 190 years ago by Englishmen who were hunting in the forest. The caves had been forgotten by humans and moss and foliage had started to grow on the caves.

I won’t give you too much information as I would like to encourage you to go on a similar trip. Cave ten has been declared the oldest cave. It was also the first one that was rediscovered. The only reason why it’s called cave ten is because the caves are not numbered according to when they were created but by the order they are carved in.

The caves were built between second century BC and sixth century AD- a period of 800 years! From second century BC to second century AD, the Hinayana Buddhist caves were carved and painted. In the Hinayana period, the Buddha was represented by a Bodhi tree, sandals, an empty throne or a stupa. Between second century AD and sixth century AD, the Mahayana Buddhists continued making caves. However, in their paintings and sculptures, they included the image of the Buddha, not just a representation.

Most of the caves were monolithic, meaning that they were made out of a single stone/rock (mono= one | lithic= rock). The acoustics in the caves were amazing- perfect for chanting prayers. There was a thick forest facing the caves, with a serene river flowing in the valley which made it seem very peaceful.

It was boiling there! It must have been just as hot as Mumbai, but the air was terribly still and we were standing still too. Thankfully, I had packed a Chinese hand fan as I had thought about the weather in Aurangabad. I chuckled when I saw a small boy asking his mom whether the hand fan worked with magic as I was moving it extremely fast to cool myself.

The only thing that could have been done much better could be the maintenance. There were people throwing wrappers and plastic bags into the plants and long ago the locals had recklessly scratched their names onto the beautiful paintings. There were also many statues that had broken off due to lack of preservation.

However, the management is trying out a way to let us glimpse at the true magnificence of the images. The archaeological department has found a chemical that will help restore the faded the paintings to their original glow. As the colours were made out of natural dyes, the colours have lasted.

After seeing the magnificent structures, we headed back to the bus for our lunch. I was expecting something like a drink and a sandwich for lunch as we were to have inside the bus. I was surprised when we were served a full three course meal, packed neatly inside a box. I picked up a vegetarian box to find that for starters we had cutlets, for main course we had Biryani, for dessert we had gulab jamun and for snacks we had a cheese sandwich and a fruit. Salt and pepper were also wrapped neatly in tin foil along with disposable cutlery. We were also served chilled drinks.

After the majority had finished their ‘little’ lunch, the shopaholics could go and buy souvenirs from the market. I tagged along, though I wasn’t very keen on shopping. However, I found the methods the shopkeepers used to attract customers to their shops and buy their goods very interesting. I ended up being convinced enough to by some crystals, a set of tea-coasters and a pen stand.

We headed off to the Bibi Ka Maqbara, a copy of the Taj Mahal. The ride was an hour, but no one even noticed the time as they were either occupied by watching the movie that was playing on the television in the bus or chatting with their pals.

The Bibi Ka Maqbara is very similar to the Taj Mahal. It was made by prince Azam Shah, the grandson of Shah Jahan, who built the Taj Mahal. The Bibi Ka Maqbara was built out of Plaster of Paris, while the Taj Mahal is built out of marble, which is why it cost more than 30 million rupees in 1653, which will be much more now. Only the dome of the Bibi Ka Maqbara is made of marble.

There was nothing much to see other than the architecture and its history, especially considering that it started to rain. I praised myself again for remembering to pack an umbrella, under which far too many of my buddies were trying to shelter themselves.

We learnt a few differences between the Bibi Ka Maqbara and the Taj Mahal. For example, the Yamuna River flows behind the Taj, while hilly terrain is found behind the Bibi Ka Maqbara. Then there are the price differences- the Taj cost more than 3 crores, the Bibi Ka Maqbara cost Rs. 665,283 and 7 annas. Of course, there are the contrasts in the materials used- marble for the Taj and Plaster of Paris for the Bibi Ka Maqbara.

After we reached the hotel again, we assembled in the meeting hall after an hour of free time. We were given time to reflect on our impressions of the day and what we learnt. This was followed by dinner and that night, sleep came quite easily, especially because of the cool room and the soft bed.

The morning of the third day was very similar to the previous. After breakfast, we headed out to the Ellora caves, also one hour away from the hotel.

Before the bus could even halt at the car park in the Ellora caves, half a dozen ‘salesmen’ arrived and waited right outside the bus. They offered each of the students things ranging from your name written in a grain of rice to a statue the Buddha.

The Ellora caves were exceedingly beautiful. There were no paintings- only carvings. First we visited the Kailash temple- declared by UNESCO as a world heritage site.

The Kailash temple is a monolithic structure as well, but there is a difference between it and the caves. There are two types of monolithic structures; ‘cut in’ monolithic is when rock is cut from front to back, like the caves. But the temple is ‘cut out’ monolithic, which is when the rock is cut from up to down! Basically, the temple used to be a mountain and the rock was taken out of the mountain from above. The rock that was left made up a chariot shaped temple.

The temple was amazing, and I still can’t believe that all of it is made out of one rock. The drainage system was quite interesting as well. It consisted of small tunnels that were open on the top. There was a slight concave curvature in the tunnels so the water flowed away from the temple. However, now the drains are no longer used.

We headed off to the caves. There are 12 Buddhist caves, 17 Hindu caves and 5 Jain caves. However, the guide told us that these figures are only of the caves that have been found.

The difference between the caves in Ajanta and Ellora was that in all the caves in Ajanta (except one), the Buddha is sitting in the Lotus position, while in Ellora, the Buddha is always sitting with his feet facing down, like how we usually sit on chairs.

After a quick lunch at a hotel called Kailash, we took a short ride to the Jain caves. There we learnt all the Jain beliefs and their unique eating habits and the reason why. Jains don’t eat potato because they believe that if they pluck out a potato from its roots, they kill the organisms living in the roots (when Jainism was formed, the theory that plants were alive was not yet proven).

We then took a short ride to the most awaited excursion of all- the Daulatabad fort. The Daulatabad fort is a remarkable fort that has never been conquered. You will soon find out the reason.

The fort is located on the top of a mountain. The mountain’s roads are very curvy, which make it difficult to coordinate a whole army and elephants. The gate has long and sharp poison coated spikes all over it. The following roads inside are zigzagged, so the army has to constantly halt and resume- enough for the defending army to shower them with volleys of arrows.

The leader will see the palace at the left side, but if he turns the army there, they will meet a dead end- another opportunity for the defenders to defend. The army will once again go through roads that demand regular sharp turns.

Whatever part of the army is left (most of the army would have been vanquished before here by being shot at or have boiling oil poured from above) will then sight the palace again, straight ahead, on another hill. However, to get to the hill, they have to cross a moat and another obstacle that they won’t be able to recognise from where they are situated.

From the other side of the moat, the defending army will once again attack. Many of the soldiers will fall into the moat and get eaten up by the man-eating crocodiles. IF somebody manages to get to the other side (which is very difficult, considering that the bridge would have been burnt off), they have the maze to face.

Bhool Bhulayiya is a maze that will definitely trick even the smartest soldiers. You enter and are greeted by screeches of the bats living in the darkness; so dark, you can’t see your own hand even if it’s right in front of your face.

The remaining army will spot a light, towards which they will move. There, the defenders are ready with pots of boiling oil. IF someone survives, they will move on where there are two staircases. One of them leads to the man-eating crocodiles’ habitat and the other continues. Once again, the path will split. If there is a small army left, they will split up and go in the two different directions. They will both meet again later on, where they will start to attack each other thinking that they are two different armies.

After they both find out that they are the same army, they continue in the path. They glimpse at a staircase, which will lead them to a chamber in which they will be welcomed by, once again, the hot oil and this time, a candle to accompany. When the remaining people hurriedly get out, they sight another light. Having had enough of this fort, they will decide to escape through it. They enter it- and slide down to the moat.

This is why the Daulatabad fort (Devigiri, as it used to be called) has never been conquered.

The fort also has the Chand minar, a victory tower. Chini mahal used to be a beautiful palace inside Devigiri, until a king turned it into a detention centre. Jami masjid, a mosque inside, was converted into a temple by a Hindu king who took over it after the previous Muslim king had moved away. It is now called Bharatmata Temple (India temple).

After this exhilarating expedition, while returning to the bus, we were given gloves and bags and everyone collected garbage that people had thoughtlessly thrown in the middle of the pathways and in the edges of the walls.

It was only three in the afternoon and we were to assemble at the hall at only seven, so we were given permission to go swimming in the pool. Everybody had a whale of a time playing a ball game in the water. After taking our showers in the rooms, we went for dinner.

But this night was not like the previous ones. This night, we got geared up for a quiz that was to take place before dinner. We all revised the information that we had learnt so far at Ajanta, Bibi ka Maqbara, Ellora and Daulatabad.

The groups waited anxiously for the quiz papers to be distributed to each group. Then, four groups who had the highest scores will proceed to the final round. I felt that this quiz was just to make us trust each other because in my group, each person was to learn in detail a certain topic that they had been assigned.

After finishing off the quiz sheet, they were marked by a group other than the ones who wrote. After the results were read out, the questioner declared the top four groups. My group was overjoyed when we were there as well.

Questions were asked one by one to each group and if they couldn’t answer it, it went on to the next. Points were awarded for correct answers, but they were also taken away for wrong answers, which compelled us to think.

The next round was the buzzer round, in which each group was given a whistle and they would have to blow it when they had the answer. Unfortunately, the whistle that we were given didn’t have a ball in it, so the resulting sound was just a mere squeak. I tried to make it louder by adding my own whistle, but it was still very low so when our group and another group whistled at the same time, only the other group was heard.

After the ‘game’ ended, medals were presented to each group. We earned a silver medal as we came second.

The quiz was followed by a disco, in which the whole grade danced themselves to rags, and then danced the rags to scraps. The whole grade was worn-out and drained by the time the disco ended at 11:30. Nobody had trouble sleeping that night!

Once again, the morning started with us freshening up and having breakfast. We were headed off to the Himroo shawl factory, in which we could buy handmade shawls and find out how they made them.

Once we reached, I was shocked by how little and modest the factory looked. The factory had been going on for countless generations now, but it was still a small shop in the road.

We were first taught how they made the fabric. I stared at the intricate designs in amazement at how they had woven the threads one by one. Just looking at the loom (the manual ‘machine’ that is used to weave cloth) made me feel dizzy because of the complicated levers and sophisticated pedals.

The shop was very crowded, not because there were people from outside the school there, but because the shop was so little that it was having trouble fitting fifty kids inside.

The owner was quite patient as he explained the prices of the uncountable unique shawls to all the children who were all waving different textiles at him.

I spotted a little corner that had hand woven pillow covers and wall hangings of monuments in Aurangabad and flowers. Beside the wall hangings, there were a few petite bags that could be slung on your shoulder and will be dangling on your waist.

After we finished buying all the beautiful crafts, we bid farewell to the shopkeepers and headed back to the hotel.

After having lunch, we were once again given a few hours of free time, half of which many people didn’t know what to do as everybody had packed all their things for the flight. We were going to take a flight back home so that we didn’t waste another day in bus.

After arriving at the airport, my chums and I had a fun game of atlas going. The plane ride was extremely short as Aurangabad is in Maharashtra itself.

In the plane I thought over a few things in my mind. This was my first trip from this school, being a new student. There was a contrast between my previous school trips and this trip.

The main difference was that in my old school trips we did more physical activities such as kayaking, sailing and trekking while here it was more of understanding and appreciating our culture and our heritage monuments. Also, in my old school trips, we used to go to deserted islands and rainforests while here we were going to a city buzzing with life.

My trip to Aurangabad was an extremely educative and fun experience that I will always remember with wonderful memories.

Aditya Krishnan

School Ecole Mondiale

Dense Nature

 The transition from the cold blue and foggy grey pick-up area to the vibrant and somewhat gaudy interiors of the bus hurt my eyes. After all the pupils of 6ChM and 6JSa had boarded the bus, it was now waiting for my English teacher, who was one of the coordinators of our zoo trip. I glanced at the designs on the inner roof of the bus. There were multicoloured cellos and shining trumpets, looking as if they were waiting ready to leap up and play a melody.

After I was bored at staring at the metal transport office with the peach coloured roof and the brown bench outside, I started a brief chat with my pals. In the heat of the conversation (which turned out to be not so brief), my teacher finally entered the vehicle. It was quite unusual as my English teacher was never late. It was as queer as a green flamingo writing the middle name of its sixth cousin (thrice removed) with the leg that it was balancing on.

This zoo trip was a trip to give us inspiration for writing poems, which was what our English topic was. We had been informed about a trip around a week before it took place. In class we had to vote for either going to the botanical gardens or the zoo. My class is full of animal lovers and majority of us voted to go to the zoo. We were to take notes about our surroundings in the zoo. These were to help us later when we were writing poems about the field trip.

The bus started immediately after my tutor belted up. The zoo was quite close by because the school was also in Jurong. However, the trip could only be two hours long because we left in the beginning of lunch, stayed there for the two periods of English and returned by the end of the afternoon break. We spent 40 minutes in the bus, so that left us only an hour and 20 minutes, in which time we also had to get to and fro from the places in the zoo. In the middle of the bus ride, a storm broke out, which we all knew would lead to the animals not coming out into the open if they didn’t like rain.

Just as we were about to enter the zoo, the rain stopped. In fact, the rain hadn’t reached here yet because the roads and flora were dry, although we could see the grey clouds in the distance. We strode over to the ticket counter, formed a straight line a few metres away from it and each gave the teachers five dollars for the ticket. My friend and I got tram tickets as he had a muscle problem because of which he couldn’t walk long distances. Because he wasn’t allowed to go alone (a school rule), I was requested to go with him. We hopped onto a tram with zebra stripes painted all over it and headed off for the fragile forest.

The fragile forest was a butterfly enclosure. The butterflies would just be fluttering in the air- living in an enclosed area wouldn’t make much of a difference to their life as the place was huge and the zoo keepers refilled their ‘feeding bowls’ (Five multicoloured hexagons with holes in them arranged in a circle on a white disc that is nailed to a tree.) and there were countless flowers. We made a partition in the chains that were hanging and opened the door that led to the butterfly park.

There was only one colour around me- green. Everything from the butterfly net to the moss growing on the emerald trees was jade green. Name a shade and it was there- pear, olive, lime, Persian green, army green, shamrock green, pine green, bottle green, sea green, racing green, midnight green, teal green, camouflage green, kelly green, pigment green, tea green, electric green, moss green, office green, hunter green, fern green, myrtle, spring green, spring bud, viridian and even asparagus!

The first thing that greeted my ears was a bunch of loud peacocks and peahens hopping like they needed to use the toilet but the thing that was using the lavatory was taking its time. Hanging upside down from the tree next to me was a bat. Its sinewy wings looked like the fabric batman’s wings were made of. A fresh breeze hung in the air. I walked a few steps ahead and I was soon on a wood bridge, as brown as the three primary colours mixed together.

There were calm waterfalls and tranquil water flowed elegantly under us. Unruffled lotuses bloomed in the cool pool like a magicians hands hypnotizing someone. The peaceful moments were broken by two screams. One of them came from a girl near a cluster of bats. She had screamed in surprise because the bats had just urinated. The other one came from one of my classmates because she had dropped her homework diary in the pond. We all walked towards the place where she dropped it to see if it could be retrieved. We could see it, floating on top of the water but it was out of reach and it was drenched in water. There was anyway not much point recovering it as the water would have made the ink spread out all over the page (chromatography- the process of separating different liquids in a solution). I then walked towards the bats and took a couple of snapshots so that I could write a poem about it later.

We lined up again and marched over to the orang-utan point. My friend and a supervisor had already left because he could then rest on the way and they will still reach there before us. It had started drizzling and soon it was heavily raining. I praised myself for remembering to pack and umbrella. After all, this was Singapore- you could never predict when it would rain. The problem was that the monkeys had all gone indoors as they disliked the rain. We only had half and hour left so instead of waiting for the monkeys and getting as fed up and bored as a spoilt five year old being forced to look at mouldy custard dripping down a wall, we headed back to the bus, stopping for a couple of minutes in the otter’s pond. Anyways, we could see their living conditions later by peeping in our locker room.

I could hear the otters before I could see them. Otters are minute mammals that eat fish. They are as furry as stereotypical teddy bears. I didn’t find them too interesting as most of them just sat in the corner under a tree and we could barely make out their outline even after craning our necks as much as owls. I could only see the head of one of them that was sleeping inside a hollow log.

We reached school a few minutes late for our next lesson, but otherwise, we followed the schedule. The trip was enjoyable and amusing because all my friends were with me and we had a great time. Even though I had been to the zoo numerous times, I never had this much entertainment. Also, I noticed many more things in this trip because I was looking for small details to write some poetry about. This was a fantastic trip and I think that it was a great idea to choose the zoo for inspiration.

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Aditya K

Pulau Tioman, The great journey!

Day 1: The Journey begins….

I waved goodbye to my parents as the bus sped away.

It was still 6:30 in the morning in Singapore and two Grade 6 classes were going to Pulau Tioman. I felt excited and happy and I was looking forward to the trip. I was soon in conversation with my friends, and before I realised, we were at the border between Malaysia and Singapore. I got off the bus; collected my passport, got it stamped, and made my way back to the bus.

In Malaysia, I mostly looked out the window and saw the beautiful trees, aligned line in line. We got off the bus, took a bio break and entered a ferry. The seats were inside the boat, but most of the students preferred to stand on the open balcony outside to enjoy the cool, refreshing, soft sea breeze.

As I got out, I just expected to have a little bit of wind blowing, but as soon as I was out, a gust of howling wind struck me. I felt delighted and enjoyed the ride all through. Tioman Island was in sight in around 3 hours. As I glanced at the island, the first thing that caught my attention was the size of Tioman. It was massive!

We handed out our luggage to another boatman who was with us and got ready for the mountain climb that lay in front of us. The climb was 8 kilometres through a jungle that was on a steep mountain. My friends company did not let me realise the severe hitting that my feet were taking during the long climb.

We reached the resort in around 3 to 4 hours. We were told our rooms and roommates and were sent to settle in. The room was extremely messy but I realised that I should come out of my comfort zone. We were instructed to take out all our snacks and put them in a large, deep orange coloured box that was placed near the place where we had our meals. This was so that the snacks didn’t attract any more bugs to our cabin.

Day 2: It’s time to play the games!

I woke up to the enchanting colours in magnificent sky. It was still the beginning of dawn and the spectacular sunrise hadn’t even started! I changed into my swimming shorts and UV top (we had to wear our swimming gear from the time we woke up till the time we were given to have showers, which was right before dinner.), I then headed out for breakfast.

Before mealtime, we were meant to take a pleasant walk to the nearby jetty and back just to energise us up a little. After having a scrumptious meal, we played a game called ‘bird on the perch’. The rules were that we first got a partner. One of us had to be a bird, and the other was the perch. Then both of us had to walk around a lengthy line in opposite directions. Whenever the person conducting the game shouted out “Bird on the perch!” the bird had to get on top the perch in such a way that no part of their body was touching the ground. The last team to do this was disqualified. My partner and me made it to the top 3.

After this electrifying game, we were split into two different groups and sent to our first activity, which was sailing for me. The other group would do something else and after lunch, we would switch activities. We were sent off to our activities, but for sailing we needed to know different safety rules. The method of sailing was explained and we were also taught how to get back into the boat if we capsized. We soon set off into the deep, dark, blue sea. I found this activity exceedingly enjoyable although I did tip over a few times J.

After a heavy lunch, we were given 2 hours of free time after which we swapped over with the other group, and did ‘beach arts’. We had to choose a person that we admire. Then you have to make an art piece, using only natural items that we found near the river. We weren’t allowed to uproot any plants or pluck any leaves.

I made a design around a growing plant using bougainvilleas, palm tree bark and mud brown leaves that had dried up in the heat. Everyone liked it and complimented me a great deal.

Then, after dinner, we played a game or two more and at 10:00, it was lights out.

Day 3: A new learning!

The routine began as the first two days, but today our first activity was going to the turtle hatchery for which we took a speedboat to the hatchery. Once we were there, we saw a few baby turtles and Jo, the blind turtle. The hatchery was a protected area with turtle eggs buried in the sand (like they usually are).

When the turtles are born, they are released into the ocean. If the turtle does not go into the water that means it has some disability.

Jo did not go into the water and that is how they found out that she was blind. We helped clean their living areas, and then we learnt about how we can help them (not using too many plastic bags, etc.) and how we could raise awareness in the community. We walked back to our resort, which was quite a long distance away. On the way across the stretched seashore, we had to pick up as much litter as we could so that the beach looked neat and so that items made out of plastic couldn’t affect the turtles. After lunch, we went to do our one star kayak training in the river. We were told different methods of kayaking and then we had to carry our kayaks into the river and we kayaked around one kilometre.

It was extraordinarily thrilling and I think that was my favourite activity in the whole trip. We also played a game. The rules were:

• We got into teams
• We had to be touching different ends of the river (the width, not the length which is countless miles)
• The referee throws a buoyant yellow ball and both teams have to try and get it
• If the ball hits you, your kayak or your paddle by someone in the opposite team, you are disqualified
• If it misses you and falls into the water, you can fetch it and throw it at your opponents

It was a great load of fun although my muscles were pounding in pain because of the kayaking. We were given some time to swim in the sea before changing and going for dinner. After dinner we started to note down some things so that we could remember what we did in the trip later onwards. Then it was time to sleep.

Day 4: Thoughts in solace!

I opened my eyes as the teacher woke us up by knocking on the door. We were directed to wear clothes appropriate for trekking and headed out into the striking morning. After our walk, and during breakfast, we were told that we were going to trek towards a waterfall that was on a mountain nearby.

The snacks from the ‘Orange Box’ were divided and an equal amount was given to each student to carry. Later at the waterfall, we were going to have a feast where we were going to distribute the snacks.

The hike started, leading us into the jungle. We were soon deep in the forest with rocks in our way and trees all around. Suddenly, we came to a halt. Rob (from the outdoor education department at my school) explained that we were going to do an activity called SOLO. As the name suggests, we were going to spend some time (we are not sure how long as we were meant to be unconscious about time- they even asked us to give them our watches) alone in our own space. The closest person will be more than fifty meters away.

After explaining what to do in the case of emergency, we were spread across the area of 1.35 kilometres (27 people x 50 meters) and we thought our own thoughts. We were also not allowed to talk.

The jungle itself was deadly quiet, as if a tough, enchanted charm had been spread across the rough woodland. But it was also alive with noise because it was so quiet, I could hear twigs snapping, monkeys chattering, leaves flying in the strong wind that was howling in my ears. I saw trees, as I couldn’t see much; my path was totally blocked by grand, tremendous, towering trees. The most interesting thing I saw must have been the tree that was shaped like a dog. It had a hole in the branches for eyes, leaves for ears, and through another hole, I could see the emerald green leaves from the other trees behind it and the hole looked just like the mouth. I felt tired and energetic, both at the same time. Suddenly, my group appeared and I realised that my SOLO time was over.

We resumed the stride and marched over to the waterfall. We sat on some rocks and took out the snacks. After having an admirable feast, we went swimming in the flowing water. The water was freezing but it was still fun. The fall was only around 6 meters high from the ground. There was a place in the waterfall where we could climb up to and glide down, as there was a structure like a water slide. After about 30 minutes of fun in the water, we started strolling back to the other hotel where the other grade 6 class was staying (both of the classes stayed at 2 different hotels. Their hotel was near the turtle sanctuary) and had our lunch there. We returned back to our hotel, dropped our bags, changed into our swimmers and we went jetty jumping. We could jump off right from the top or from a lower area. I wanted to jump from the top one but my legs didn’t act upon my thoughts and so I got 2 jumps at the lower spot. It was still great fun. We then had dinner and then came the moment we were all waiting for…

THE BONFIRE!

The bonfire was only 20 minutes but everyone still enjoyed it, telling jokes and horror stories. We also learned a campfire song that a tribe of Africa sung every night during their campfire. They lived in the desert and they sung it so that if there were someone lost in the desert, they would know that help was near. Every one slept without any effort, as we were extremely tired.

Day 5: Taking the route back home!

That morning, we woke up earlier than usual to go snorkelling. It was exciting and adventurous. We saw schools of minuscule fish, firm coral reefs, vibrant multicoloured fish, and countless other things, which I can’t, record here because there are too many to list. We had a quick breakfast, made ourselves sandwiches for our lunch and packed them in a waxed plastic bag. We headed off to the jetty to take the ferry back to Malaysia’s mainland. The ferry and the following bus ride back to Singapore took over 9 hours. I was incredibly happy to be back home because after all it’s always, Home Sweet Home.

Thank you for reading and do let me know your comments and views on the same.

Aditya K

School Ecole Mondiale

I wriggled into my harness as the instructor told me how to squeeze into the chest harness piece of equipment to make sure that you don’t fall of the ropes. The letter informing us about the course had come about a week ago.

The ropes were a chain of obstacle courses that were around 30 meters off the ground. It was Monday 14th January 2008. I felt bored as I watched my friends who were now high up struggle to stay in control. I smiled to myself, being too sure that I would be much better than them. But as I saw my pals struggle with the course even more, I wondered if I could really do it easily.

My question was answered when it was my turn to go up. I climbed up a rod sort of thing that looked like a telegraph pole. I picked up a pattern on the way my arms and legs should climb once I was halfway up. Left arm! Right arm! Left leg! Right leg! I tried to concentrate and realized that it was extremely complicated after all. After I reached the top, I was praised by Jackie who was part of the staff. I was later tied to a sling and let out in the towering and complex ropes course.

The first obstacle that I had to battle first was tricky. I had to walk on a skinny wire and hold on to two other bony chains for support. After completing the first challenge, I congratulated myself on being successful to complete it. Only after congratulating myself, I looked at the obstacle in front of me. According to everyone who had already finished the course, that was the easiest of all.

The next obstacle was a large, circular beam that was above around 30 meters above the ground. I made my first mistake when I looked down. The height sent a shudder through my spine. Clutching on to my harness and taking a deep breath, I began to try and balance. I forced my eyes not to look down again. I had to be very tolerant with my buddies because they were yelling and screaming encouragements but what they didn’t know was that their cries from down below were just distracting me. While I was thinking all this, I didn’t realize that I had already nearly finished the beam. The bar made me feel like I was walking the plank.

The next obstacle was my favourite. There were two sleek wires: one for my foot and one for my hand. After completing it, I came to the hardest one. I had to walk on a wire that was about as thin as the thickness of a $1 coin. There was nothing I could hold on to all the time, as there were ropes every now and again. I did fall of a few times but got saved by my faithful harness. Finishing that took me around two minutes but it felt like two hours.

I had finished it! I had conquered the ropes course! Coming down was fun as I could jump down from the whole 30 meters but we had a rope attached onto us that a staff person was controlling so it was okay. After completing the whole obstacle course, we got to have our break.

The next was the low ropes in which we got to play a game called “ruthless”. The rules of the games are that you have to wander around when the referee calls a number. You have to get into groups of that number in order to stay in the next round. Whoever does not manage to make it into a group has to go out. After playing a few suspenseful rounds of the game, we hopped onto the ropes. Our objective was to swing like Tarzan from on side to the other. After practising, we played a game called “around the clock”. The rules were that we had to use the rope and swing onto the next mat as there were four mats set out that represented: twelve ‘o’ clock, three ‘o’ clock, six ‘o’ clock and last, but not least, nine ’o’ clock. If you were in the mat representing twelve ‘o’ clock, you would have to jump onto the mat representing three ’o’ clock and so on. We had ten lives to start off with and we lost a life if any of us touched the grass, the rocks or the ground.

The games were very interesting and I enjoyed every minute of it.

I just loved the ropes course. Roped in……….

Thanks

Aditya K

In the starting of term 3, Mrs. Ziemer announced that the exhibition was coming up. The PYP exhibition is the time fifth graders get to show their skills and abilities to others. In other schools, most children my age would have been worrying about exams but we needed to pose the skills they needed for their exam except we also got to have fun. We all got to choose a topic. After that, we looked for other people who had a topic similar to mine. My group was made up of 4 people. Marmik, Doris, Cole and I formed the MAD-C (M for Marmik A for Aditya D for Doris and C for Cole).

My topic was excessive transport. My three questions were: 1: how too many cars could affect the environment 2: how too many cars could affect people 3: what we can do to reduce all the bad affects.  I chose this topic because I was always told that air pollution is bad for my health but I didn’t know how. Similarly, I didn’t know how cars affect the environment. After I knew all these answers, my next step was to find what I can do to help myself and the environment.

In the beginning of the topic, I was trying to make as many things as possible to cover up my board but when I was actually putting things on the board, I found it really difficult to find space. One thing I would keep the same would be that I would keep the brochures, quiz and the game to attract more people. If I did the exhibition again I would print more brochures and put the game in the end of the quiz instead of the middle because people just played the quiz till the game came up and left right after playing the game.  I found out that talking about the same thing over and over again to everybody made me bored. I also got annoyed because people didn’t want to listen to my information. They only wanted to play the game. I got angry because little children came to our stall and didn’t listen to our information. Instead they started asking all the stalls if they have candy or not. Some people were also very rude to us and acted really mean and it was hard not being rude back to them. The fun thing was that all the adult’s questions were very interesting and it was quite enjoyable to talk to them about my topic.

I learnt that some of the actions I was taking were bad and I learnt how they were bad. Now I know how I can reduce my carbon footprint. I learnt what to do to save the environment and also not make a change in my life. A small change can make a big difference.

I never knew that if we turned off the television with the remote, it didn’t really turn off. Now I always remember to turn it off using the main plug. Another thing I learnt was that whenever I turn an electronic item on, it uses up more volts than it would take to leave it on. Earlier I used to turn off the lights when I leave the room but now when I am leaving a room I always think whether I will come back right away. Now that I know that even though a bus is bigger than a car, it releases 170 grams less carbon dioxide than a car. Now I walk more than using transport and my parents walk too. Now that I know that www.blackle.com and www.iDarkle.com (these search engines save over 632,013.367 watts per hour) are better for the environment because the pixels turn off, I changed my phone wallpaper and the computer wallpaper black so the pixels can stay off and use less energy. Now that I know what is good and what is bad, my job is to persuade other people to change the way they do things.

Please help not only the environment but also yourself and your future generations. So go ahead and do your part now.

Thanks

Aditya K

MY TRIP TO TAMEN NEGARA

IMPRESSIONS OF A TRAIN JOURNEY

Toot! Toot! The train was about to leave as we scrambled to our bunks. There were 2 bunks on top of each other on both sides of the train with a pillow and a curtain. There was also a small light. At first we had to stay on our own bunks before we went into Malaysia but later we could go on to each other’s bunks for a game of cards. My friend Cole forgot to bring food so we all had to contribute to his dinner. After eating dinner, we went on to each other’s beds for some time to play. At 8:00pm, the teachers asked us to go to sleep. It is not easy to go to sleep on a bumpy train that keeps rocking all the time. I managed to sleep for about 3 to 3 and half hours. After we woke up at 3:00am, we took a short 10-minute walk to an inn. We had 6 people in our bunk with one single bed and one queen sized bed. That evening was tough!

ON THE RIVER SEEN FROM THE BOAT

“On you go, Rama’s group!” said Mrs.Ziemer, as we climbed onto the boat and got partners. My partner was Ahan. As we sat on the boat we put on our “Neil Pryde” life jackets, which Rama said was our responsibility till we reach Singapore. The boat ride was exactly 2 hours and 34 minutes (I timed it with my own watch!). On our way to Tamen Negara, we saw monkeys on islands, water buffalos and cows eating and bathing in the water and many more exiting things. After a long time of staring out, we finally reached Tamen Negara, the world’s oldest rainforest. The boat ride was really exiting and I think you should go too☺.

THE TREK TO TERESEK HILL

Puff! Pant! “ Not much longer!” shouted our local guide, Max. We tried to start the trek with out bottles full of water, but unfortunately, the water didn’t last us to the top of Teresek hill. We had to hike 1.7 km up the mountain and 1.7 km down the mountain. Long way! On our way up, our guide thought us how to get medicine out of a plant to cure leach bites, what wood to use to start a campfire, a juice called risen that comes out of a special tree that gives a wonderful scent when burnt, which vines to use to drink water (vines contain water; you need to cut it open to get it), many interesting facts about animals and many more fascinating and useful things. We stopped halfway up the hill, at the first view and the second view (the views were exquisite mountains), which was the top of the mountain. The trek was difficult but we made it!

SHOOTING THE RAPIDS

In the activity shooting the rapids, we got on to our boat to go to an island to play some games there. Soon after the boat started the driver at the back who was controlling the motor suddenly went really fast. But I realized that we weren’t the only ones. The other boats were speeding too! Suddenly, when our boat was next to another boat, the guide put an oar into the water and the whole boat next to us got drenched. Soon all the boats started doing this and we were all soaking wet. It was more fun when we reached the current because the water splashed a lot further. After we reached the Island, we played two fun games. The way back was not as interesting because nobody splashed anyone. That was super fun!!

THE CANOPY WALK

For the canopy walk, we hiked for about 30 min, until we reached the canopy walkway. The canopy walk was on a narrow bridge in which we had to stay 5 or 10 meters away from the person in the front. This was because the bridge could hold only a certain amount of people. The bridges started swinging and it was great fun as we tackled 5 bridges. The total distance was around 500 to 800 meters. The bridge was 45 to 50 meters away from the ground. Phew! That’s high! The activity was very interesting and I enjoyed it a lot.

In conclusion I would say that this trip was a super duper hit and the best I have ever been to so far! I just loved it and I think you should go there too.

Aditya Krishnan

Age: 10 years

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Do post in your views and comments below….