The new topic that we’re focusing on is momentum. My facilitator, Sam, had first explained and gave us a general idea what is momentum. Then, she gets in-depth where she gave us the formula and do some examples problems. Moreover, we had also do a simple lab on the first day which is mainly focused on objects colliding and the momentum of each object.
Creative writing is one of my expertise classes for this first term. Each week, we were focusing on different types of writing, such as poems and short stories with different themes and topics. It was quite hard for me at first, however, later on, I’m getting better and better with my write. I got fewer grammar mistakes and get to improve my vocabularies usage. Below is one of my essays that I did about the year of 2563 where I need to include of some the vocabularies such as, space station and distribute.
“Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen! I just have a quick…surprise… announcement and I’m sure y’all will love it!” declaimed the space station director.
Everyone is all looking surprised and giving the director their attention.
“Every single of you have worked so hard for our latest mission to distribute the water supplies to Mars. I am really impressed by your hard work to make this a really big success. So, you all will have a 2 month holiday starting from tomorrow. And…yet, please don’t forget to come back our incredible, impressive, marvelous scientists! Thank you and good luck!” continued Mr. Aldrich with pride toward all of his staff.
Here it begins…….
“It is now 5:59 AM and my journey will begin in a minute,” said Cathy with excitement.
Oops! By the way, I haven’t introduced myself yet. Ummm….so here it goes!
“Hi! I’m Cathy, 27-year-old. I am a scientist who is currently working at NASA space station. As a scientist, I also like going on adventures on my own. Fun fact, I’ve got this one weird habit which is…I really like wearing dark lipsticks. Moreover, I was born with this special power where I could transform into whatever I want but sadly only for 30 minutes,” greetings by our beloved Cathy.
The mysterious wood…..
It’s almost noontime, but this mystery is still as dark as ever. The sound of the wind keeps whispering stronger and stronger in my ears. However, Cathy has no idea what will she get from this mysterious wood adventure because just come without any plan.
“Are you tired now, Major?” asked Cathy to her white horse. Major seem tired but he continues the adventure anyway.
Finally, she comes to a stop for a rest and hearing the beautiful voices of a multitude of birds singing with the trees blowing as its rhythm. With those beautiful voices, it had made Cathy fell asleep for awhile.
As she wakes up, the wood only getting darker and darker. The wood seems to be creepy and creepier, but that didn’t bring Cathy into fear. She carries on her adventure and keeps wishing to see something cool and mysterious.
Eventually, she had come to another stop. Cathy wondered, “Why is this book laying down here?” She continued, “There’s must be someone used to come here and bring this book here.”
Right after she finished talking, she saw a shadow running quickly in front of her.
“Who are you? Can you hear me? Why are you here? Please come.” said Cathy while knuckling her hands with scary looking.
No matter how much she tried to scream, there is no reply so she decided to give up on that. Afterward, Cathy begins to open the book slowly with a mind full of questions. She has no idea what will the book talk about and she has no idea what is happening to her at that moment.
“Whaaaaat!!!??? Wo wo wo…wooow! Is this book just magically open by itself?” said Cathy which shocked and can’t believe what did she just saw. Suddenly, the wood had gone so quiet. There’s no more Cathy voice, there’s no more the voices of the birds and there’s no more sound of the wind blowing.
Here it comes 2563……
“What’s happening? What is this place? Why am I here? Where am I?” said Cathy with confusion. Then, she starts to get up and explore in this new place, which is called, “Future time, The Year of 2563.”
After a long walk, she eventually finds out that she is actually living in the future. Where there are no trees, no more different nationalities, no one she knew and it’s the whole full of technology. Everyone is living in peace, no wars, no racism, no criticism and everyone has equal right. Every single thing in this new world was made out of modern technology like those lipsticks, horses and books buildings.
“I knew no one here, how am I gonna live here? I wanna go back to 2017,” cried Cathy.
Living separately from her family, friends and her favorite is really hard. Day by day, Cathy only thinking about of going back to the past like a crazy person. However, no matter how much she’s trying to think, there’s just no way for her to turn back in time. Instead, she just tries to adapt to the world she is currently living in. Moreover, her lifestyle had changed a lot, where she has to be all fancy.
Cathy blaming herself, “Is there any way that I can go back in time? Hmm…Cathy, you’re so stupid! Why would you open that book?”
“Oh, wait! I think…if I found that book, I could go back to 2017! But…how can I find it?” cried Cathy with depression.
Later on, she begins to walk around the city again. Cathy explores and checks building by building, but she still got no clue where the book could be. Finally, she’s here in front of the diamond building.
“This is the last building of this whole city, Cathy, I know you can find it. It’s here, it’s must be here.” Cathy whispered to herself.
Floor by floor, she couldn’t find it, no matter how hard tried. Cathy said with confidence, “Yes! I finally here on the rooftop. It must be somewhere here.” Again, she begins to look for that book and…surprisingly…she got it.
“Oh my god! It’s here. Yessssss!!! Wooo Whooo! I got it back now!!! I can go back to 2017 now!!!!” screamed Cathy with joyfulness. After getting the book, she immediately opens it up and hoping that it will bring her back to the past.
“1, 2, 3!” whispered Cathy while starting to open her eyes.
“Wait, what is this place? Aren’t I supposed to be in 2017?” wondered Cathy.
“Oh, what? Is it a dinosaur era? Let’s me flip the book again,” shocked Cathy after seeing Supersaurus far across in front of her.
I am back……
The house seems so silent and everything is such a mess without Cathy. However, she is now back to her home and there she is; lying on the bed like a dying person. Everything is back to what it used to be. Cathy is now back at work again as a scientist.
Cathy to her scientist friends, “Hello guys and gals!”
Everyone is looking at her, greeting and they started to share about their holiday.
“So…it’s time for Cathy to share about her holiday. Cathy, what have you done for this 2 months break? Did you get a new car? New dorm? New everything?” said one of the men.
She explained, “If I’ll tell you what had happened to me, you wouldn’t believe me. Wouldn’t you?”
Everyone is begging her to reveal the truth with excitement. They are keep guessing, but unfortunately, no one gets it to the right answer.
Then, Cathy ended a conversation with just a simple answer. “You’ll find that out later.”
The desire to change my country and help its people is hard. However, by joining many incredible opportunities as a volunteer will help that desire to come true. On Saturday 18th, November, a group 10 students (including me) were going to Camkids, Kampong Speu province as volunteers for Khmer Sight Foundation (KSF). KSF is a group of people including many doctors around the world, who are trying to help to protect the Cambodians’ eyes.
Once we arrived, I observed that there are many people who had arrived since the early for the eyes checkup, but the doctors have not arrived yet. So, we just do what we can do such as organizing the seats for the patients, interview them about the problems with their eyes and did what the doctors told us.
When the doctors arrived, we then assigned the number to the patients by asked them for their contact. Afterward, four of my friends and I were training of how to give the eyes test. At the start, I was so struggled of what should I do with the patients, like should I give the eye drop or not and what should I write in the report paper. Moreover, I have to explain the instruction to the patients which was so tired for me but I really enjoyed working with my elders and help to improve their eyes sight. After finishing doing the simple eyes test, the patients need to move to the next room where they talked to the doctors about the problems with their eyes.
Finally, the doctors we discussed to choose the patients who will come to the hospital in Phnom Penh to get surgery. At the hospital, I had also learned how to precisely scan the eye that will need to do the surgery. Additionally, I also learned the different problems with the eyes and how will the surgery help with those issues.
Of course, it has been a tired day for me and my friends. However, I was so glad to be a part of the team and help my elders to have a good eyesight. If there is another opportunity like this, I would love to join again.
Creative technology is my first technology class for this year. For the first few weeks of the class, we were doing many cool stuff with a simple coding such as trying to make the lights work by connecting it to the breadboard and Arduino board. Those were quite challenging for me, however, I manage to make it work by asking classmates and my teacher, Waseem.
The next project is more challenging because we will need to create our own mini robot using the objects that we used for the last weeks of the class such as Arduino board. Since we work on this project in a smaller team, we have so many ideas for the designs. Just like in my team, we had to change our design multiple times until getting a right one that everyone wants.
Below are some of the robot’s parts that will be printed by the 3D printer. *Note these are not all our final design*
Just a few weeks ago, in literacy class, we were preparing for our first reading and language use’s practice SAT. We were doing taking this test on one of the most effective learning website, Khan Academy.
Our tips to on taking this test are to not stress out about the test. Nevertheless, we should start with reading the questions and the given choices first before we do because some of the questions don’t require us to read the whole passage to answer. One of the easier ways is to follow the process of elimination the answer choices. That mean, in each question there will be some obvious answer that is not something that the question wants, so we can eliminate that one out. Most importantly, we should check for the key words in each answer because one word can change the whole meaning of the answer choice.
Another important thing is that we should try to do all the questions even if we are not sure with the answer. After I took the test, I just realized that I left too many questions which will take out a lot of my points. However, if I were to do all of the questions even with guessing, I might have get some more points
This year in math, about half of the senior cohort and I had taken the hardest course we ever took before. The course is AP Statistic, college level in term of math. It is really challenging for me because it does not only require me to know how to do the math but it also requires me to understand the context and using concise words to answer the question. Another challenge is to use the TI 8 calculator to construct the different type of graphs. Since I am a person who does not remember the steps well, so I got messed up a lot during the calculation practices. However, I really glad to be in this class where I got another opportunity to do something that cool, above my grade.
On the 3rd of November 2016, a group of 12 students from our school including me attended the event which is called “Kampot Writers Readers Festival (KWRF).” Six of our friends had a chance to present their Cambodia Wildlife’s book that they were created about two years ago.
It was a great trip! I get to talk to many authors from many different countries. On the day, I get to ride a boat to see fireflies. On the way to see the fireflies, I got to listen to one of the books which talk about Cambodia in near past.
I really enjoy these beautiful moments. I hope I got a chance to go again next year.
As we can see today, there are tons of issues in Cambodia such; a lack of understanding about healthy living, inaccessibility to computer labs and know nothing about the change in their environment, but no one seems to care about those problems. However, in Liger we care about every problem in Cambodia and try to find solutions to solve those problems to make Cambodia a better place. As one of the change agents in Cambodia, I am so glad to be apart of these amazing exploration based-learning projects such as; Preventative Health, Geology of Cambodia and Raspberry Pi which already helped to solve the problems that mentioned earlier.
Apparently, Cambodia today is facing with a big issue about healthy living especially with the people who lived in rural areas or people who lived on islands. One of my favorite explorations this year was Preventative Health which we have a goal of helping the people on the island of Koh Rong to have better lives. For us to be able to solve this big problem, we collaborated with Song Saa Foundation to bring a play to the students there. In this play, we talked about healthy diet, how to avoid from getting diabetes and how to brush the teeth in the correct ways. After the play, we played games that connected to the play with the students so they won’t forget the information that we told them. Moreover, we believed that those students will spread what they have learned from us to their communities with their powerful voices which will change people’s perspective. As we collaborated with Song Saa Foundation, we get an incredible opportunity to snorkel at their private coral reef site, scuba diving and exploring bioluminescent in the middle of the sea at night. This exploration had given me a lot of new opportunities that I never had before in my entire life such as; snorkeling, scuba diving, explored and learned about bioluminescent and visiting the island.
Most of Cambodian would not think of how much their country had changed over times because of the environment that they are living in, has never changed at all. This is a big reason why Liger created this exploration called, Geology of Cambodia which I was also of the members. The goal of this exploration is to travel around Cambodia and learn about the environment in each place, like how does each place form and how can it get there. After we gathered all the information about each place, we started to share those throughout social media such as Facebook group and our own website. Our team not only shared information about each place that we visited but we also shared what have we learned in class time. So far, our team had shared a lot of characteristics of the rocks that we had found in different places such as quartzite, rhyolite and how does those rocks from. For the few week of this exploration, it was quite hard for me because all the information and what I have learned are all new to me, however, I really enjoy it. When we were on trips, I get to see many types of landscapes and I really enjoy to figure out how are those things happened and why does it look the way it is.
Technology is still one of the big problems in Cambodia. Nowadays, Cambodians can access more to technology by having smartphones and a few computer labs nearby their houses. However, as we can see, they mostly use it for social media such as Facebook, Instagram or Youtube. For the government schools that have their own technology classes, they only use it for typing courses not other courses like 3D Design. To solve this issue, our team called Solar Pi has an idea to install a solar-powered computer lab in public school and we will have our curriculum. Our curriculum mainly focus on 3D Design, where we have FreeCAD as our main program for teaching. We think 3D Design is a great idea to bring to the public school because as I mentioned earlier, most of the computer lab is only using for typing classes, not something else. Also, 3D Design can improve the student’s creative skills because it allows the students create whatever they want in 3D views like houses, building or something simpler than that such as desk and chair. We will also include other educational programs such as Enemy, where the students can learn English. Moreover, this exploration will continue until next year of school.
In conclusion, based on what I have done this year of school, I had helped to solve a lot of issues that Cambodia is facing right now. Even though I have been in a lot of explorations that help to change Cambodia but those changes are only a small part of the big change. However, I really enjoy doing those projects to get new experiences, getting to know new people and improve my skills a lot. In addition, I hope I can be on bigger projects in the future and make a bigger change for Cambodia to become a better country.
I was in this incredible exploration called “Preventative Health.” Our goal for this exploration is to help the people in Koh Rong island about health issues. We mainly focus on two problems are dental care and balance diet.
We were dividing into two group which focus on two different things such as dental care and balance diet. The first few weeks of the class we’ve been researching about the dental care and balance diet issues in Cambodia and how can we prevent it. After getting enough important information, we’re making it into a play to show to the people on the island because we think that it’s the best idea to make the remember the information that we’re giving them.
When we went on a trip to Koh Rong, there are a lot of activities that are new to me such as snorkeling, scuba diving, doing the play to the communities on the island about preventative health and learned about the marine life. We took a lot of boat ride to many places on the island to do the play and also snorkeling. Moreover, I really enjoy the boat ride that we took on the last day at night to see the bioluminescent in the middle of the sea. We not only did a lot of snorkeling but also hiking to the waterfall which is such a long where to go.
One of my favorite highlights are snorkeling and scuba diving in Song Saa private coral reef. Moreover, I get to see many living organisms there such as butterfly fish and lots of baby jellyfishes and it was my dream to go snorkeling at the coral reef and this exploration made my dream come true! Especially, I got to present to the people there about preventative health and have a lot of fun playing games with the kids and talking to them about their community. I want to a part of this kind of exploration again! I would like to visit Koh Rong once again!
My first exploration of my 5th year at Liger is Khmer Rouge. For this project, our school want all the Senior Cohort students to learn and know about it. Moreover, for this big project we divided into four part which confusing on before Khmer Rouge, during Khmer Rouge, after Khmer Rouge and what’s happen now in Cambodia. Since I’m in the first group of this project, so I was learning about what’s happen before Khmer Rouge take over. Throughout the exploration, I had learned a lot from many different sources. Furthermore, I had many opportunities to go to many amazing places such as Boeung Cheung Ek killing field, The Extraordinary Chamber of the Court in Cambodia and I had a chance to listen to Swedish man, Gunnar Bergstrom.
The first few week of this exploration, our learning facilitator shared us some of information based on her research about what happen to Cambodia since Angkor Empire era till the start of Khmer Rouge. In addition, we also researched for more information and met a lot of special people who they know a lot about Khmer Rouge or before Khmer Rouge. Those people are Youk Chhang (Director of Documentation Center of Cambodia) and Gunnar Bergstrom (Swedish communist profession who got invited to Cambodia).
The Extraordinary Chamber of the Court in Cambodia (ECCC) the place where they do all the trial about the Khmer Rouge and to find justice for millions people who experienced Khmer Rouge. On 25th August, 2016, five of the girls in our group (included me) had a chance to go in and listen to the trial about the forced marriage during Khmer Rouge time. It was such an amazing experience to there and I learned a lot more things.
At Boeung Cheung Ek killing field, we were touring about the whole campus. We get to interview our tour guide about the history of that killing field.
